Posted on 08/01/2005 5:08:13 AM PDT by OESY
The Irish Republican Army announced last week an end to its 35-year terrorist campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland. If the group can be believed, a conflict that took 3,600 lives, over half of them killed by the IRA, is over....
Why the IRA's apparent change of heart? According to a communique issued last week, the IRA believes "there is now an alternative way" to achieve its goal of a united Ireland, which is "to assist the development of purely political and democratic programs through exclusively peaceful means." This rings hollow. The IRA is already politically well-represented through Sinn Fein and its leader Gerry Adams, who last week participated in an IRA "military council."...
A likelier explanation is the change in the political climate. Last December, the IRA carried out the largest-ever bank heist in British history. In January, IRA thugs murdered Robert McCartney, a 33-year-old Northern Irish Catholic and father of two, in a Belfast pub. Both acts fueled popular revulsion among the Catholic community that had once served as the IRA's base of support.
Two months later, President Bush decided not to invite Mr. Adams to the traditional White House St. Patrick's Day party -- where he had been a regular guest since the mid-1990s. Mr. Adams was also snubbed by his erstwhile best American friends, Senator Ted Kennedy and Representative Peter King, much to their credit. Under pressure and seeing his popularity ratings tumble both in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, Mr. Adams urged the IRA last April to give up terrorism. The strong response by the British public to the recent bombings in London must surely have also figured in the IRA's calculus.
Now the question is whether the IRA intends to keep its word. There is room for doubt....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The IRA praised the 9/11 attacks onit's web site, in Gaelic. They are murderers and the enemies of civilization.
Great; now whenever something blows up in the Empire, the IRA will blame El Quida for it, while El Quida blames the IRA.
Either that, or they will be fighting over who gets the "credit"!
Let's just hope that they don't form an alliance, eh?
(Assuming that they already haven't) {8^(
Read my tagline.
Another IRA related link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1454620/posts
It'll take months to verify, yet the British government is stumbling over itself to dismantle army installations as soon as possible. You'd think they would have learned their lessons the previous times the Provos made some promise.
Atlantic Blog: Sinn Fein hates America
Sinn Fein/IRA whip up anti American sentiment
Well, I would say that unless the IRA wants to go down in a blaze of glory, they'd better dismantle. After all, we and some of our finest allies are at war on Terrorism. I do believe that the IRA has been classified as a terrorist org. No?
I like mine better... :>)
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