Balanced, Sensible Article on Northern IrelandWritten by
Peter King, who has carried the IRA's water in Congress for years. He gives a history lesson in about five paragraphs, building to his main point:
When I first went to Belfast 25 years ago, it was a dark, gray besieged city. Some Catholic areas had unemployment exceeding 80 percent. Today, Belfast has luxury hotels, fine restaurants, a hockey arena and a growing economy. Significant police reforms have been implemented. The majority of college students are Catholics who are well-prepared for Ireland's Information Age economy.
The British, Irish and American governments are pledged to guarantee this progress. All that remained was for the IRA to decommission its weapons. Last fall, it appeared that progress was being made and by December a final agreement was tantalizingly close.
Then, out of left field, the IRA pulled off a $50 million bank robbery — followed by the brutal murder of an innocent Catholic by IRA men in a Belfast barroom brawl.
This has caused me and other concerned Irish-Americans to conclude that the IRA must disband without delay. So much has been achieved in Northern Ireland and there is no place for a private army in a burgeoning democratic society.
No one has done more to advance the peace process or has acted more courageously than Gerry Adams. But, now, all that has been attained is being put at risk by an unreconstructed minority who can't put down the gun and replace the bullet with the ballot.He lets Adams off the hook a little too easily there, but I think it's a tactical move, to let him save some face.
Hat Tip:
Kitty
