Call For A Major Blogswarm to Find the Killers
The boy is Declan McCartney, nephew of the man shown in the background poster. Robert McCartney was savagely beaten and then stabbed to death in and around a Belfast pub by three members of the Irish Republican Army, apparently in a brawl unrelated to IRA activity. After the murder the IRA reportedly swept the crime scene for evidence and warned witnesses not to testify as to what they had seen. The effectiveness of this warning is undeniable; according to this
Wikipedia entry on the murder, so many people claim to have been in the pub's bathroom when the fight broke out that it is being referred to as the
TARDIS.
This might have been the end of the story, except for McCartney's brave sisters.
They have been unrelenting in their demands that the IRA turn over the killers. In another era that might have gotten them killed themselves, but the IRA happens to be under fire right now for their
reported involvement in a $50 million bank heist in Belfast in December and clearly needs no more bad press.
Although the IRA
expelled three members (including two senior members) over the murders they have not identified the killers and the police suspect that the thugs have been moved out of Northern Ireland.
Gerry Adams is the leader of Sinn Fein, which for years has maintained a fiction of being just the political wing of the IRA. But the Republic of Ireland (i.e. the rest of Ireland, other than Northern Ireland) has
recently announced that Adams is also one of the seven members of the IRA's ruling council. In other words, Adams is a leader (probably the main leader) of a major international criminal and terrorist gang.
Adams is currently planning to arrive in the United States on March 12 for a traditional swing down the East Coast. In recent years, due to an apparent cease-fire by the IRA, the highlight of this trip has been a St. Patrick's Day party at the White House. This year, the Bush Administration has already made it clear that
Mr Adams is unwelcome, over the issue of the bank robbery.
Adams has also been forced to
cancel fund-raising this time in the US, for fear that the feds would confiscate any money collected. He's still planning on making speeches and meeting with politicians.
Here's my thought. We should all put pressure on the Bush Administration to deny Adams entry to the country at least until the murderers of Robert McCartney are brought to justice. And since Gerry Adams was involved in the expulsion of the three members (two of whom are described as senior IRA), he clearly knows who killed Robert McCartney.
And here's the fallback.
Robert McCartney's sisters are coming to the US as well unless the murderers are turned in. This is a great human interest story made for talk radio and the blogs. But we gotta start talking it up now so that it has buzz in another two weeks.
I am sending this post out to every big blog I can find. Please consider making a post about McCartney's murder, and the necessity that pressure be brought to bear on Gerry Adams by either denying him entry to the country or ensuring that his message gets drowned out by the McCartney sisters. This is not an issue of right or left, Republican or Democrat; I'd hope we can all agree that the killing in Ireland has to stop, and the particular thugs involved in this murder should be brought to justice.
Important note: There was a story Tuesday that one man had turned himself in. The man
has already been released, so it appears to be a false resolution.
