Posted on 02/05/2005 4:51:08 PM PST by 1066AD
Comment: Rod Liddle: Al-Qaeda is more honest than Gerry Adams
It’s good to have the old murderous Provos back in the headlines, isn’t it? Al-Qaeda may, of late, have rather stolen their thunder but the crisis in the peace talks shows that there’s plenty of life left in the old dogs of the IRA.
Of course, if you live in Belfast, and especially if you live in the nationalist areas of Belfast, they haven’t really been out of the headlines at all. You could be forgiven for wondering what on earth was all this fuss about the Islamo-fascist terrorist menace.
On the mainland we are constantly warned about sarin canisters on the Underground, dirty bombs at Liverpool Street Station, bearded fundamentalist maniacs with Semtex strapped to their waistlines ready to cause mayhem in the West End.
The government has concluded that the threat is so serious that our home secretary can bung whomsoever he wants in jail without due process. We didn’t even do that sort of thing when the Provos were busy demolishing Docklands.
In fact, not a single person has died or been injured on British soil as a result of a terrorist bomb detonated by Al-Qaeda or its like-minded associates. Whereas in the year that followed the Good Friday agreement, the IRA carried out 36 shootings and 103 punishment beatings. That is what the IRA is capable of during a ceasefire. IRA ceasefires are, de facto, rather more brutal than an Al-Qaeda all-out war.
Of course the IRA perpetrated these brutalities against members of its own community, so here on the mainland we have not worried over much. Perhaps the boys were just keeping their hand in, so to speak, during the terrible longueurs of the peace process. This past year they have been honing their skills at armed robbery, too: £1m stolen last May from the Makro cash-and-carry store and then, surpassing themselves, £26m in a vicious raid on the Northern Bank in Belfast. That should keep them in Armalites for a few months.
Not everybody, though, believes that the IRA was culpable of this last heist. As Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams put it: “The IRA has said it wasn’t involved. I believe that to be the case.” Perhaps we should trust Gerry on this. He is after all — according to The Guardian — an “international statesman”. He wouldn’t lie, would he? At least one pro-republican commentator writing in a British newspaper (yes, that’s right, The Guardian) has suggested that almost anybody except the IRA was responsible for this complex and well-planned robbery. Who stood most to gain from the raid, asked the writer Niall Stanage, before concluding with the names of Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, and Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist party.
Maybe Bertie and the good reverend donned the ski masks themselves. “I’ll blow the safe, Ian, while you harangue the counter staff about the perfidies of the Whore of Rome.”
However, Mr Adams and Mr Stanage’s protestations notwithstanding, it seems likely that the neutral, non-partisan Independent Monitoring Commission will conclude that it was indeed the IRA who bagged the £26m and thus recommend that Sinn Fein be suspended for at least six months from possible participation in the Stormont assembly. It is the least one might expect the commission to recommend, don’t you think? In the past 10 years, a substantial portion of which resided under a “ceasefire”, it has been estimated (by the independent leftish charity British Irish Rights Watch) that the IRA has murdered 41 people. Not much of a ceasefire for the victims, was it? And that’s on top of the knee-cappings and the robberies. Of course, after every criminal act a disavowal of blame was immediately issued by Mr Adams, the international statesman.
Back in 1994, when the IRA broke an earlier ceasefire with another robbery that resulted in the murder of Frank Kerr, a postman, Gerry was swift to deny that the IRA had any involvement.
I wonder if Mr Adams believes these denials or is merely engaging in sophistry. Members of the IRA are required to swear an oath confirming that the IRA is the legitimate government of Ireland and that, therefore, its actions cannot possibly be deemed illegal.
Mr Adams gets very angry when it is suggested that he is, or even was, a member of the IRA. This is despite the fact that he wrote a column in a pro-IRA newspaper in the 1980s where he admitted his IRA membership and thus the regrettable but necessary use of “physical force” (a fact established by Peter Taylor, the journalist).
It also runs counter to the testimony of several former IRA members. And to the fact that British intelligence reports have identified Mr Adams, Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris as still being members of the Provisional IRA army council.
In which case Mr Adams is not merely an international statesman but a member of the IRA and bears responsibility for the decision to raid the Northern Bank — the robbery that has served to derail the peace process. (Assuming that the heist was not carried out by Bertie and Ian.) At least you know where you are with Al-Qaeda. A peace process with fundamentalist fanatics would be an unequivocal affair: we would not need to argue about the alleged non-violent credentials of its leaders, for a start.
Like the IRA, Al-Qaeda is well aware that contrary to the wearying pronouncements of well-meaning democratic politicians, terrorism can win and, more often than not, does win. These pronouncements are made and, within weeks, negotiations with the terrorists begin.
But there the similarities cease. Al-Qaeda operatives are happy to sacrifice their own lives in the cause of murdering infidels: the IRA does this only unwillingly and through the occasional ineptitude of its volunteers.
But the main difference between these twin threats to our peaceful existence is in IRA/ Sinn Fein’s disingenuousness, the century of lies. The peace process would be easier to pursue and we would be more inclined to forgive the decades of murder, the IRA/Nazi alliance in the second world war, the bombs and the shootings and the beatings and the robberies, if they would simply come clean.
We know we have to negotiate, much as it may stick in the craw to do so. We know that a peace process or Stormont without IRA/Sinn Fein is a singularly pointless exercise. It grieves us to admit this but it is true.
We know, too, that Ulster is a historical anomaly and that we share some of the blame for the bloodshed, for the earlier unjust treatment of Catholic Ulstermen and for human rights abuses. We are even aware that there has been movement — too little movement, undoubtedly — from Sinn Fein towards a semblance of civilised behaviour.
Now, all we need is a bit of honesty and less of the flouncing off, stage left. As an international statesman, Gerry, do you think you can manage that?
Yeah, al Qaeda was the picture of veracity recently trying to pretend that a plastic action figure was a kidnapped Marine.
LOLOL.....the swimmer must be having a conniption fit at this article.
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