HILLSBOROUGH, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Britain seized back the reins of government in Northern Ireland on Monday amid a crisis in the peace process provoked by a spying scandal, but vowed to try and restore home rule early next year. *
Interesting turn of events. i have never trusted IRA and Sinn Fein, especially that Gerry Addams character. How is this being portrayed in Brit media. What is the mood on the street?
How big is this spy scandal. Big enough to take this step? I am assuming the spying was at the level of national security and information was being sought which would stregthen the arms of IRA and its other militant factions for future actions.
The spy scandal is big in Northern Ireland obviously, and it has shocked the British government enough to suspend the NI assembly. While there are two sides to the Northern Ireland conflict i.e. Catholic pro-Irish v Protestant pro-British, and both have legitminate concerns, there can be no excuse to carry on terroristic planning and surveillance as the Sinn Fein-IRA are clearly doing.
They (Sinn Fein) signed the Good Friday agreement in 1998 to put an end to this conflict, and move to resolve their disputes through elected and diplomatic means. The end result of the conflict is that armed groups have to disarm and disband - both Catholic and Protestant. But the IRA has refused to do that, and continues to plan for an eventuality to return to terrorism? You cannot have them continuing what they used to call the "ballot box and armalite" approach, and start your terrorist campaign again if you don't get what you want from talking. Even after 1998 the IRA has maintained its strong loinks with fundraisers like NORAID in the states, and terrorist groups like FAARC and ETA.
The British government is trying to maintain a balance by keeping Sinn Fein involved in the peace process, hnce they suspended the NI Assembly as a stop gap. But they can only maintain such a position for so long...
Well IRA has its own factions which never agreed to the whole peace deal anyways, these factions are splinter groups as well as internal factions within the main party. It was interesting to hear the church sanctioning of some IRA attacks etc.
I dont know what the solution is in that area. Maybe we need to start rounding up IRA funding sources, many of which have traditionally been in the US.
Yes, the US authorities could shut down NORAID, the leading Irish-American group, that openly supported the IRA during its 30 year terrorist campaign, and funnelled millions to it. After 9/11 there were many calls to crack down on NORAID, but not much action has been taken by the US authorities.
NORAID calls itself a “charity” even though it has long been known that it is nothing but a front to fund the IRA terrorists. Since 9/11 other charities have been shut down because of actual or supposed links to terrorist groups, but not NORAID.
Apparently, the only global aspect to the IRA, etc, is it's funding, not consequences. The loyalist paramilitaries still exist, both need neutralized. Criminals are criminals are criminals.
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*Originally posted by TOMASSO: *
Apparently, the only global aspect to the IRA, etc, is it's funding, not consequences. The loyalist paramilitaries still exist, both need neutralized. Criminals are criminals are criminals.
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Only partly correct, the IRA have connections with the FAARC terrorists in Colombia, and ETA in the Spain's Basque country. If you take the millions of dollars they still get from Irish-American groups like NORAID, then it truly is an internationally-funded terrorist group(s), with connections with other international terrorists. The IRA have also carried out terrorist operations against British targets abroad in Germany, Gibraltar and Ireland. Of course the Protestanat Loyalist terrorists groups should need neutralising, along with the IRA. They are not just criminals, they are mass murdering terrorists that have killed over 3000 people in the last 30 years.
But when other charities have been shut down in the US because of alleged links to terrorists, why has NORAID not been shut down?