I was just listening to NPR, and I heard an interesting story about Ireland, the IRA, and the American response.
It seems that at the end of January, Robert McCartney was killed in a pub in Belfast in a brawl. Various IRA members have been implicated in the crime, as well as making sure that the witnesses there didn’t talk to the police. “Ok,” you may think, “some drunken IRA boys got a little worked up, and this has nothing to do with the organization itself.” You’d be wrong. The IRA has offered to shoot those responsible for his murder. His family rejected the offer (and good for them!) but the whole business has kicked off massive self-doubt in the IRA and the militarily (as well as the better known politically) linked Sinn Fein. In an expansion of Bush’s criticism of troubled governments worldwide, Sinn Fein is no longer invited to the White House this St. Patrick’s day — and in a gauntlet-slap move, the sisters of the slain man have been invited instead. Bush is making clear his opposition to the violence in Northern Ireland — a loud echo of his policies against other terrorist groups elsewhere.