February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
His point — that the acceptability of violence depends entirely upon who is lobbing the bomb — has great currency these days. After all, you might be forgiven for assuming that an administration gleefully pursuing war in Iraq — having not yet finished one in Afghanistan, mind you — might be too abashed to scold others on the wrongs of political violence. Yet not a blush has been seen on Richard Haass, America’s envoy to Northern Ireland, who is agitated at the IRA’s antics, particularly with FARC guerillas in Colombia.
The Bush administration declares Irish republicans can’t be respectable democrats while training Central American rebels in the finer points of killing people. Fair point. I’m sure that when Mr. Haass raised this matter with Gerry Adams, Adams mentioned the Reagan-funded death squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador, don’t you think? Mr. Haass also criticized republicans for continuing to “make preparations for violence.” This is something of a cheek since his own duties involve persuading despotic Arab regimes to support a war against Iraq or at least remain mute when it happens. Haass’s support for a cease-fire monitor to adjudicate in the North is no less audacious since the U.S. blithely ignores outside opposition to its own activities.
That there is a striking dichotomy in how the U.S. government treats paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland versus its own impending unilateral military actions is unsurprising. Yet it goes beyond forelock-tugging for Irish leaders to meekly nod assent as President Bush or his emissary wags a disapproving finger about violence while readying their own missiles for action. For the White House to demand republicans account for their actions — in Belfast or Colombia — is, to say the least, astonishing in its arrogance. As Eamonn McCann amusingly suggests, Sinn Fein’s response ought to be an unequivocal “Farc off!”
Instead, Sinn Fein leaders accept the brazen pieties of this administration with not a hint of backchat. They do not want for company. As the president rattles his saber at Saddam, many of those who firmly opposed IRA and British state violence in Northern Ireland seem ill-disposed to do anything but polish his blade.
Take Rep. Ben Gilman, a principled opponent of Irish violence but a hearty supporter of Bush’s war plans. “It is imperative that the world, in a united front, takes this threat seriously and takes preventive action