Sometimes, people act so stupidly that one has to marvel that they remember to breathe. In the case of the IRA and Sinn Féin, that has almost reached the level of parody.

The IRA managed to get itself involved in what started off as a simple bar fight, which of course is stupid enough for a supposedly experienced underground paramilitary force. During this bar fight, at least three and maybe more of these geniuses decide to stab one of the combatants and wind up killing the man who tried to stop the fight. Because the men involved were well-known in their Northern Ireland community, the family of the victim, Robert McCartney, has called for the IRA to cough up the men involved in this senseless, brutal, and needlessly provocative murder. The IRA refuses, of course, as it's not really an experienced underground paramilitary force but a terrorist group run more akin to a crime family.

(Don't send me e-mails arguing about Irish politics and history; I have my fill of both. I know there are terrorists on both sides, and that doesn't excuse any of them.)

After an enormous public outcry over the murder, the geniuses leading the IRA decide to meet with the family to try to work things out short of turning over their members to the Ulster police. During this meeting, they make the McCartneys an offer that they feel sure will make them happy: the IRA will simply murder the men who took part in the brawl. Aghast yet again, the McCartneys relate this message to the media, which produces yet even more outrage over the mob-style "justice" that the IRA imposes not just in this case but usually does as a rule anyway when their terrorists get out of line.

One would expect that the IRA's political wing, Sinn Féin, would take this fabulous opportunity to have what we Americans call a Sister Souljah moment, denouncing the IRA's heavy-handed tactics in order to rebuild its credibility after the McCartney murder and the £22 million robbery in January that the IRA engineered. However, never one to pass up an opportunity for self-destruction, SF managed to make matters even worse this morning by defending the idea of atoning for murder with even more murder:

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness has refused to condemn the IRA's offer last night to the family of a murdered Belfast man to shoot the culprits. The party's chief negotiator admitted the Provos would have made an error if they had carried out the shootings over the murder of Robert McCartney. But he would not go so far as to condemn the IRA's proposal. ...

He added: "I totally and absolutely disagree with any punishment shootings whatsoever.

"But I think we shouldn't lose sight of the other messages that are clearly in this because I think it dispels absolutely any notion whatsoever that the IRA would cover up for or protect the perpetrators of the murder of Robert McCartney."

So Sinn Féin wants to go on record supporting the notion of judgement without trial and execution on demand? These tactics have been used by terrorists on both sides of the NI impasse for decades (and centuries before that), but Sinn Féin wants to sell itself as a purely political group committed to the rule of law. The fact that the IRA refuses to turn over the killers to the police is prima facie evidence that they want to cover up for McCartney's murderers, at least some of them. SF wants people to believe that a crude execution of murderers at the hands of other murderers and thieves represents justice, when it all it does is perpetuate the criminal-syndicate environment which allowed the IRA thugs to feel that they could stab McCartney to death with impunity in the first place.

The fact that Sinn Féin cannot grasp the ramifications of its excusemaking almost guarantees its future marginalization on both sides of the Ulster border, as disgust and revulsion continue to escalate from both the murder and the robbery and SF's ongoing rationalizations. It provides an object lesson why civilized people should pass on negotiating with terrorists for peace. Not only does it rarely if ever work, but quite frankly, most of them are too stupid to trust.

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» WHEN IRISH EYES ARE CRYING from Right Wing Nut House
Pat over at Brainsters Blog has been doing yeoman work on an issue that's hovered below the radar of the MSM in this country; the murder of Robert McCartney, an Irish Catholic, by the IRA . The murder has caused a lot of problems for the terrorist ... [Read More]

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» McCartney family wakes up the Yanks? from Richard Delevan's sicNotes
The blogosphere awakens to the issue in grand style after the IRA's self-inflicted punishment beating. As one lonely Yank voice of sanity in Ireland, we say welcome to the fight. [Read More]

Tracked on March 14, 2005 11:50 AM

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If this Associated Press story is remotely accurate, this could be a very good first step indeed: International weapons inspectors have supervised the full disarmament of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, a long-sought goal of Northern Ireland's peac... [Read More]

Tracked on September 25, 2005 6:09 PM