The Right, Terror And The Moral High Ground

The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning says that the IRA has completely decommissioned its weapons. Every single member of the Commission, having seen the process with their own eyes, vouches for the statement. So do two churchmen who witnessed the process.

But Ian Paisley doesn't. The provincial petty-Napoleon says:

The more the search-light is put on this, the more we discover there is a cover-up,"

There are all kinds of accusations - that the independent chuchmen who witnessed the decommisioning were IRA plants, that the lists of IRA weapons were tampered with, that weapons were given to "sister organisations" instead of being destroyed. And yet, the list of weaponry actually seen destroyed by General de Chastelain is impressive and accords exactly with Jane's estimates based on UK intelligence papers.

And at this point it is pretty obvious that if Paisley had destroyed every single weapon with his own hands, he still wouldn't be satisfied. However, if he and his party are not satisfied then the peace process in Northern Ireland is at least partially hamstrung. Which of course is what Mr Paisley wants - he and his backers, the Orange Order and the various Loyalist terror groups who are still perpetrating violence and attacks on the police as well as feuding amongst themselves. As long as Northern Ireland is polarised, Paisley has power far beyond his own small, rabidly bigoted, pond. Should peace take a firm hold, he and his extreme-roght sectarianist ilk will be consigned to the trash can of history and good riddance.

So its apt at this point to ask - when will the DUP ask the terrorists it shelters to give up their weapons? Well -

Sammy Duddy, a member of the Ulster Political Research Group - which advises the UDA, said loyalists would not follow the IRA's lead.

"The general has no chance of seeing that achieved. Should he live to be 208, he'll never see it," he said.

"He's living in cloud-cuckoo-land if he thinks the loyalists are going to decommission and do what the IRA's doing.

Which brings up two questions, among many, that I would particularly like answered.

Why is Mr. Paisley continually allowed to believe he has the moral high ground by not being utterly sidelined by the UK and Irish governments?

and

Why does the American Right support these people in the midst of a "War on Terror"?

You tell me.