Killers on the Cocktail Circuit
Two years ago, Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, came through Dallas on a fundraising tour. He was feted at cocktail parties and featured in interviews on the local news. I suppose nobody thought it polite to mention that on July 21, 1972, a bomb in Belfast killed nine people and wounded several hundred more. The Provisional IRA’s Belfast Brigade claimed credit. The brigade commander was none other than Gerry Adams.
Sinn Fein is the political agency of the IRA. So even if Dallas cocktail party guests didn’t know Gerry Adams’ personal history, they could have suspected that the hand they were shaking had once been dipped in blood. Why then did they shake it? Why did his hosts even invite him here? Why did the television stations give him fawning coverage?
It’s a strange world, and nothing about it is stranger than the way we have accommodated terrorists in our midst. Maybe it’s because they never set off any bombs here. Maybe it’s because we’ve never had to see the carnage they wreak on our nightly news. On a fateful day in September, Americans learned a hard lesson much of the rest of the world already knew.
The thing about terrorists is that they are willing to look agreeable. They are willing to smile for the cameras. They are even willing to shake hands at cocktail parties. And they are certainly willing to cash the checks of credulous Americans.
They are also willing to make promises. Adams was invited twice for discussions at the White House because the IRA promised to give up its arms. Of course, it didn’t. And of course, it won’t. Instead, the IRA terrorists used the negotiations as an opportunity to extend their reach. In August, three IRA members were arrested in Columbia, where they had been advising the Columbian guerrillas. It turns out they have been secretly training guerrillas in Columbia for years, probably in exchange for drug money. While Gerry Adams was sipping sherry at the Clinton White House and shaking hands in Dallas, the IRA has been exporting terrorism for profit. The investment dollars required to make this possible—every business needs investment—may have come from cocktail parties in Dallas.
I can understand how faithful Muslims must feel about Islamic terrorists. As a Roman Catholic, I feel the same way about the IRA and Sinn Fein. For years we’ve heard about Catholic vs. Protestant in Northern Ireland. The IRA would like us to keep thinking that way, to keep the money flowing from dim-witted American Catholics.
But Gerry Adams is no Catholic. Neither are the psychopaths and street thugs who make up the IRA. Their creed is power, and their weapon is death. The bombs they set off are atheist bombs, because there is no such thing as a Catholic or a Protestant bomb. Yet Muslims must wonder what kind of awful religion Christianity is that it causes so many people to want to kill and maim each other.
Mass murderers are not a unique feature of Islam. And the money for mass murder can come from anywhere, even cocktail parties in Dallas.
