Sorry You're Still Sore

Another entry for the completely insincere fake apology that makes nothing better at all award:

ABCNEWS.com : IRA Apologizes for Unmarked Grave Sites: "The Irish Republican Army apologized Friday for burying nine victims in secret graves long ago, but relatives of the dead rejected the IRA's words as cynical and overdue. "

Why they apologized for not revealing the grave locations, but don't feel obliged to apologize for the murders, is very strange.

But stranger still, I think NPR should apologize to all of us.

I heard an abominable book interview with Gerry Adams on NPR's The Connection this morning. You'd think Sinn Fein and the IRA had committed no terrorist acts the way they babied him. And to hear Adams talk, you'd think he was closer to Martin Luther King than Osama bin Laden.

It's outrageous the IRA isn't treated like the terrorist organization it is, and this re-writing of history with the aid of NPR is unforgiveable. I don't take "sides" on the Northern Ireland question: without a doubt, the British and Unionists committed atrocities and human rights violations aplenty, and without a doubt both Unionist groups and the IRA were terrorists. Those that are still armed are still terrorists, since they're using the threat of arms to get their way. The peace accords are good. Re-writing history is bad.

You have two religious groups fighting one another with a foreign occupier taking one side and acting as a proxy for what is essentially an internal civil war over the nature of the society, one that need not have happened. Iraq? Ireland? Sunni and Shiite, Catholic and Protestant?

So much of that conflict was enabled by financial and technical contributions from Americans, yet as with the Iran-Contra debacle, or for that matter our original arming of Sadaam, nothing is ever said about the culpability of the U.S. in directly or indirectly allowing terrorists to operate. Until we come clean on these fronts, I doubt the rest of the world, most particularly the Arab world, will take our 'war' seriously.

But the bottom line is NPR gave Adams a free ride on the very, very relevant question of when terrorist acts are justified and when and how acts to suppress terrorism is justified. A shonda on you, NPR.