NO MORE PRETENSE, JUST COMMON CRIMINALS:

Why is it difficult to believe that the IRA are criminals? (Jenny McCartney, 09/01/2005, Daily Telegraph)

Hugh Orde, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, was gracious enough to confirm officially last week what everyone else had assumed for ages: that the IRA was responsible for the £26 million raid on the Northern Bank shortly before Christmas.

Sinn Fein, none the less, felt obliged to put on its habitual panto of
manufactured outrage and heavily-injured feelings. Howls of "Oh no we
didn't!" filled the air, as Martin McGuinness told Radio 4's Today programme
that it was all a fit-up by the "securocrats", and Gerry Adams said rather
pompously – as though talking about some distant cousins to whom he hadn't
spoken for a decade or so now – "The IRA has said that it wasn't involved. I
believe that to be the case."

In fact, the notion that official forces are desperate to pin the job on a
blinking, innocent IRA is so preposterous that even ordinary republicans –
quietly proud that their boys pulled off the big one – merely regard it as a
necessary bit of face-saving bluster. The truth is the very opposite. The
British and Irish authorities, "securocrats" included, were desperate for
the bank robbers to be anyone but the IRA, even as their sinking hearts told
them that no other group could command the level of organisation required
for the job.

It's worth noting at the outset that the IRA has been reduced to nothing more than a criminal syndicate, but also that Senator Kerry has never met a thug he didn't like:

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 18, 2005 7:13 AM