excellent news

[piranha]

The IRA has formally ordered an end to its armed campaign and says it will pursue exclusively peaceful means.

i'm sure there will be people who don't know how to stop, so it's not like we've seen the final act of violence. but i think this is significant, and i am hopeful.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

It is a good step. Let's hope it persists.

[mayaknife.livejournal.com]

The "Real IRA", as they call themselves, will likely continue their campaign and will doubtless pick up a few disgruntled warriors from the Provisional IRA. But Real IRA is a fairly ineffective splinter group, and if the political process can now gain some momentum, they should soon be marginalized even further.

In the past decomissioning has been considered by many IRA members to be an unacceptable acknowledgement of defeat, and indeed was one of the factors which led to the Real IRA splitting off. This announcement might help to assuage some of those feelings by allowing the leadership to present it as a considered choice, rather than defeat.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the vast range of criminal activities in which the IRA has been engaged. Hard to believe that they're going to walk away from all that money. Then again, perhaps that's the real reason why the Real IRA split off: so that they wouldn't have to give up their income from extortion, robbery, drugs, and so forth.