Belfast Telegraph: World must wake up to reality of Sinn Fein/IRA

What times we live in. Lebanese people taking to the streets to demand the ouster of Syria. People in the Middle East voting. Revolutions for democracy all over the place. And more and more people in Northern Ireland (not to mention the rest of the world) speaking up against both Sinn Fein and the IRA. The above-linked commentary is one example.

Here are some related links, just to get you started (the web is crawling with related stories): http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-03-10T155654Z_01_DEN057182_RTRUKOC_0_IRISH.xml
and: Bush-Blair ultimatum to Sinn Fein (theaustralian.news.com.au)

Quite frankly the IRA didn't help itself by issuing a statement that it had approached the family of a murdered man and offered to shoot the men responsible. One should note that people who have dealt with this group aren't sure if they meant they would kill the men, or merely (merely?) shoot them in the kneecap. The group has a reputation for demolishing kneecaps, after all. What the IRA clearly wanted people to focus on was how nicely and sincerely they vowed that they really and truly weren't intimidating the witnesses to the killing. But the darned public can't seem to get past that 'rough justice' offer... And that same darned public seems to harbor doubts that the witnesses aren't being intimidated... What in the world is a terrorist organization to do these days?

The IRA seems baffled about the dead man's family preferring a trial in the matter. In some circles this is called 'showing your true colors', is it not?