Airstrip One
by Emmanuel Goldstein
Antiwar.com

April 11, 2000

The Long Island Terrorist:
An apologist for terrorists sits in Congress

THE PAISLEY POSER

I was one of the few people who had heard of the now infamous Bob Jones University before George Bush gave his ill-fated speech where he was too polite to fundamentalists. "Gosh isn’t that the university that made Ian Paisley a Doctor?" Moreover, most English reporting of the Bob Jones non-story would sooner or later mention Dr. Paisley, a hard-line Protestant politician and clergyman, and his honourable doctorate. So eventually, the leader of the IRA’s amen corner on Capitol Hill, Pete King, would pompously demand that Bob Jones University must cut its links with Dr. Paisley.

SO WHO IS THIS PAISLEY GUY?

For those of my non-British readers who are not conversant with the politics of Ireland, the Very Reverend Doctor Ian Paisley would be unknown. For those who do know of him, the reaction would be almost completely hostile. Despite this, I feel that his case is important and it shows the hypocrisy of Pete King and all the other IRA supporters in Washington. Ian Paisley is a deeply religious man. Unlike many Protestants, he takes his Calvin seriously. He believes in predestination, salvation by grace alone and all the doctrines you forgot after doing the term paper on Puritans in the ninth grade. This is strike one against the man as he tries to live by his religious standards rather than turning them off at the church porch. He is also a believer in doctrines that most people, even many "Calvinists" regard as either quaint and out dated, or even abhorrent. I happen to be a believer in grace and works myself, but those who believe in what is now the unfashionable view must be respected and not ridiculed.

HONESTY

The other damning point about Paisley is that he is honest and he takes his job of representing those who voted for him seriously. You know, democracy. He is best known for his unstinting advocacy of the (present) majority within the Protestant community who oppose the Northern Ireland peace process. The fact that the British and Irish governments, the moderate Catholic leadership and (with reservations) the mainstream Unionist leadership all support the surrender to the IRA, does not mean that it is good for the people. To make that obvious point is to be branded a fanatic and a hate monger. Ian Paisley shows his belief in representing his constituents in his treatment of Catholic constituents. He is noted for his fairness here, even to the point of pork barrel electioneering, rather odd for a supposed hate monger. This is not good enough for the merchants of internationalism. It has now got to the point where a Congressman for New York, yes New York, tells a private college in the Carolinas that they can not associate with this honest, if cussed and old fashioned, man. Who does King think he is?

KING – MERCHANT OF DEATH

The real reason why King hates Paisley is Paisley’s principled opposition to paramilitary violence. The peace process is not just supported by the IRA, but by the "loyalist" terror groups as well. In fact they are the only voices in the Protestant community, outside the fatalists in the Unionist leadership, who are calling for cooperation with the IRA. And why not? After all despite the fact that both sides were engaging in acts of ethnically charged terrorism by day, they were engaged in extremely cosy extortion rackets by night, agreed at the highest level by the two side’s leaderships. Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party opposed the entry of Protestant paramilitary groups to negotiations. Despite his anti-Catholic image it was only Ian Paisley and a few brave figures in the Catholic church, joined later by the Unionist leadership, who spoke out against the continued use of "punishment beatings" against Catholic dissidents by the IRA.

THE TERRORIST RECRUITING SERGEANT

The principled opposition to the all paramilitary groups contrasts sharply with Pete King. In a recently published book, the dishonourable member for Long Island glorifies the IRA and the murder of a moderate Catholic politician. Kirkus Reviews derides the flabby novel as "a piece of IRA agitprop," and as the pro-IRA reviewer in the Booklist says, "he understands the people he's writing about." Too right he does, he is one of the people he is writing about. He is the point man for the foreign terrorist group, the IRA.

WELL WORTH EVERY PENNY

The fact that Pete King is retained by an outfit called "Friends of Sinn Fein" should get some alarm bells ringing. The very idea that an American Congressman can be paid by a foreign political party is corrupt enough, but when the political party is nothing more than a mouthpiece for ethnically motivated terrorists, it is nothing short of a scandal. We have heard no end of carping at the money paid by the Chinese state to the Clinton election campaign, although it is unclear just what this money has bought them. However, it is clear with every motion and speech what the IRA is buying every day with Pete King. Members of Sinn Fein are as much members of the IRA as any bomber or drug dealer, its paramount leaders are members of the IRA army council, even his pathetic book made this clear. Pete King is a willing paid agent of the IRA, and in his way, as much, a member of the IRA as is Gerry Adams. Is this the best way of keeping America out of foreign entanglements, having Congressmen who belong to foreign terrorist gangs?

WHAT PETE KING’S GANG ARE LIKE

If you believe that the IRA are just some romantic nationalists who want to carry out the will of the people of Ulster and just get rid of those hated Brits, think again. The Catholic community, which they claim to represent, makes up 40% of Northern Ireland’s population. The other 60% are Protestants, mainly of Scottish descent. Even within the Catholic community, they do not represent the majority. The largest Catholic party being the moderate and nonviolent SDLP (whose leadership Pete King calls to be murdered) with just under a third of Catholics voting for Unionist parties including the nonsectarian Alliance party. The only power they have is the power of the gun. Boy, do they use it. Many of the brightest Unionist and Conservative leaders have been murdered. Whole Protestant congregations have been massacred in their own churches, all for the simple fact that they were born into the wrong ethnic group. Their evil influence stretches in to their own community with punishment beatings of both petty criminals and dissidents, most of who are denied the last rites if they are "executed." Their links to crime, from drug running to extortion are extensive. Their hatred of the church into which they are born has even involved the murder of a Catholic nun.

THE MILITIA SCARE

You remember the militia scare? When most of Middle America was suspect for its non-cosmopolitan views. Well here we have a bona fide supporter of terrorism, and drug running, in the halls of power. It would be like having David Irving in the House of Commons. Isn’t it time a genuine terrorist scare was whipped up? After all, we can prove that King’s terrorists murdered people.

LONG ISLAND, CUT YOUR LINKS WITH KING

Bullying the British government into concessions with Irish terrorists is just as much interference with a sovereign state’s affairs as bullying Serbia into concessions with Albanian terrorists. The fact that this congressman is so active in the foreign policy of Clinton-Gore with his membership of Ben Gilman’s House foreign policy committee and that he involves himself so extensively in human rights is not reassuring. King may not be a large part of the interventionist cancer, but he is a very malignant part. As John McCain said (whose New York campaign King chaired) "the only 'Republican' organisation I have ever noticed Mr. King represent is the Irish Republican Army." Go on Long Island; vote this corrupt terrorist out.

Pete King’s e-mail address is peter.king@mail.house.gov. Ask him why he supports terrorists.

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