Word: iras
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Fame has a peculiar way of reducing an individual to a couple of arbitrary acts. Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian and World War II Marine, was given his slot in the historical record for two things: he helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima and died an alcoholic - both of which were widely chronicled in the media and in a song by Johnny Cash. This past fall, the complete story of Hayes's life was laid bare in Clint Eastwood's epic film Flags of Our Fathers, coming out on DVD. Cast as Hayes was Adam Beach, whose stirring portrayal...
...more hardline Protestants in Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party feel a bit like the prodigal son's brother in the Bible - they think Sinn Fein is being praised for something it should have done all along. They're also wary because an apparent promise to get rid of the IRA's guns ended up taking years to fulfill...
...McGuinness' transformation from armed radical to potential statesman mirrors the journey his fellow Irish republicans have been on since the IRA declared a cease-fire in 1994. Under the strategic direction of Adams, republicans have turned the IRA, one of the world's toughest terrorist organizations, into a viable political force...
...They say their objective is still a united Ireland, but instead of storming British bastions, they're being voted into them. On the way Sinn Fein, once the junior partner to the IRA, became the dominant arm. They've overtaken rivals to become the major Catholic party in Northern Ireland, and they may soon be influential enough in the Irish Republic to earn a minority position in government there...
...Sinn Fein has moved away from its hard-core principles without causing a major internal rift. Twenty years ago they started taking up most of the posts they were elected to, reversing a refusal to recognize elected bodies on either side of the Irish border. In September 2005 the IRA got rid of its weapons, implicitly acknowledging that politics was the only way forward. And now, after a substantial program of police reform that dropped a lot of the force's British associations, brought in tougher human rights standards and encouraged more Catholics to join up, they are prepared...