A Former Terrorist at the Capitol?

Peter T. King won his 15 minutes of fame this week. The U.S. Representative from Long Island, a solidly conservative district, and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has called a number of Muslim Americans before his investigative committee, in order to demonstrate the “radicalization” of Islam in the United States.

But sometimes history remembers to bite us in the behind, to paraphrase the American expression. The honorable representative, with a permanently styled hairdo that makes him look like the the ex-don of the Gambino family, John Gotti, has himself been an ardent supporter of a terrorist group.

In fact, Peter T. King was one of the principal U.S. supporters of the I.R.A., the Irish Republican Army, which fought against England in Northern Ireland. “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry,” he asserted during a demonstration in support of the terrorist organization in 1982, while he was holding public office. Three years later, Peter King declared: “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.”

During the ’80s, while the I.R.A. was conducting a very violent campaign against British soldiers, but also against civilian targets, the future representative’s support attracted the attention of the Irish authorities and American law enforcement. In 1984, King complained that the U.S. Secret Service, charged with protecting presidents, had investigated him. Our future opponent of terrorism had even been expelled from a courtroom where a member of the I.R.A. was being tried for murder. The judge considered him to be an “obvious collaborator” of the terrorist organization.

Even if Peter King, the son of Irish immigrants, was later a link between the I.R.A. and the peace negotiators in Northern Ireland, his ideas and support provide arguments for those adversaries who are alarmed by some of the declarations made by the Representative, according to whom 85 percent of those in charge of American mosques have extremist views. “I understand why people who are misinformed might see a parallel between the I.R.A. and al Qaeda,” commented Peter King. “But the I.R.A. never attacked the United States and my loyalty is to the United States.”

Peter King wants to show at his hearings that the Muslim community in the United States isn’t only radical, but also doesn’t cooperate with law enforcement in thwarting terrorist threats in their own communities.