Some encouraging news out of the UK if you're willing to believe it:

The Irish Republican Army announced Thursday it is renouncing violence as a political weapon and resuming disarmament in a dramatic declaration designed to revive Northern Ireland's peace process.

The IRA said all of its clandestine units had been ordered to place their weapons in arms dumps and cease all activities, effective at 4 p.m. (11 a.m. ET), but would not formally disband.

"The leadership has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign," the IRA said in a major advance from its opened-ended truce in place since 1997.

With that said... this is something they were supposed to have done by mid 2000 according to the Good Friday Accord. Better late than never I suppose.

What I find most interesting about this article on MSNBC is what is conspicuously absent. What is missing is any mention of the recent London subway bombings. We are apparently lead to believe that the members of the IRA just suddenly decided to put down their weapons? Just like that?

Here is what I think happened. The members of the IRA decided that their terrorist attacks weren't going to garner any sympathy for their cause in light of the new war that Islam has apparently declared on Britain now. They know that the police are searching throughout all the UK even more diligently then before, making members of the IRA even more vulnerable thanks to the recent attacks. I think that the IRA is just as much of a terrorist organization as Al Qaida is. I just think that maybe the IRA is starting to come to their senses... maybe even having some patriotic thoughts. Strange isn't it?

On a related note, I want to see a lot more of this going on:

American Muslim scholars who interpret religious law for their community issued an edict Thursday condemning terrorism against civilians in response to the wave of deadly attacks in Britain and other countries.

In the statement, called a fatwa, the 18-member Fiqh Council of North America wrote that people who commit terrorism in the name of Islam were "criminals, not 'martyrs.'"

"There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism," the scholars wrote. "Targeting civilians' life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram - or forbidden."

Shout it from the mountain tops, scream it in the Mosques.

Update: The Counter Terrorism Blog is saying that this latest fatwa is bogus:

In fact, the fatwa is bogus. Nowhere does it condemn the Islamic extremism ideology that has spawned Islamic terrorism. It does not renounce nor even acknowledge the existence of an Islamic jihadist culture that has permeated mosques and young Muslims around the world. It does not renounce Jihad let alone admit that it has been used to justify Islamic terrorist acts. It does not condemn by name any Islamic group or leader. In short, it is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate. In fact, officials of both organizations have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organizations. One of them is an unindicted co-conspirator in a current terrorist case; another previous member was a financier to Al-Qaeda.

I don't know what to think anymore.