FANATICAL KILLERS.(Main)(Editorial)

For the more fanatical members of the Irish Republican Army at least, the ends justify the means.

Any means.

That the radical members of the IRA would stoop to employ any means was made evident over the weekend as a bomb planted in a building in the Northern Ireland town of Enniskillen took the lives of 11 persons and wounded 63 others.

All of the dead were civilians, as were all of the wounded. Witnesses there described a scene of horror and confusion as parents walked about the dusty streets in search of their children, and children walked about in search of their parents.

The IRA, of course, does have some definite goals, most especially the removal of the British from the island and unification of North and South. But as much as one may sympathize with these goals, few will be able to feel anything but disgust at an organization that would indiscriminately destroy so many innocent lives and bring so much pain and suffering into the world.

A few days after the explosion a spokesman for the IRA said the terrorist organization deeply regretted the incident and added that the bomb had been meant for British soldiers and set off prematurely.

No doubt the IRA would have preferred to bomb British soldiers. But they didn't, and the casual manner in which they planted the bomb near a war memorial for the town's dead gives the lie to any subsequent protestions about purity of intentions.

It is not enough to say that, as advocates of a unified Ireland, the IRA has no choice but to resort to the "bullet and the bomb." The reality is that peaceful methods of achieving unification are possible. Diplomatic initiatives are under way, and demographers predict that the minority Catholic population of Ulster will become, in time, the majority population. This would give them the votes to effect a union with the Irish republic to the south, if they so desire. The British have pledged to honor any such vote.

It would seem, then - given the reckless fashion with which many of these bombs are deployed - that some in the IRA have developed nothing less that a fanatical blood lust. It appears more and more that the bombers are primarily interested in terrorizing for the sake of terror and killing than for purposes of achieving any legitimate goal.

In short, the problem is not just the needless violence - although that should be problem enough - but the violence against innocents.

For this bombing and others where civilians were the target - not forgetting Harrod's Department store in London - the IRA has lost more than credibility. It has lost the support of much of the world community. Its patriotism has degenerated into hatred so black and blind that fewer and fewer citizens of the globe now care what its original motivations were.