printNot in the saga of the Lockerbie mass murderer released into the loving arms of his countrymen and coreligionists. According to the neoconservatives, Bush’s deft diplomacy had won Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi over to the West, but you know better. By welcoming Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi home as a hero, Libyans and their leaders were showing their true hue to the West. Cry baby victims and their leaders demand sensitivity to their plight; the Arab world gives them a macho display of antagonism. Frankly, I can respect the latter more than the demands from the West that Gaddafi be more like Oprah.
Al-Megrahi was convicted of bringing down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, and killing 270 people—259 people on the plane and another 11 who died on the ground.
The Boeing 747 blew up at 31,000ft, approximately 38 minutes after taking off from London’s Heathrow airport bound for JFK in New York.
Large parts of the aircraft fell on Lockerbie, devastating parts of the Scottish borders town and setting in train the UK’s biggest mass murder inquiry.
The contemptible parties in this fracas are the Scottish authorities, responsible for releasing the man on compassionate grounds citing the certitude of their moral values and Al-Megrahi’s impending death from cancer. A befitting description for the values of Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, are the words deployed by family members: “Perfidious, repulsive and sickening”—that pretty much sums up the quality of Scottish justice.
Releasing Megrahi was a terrible decision. As a Brit though, I can well remember that the US government pressurised the British government in the 1990s to release dozens of convicted Irish Republican terrorists. I don’t remember any outrage from Americans about that. It is ludicrous for the likes of Hillary Clinton to bloviate about Megrahi’s release considering everything her family did to help out the IRA.
Ilana… I absolutely love reading your comments and critiques on “out-lander” style politics, and our protective “mama” style government…
PLEASE: KEEP IT UP !
I am so sickened by everything I see, I do not know where to begin. Jealousy and mayhem. Tough fight for all of us who truly “care.”
David
“US government pressurised the British government in the 1990s to release dozens of convicted Irish Republican terrorists.”
You Brits need to stop being toadies for American politicians. Releasing thugs in spite of crimes comitted is either a civil injustice or a miscarriage of criminal justice. It doesn’t matter if the Brits, the Americans, Irish or Scotts are doing it. They can’t do it very often for very long and that seemed to be the western weakness the author was pointing to.
This week’s Torah portion is “justice justice shall you pursue” but I guess the modern west wishes to be “in” with the “in” crowd and now pursues INJUSTICE instead. This week demonstrates the best arguments in FAVOR of the death penalty imaginable. A man who commits 270 murders of innocent people (this isn’t someone who killed a rival drug dealer, for instance) expressed NO REMORSE in his application for release and then is granted a hero’s welcome. Where was the “COMPASSION” for Theodora Cohen???
In classical liberalism, a system of justice to pursue murderers is a rare “legitimate” role for government. Instead, the role of government has been perverted to micromanage our lives, destroy our private property and trample our privacy but not PROTECT our lives. That idiot MacAskill apparently runs a jail from which other murderers routinely flee.
The Libyans and their thug dictator do have the marginal virtue of being honest about their vicious disregard for the lives of innocents. MacAskill and the feckless Brits who are applauding their “compassion” are de facto
accessories after the fact to the mass murder. And Prince Andrew was supposed to go to Libya to CELEBRATE 40 years of Gadaffi’s dictatorship!
Bad as this is, I hope it won’t eventually prove to be worse, like finding out one day that this release was part of some sordid deal. Irrespective of what’s behind this, this craven display will be seen by many Muslims as of one more sign of the West’s moral decrepitude. Who said that about ‘giving one more kick in the door’ ?
The British government has a long track record of doing just about anything to pander to and appease the Muslims. A Muslim who murders over 250 people is treated with “compassion” and set free, while if you run a website that the guardians of multiculturalism deem “racist” you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. Britain will do everything in its power to give the Muslim (both at home and abroad) almost whatever they want (including a little shari’ah), while for everyone else, especially the indigenous Anglo-Celtic people, Britain is a totalitarian, multicultural, police state.
Gun Control: The notion that Matthew Shepard tied to a fence post in the middle of Wyoming is morally superior to Matthew Shepard explaining to the local sheriff how his attackers got all those fatal bullet holes.
This is the crux of liberalism. The only consideration when making a decision is what that decision reveals about the self. The needs of society, including the need for justice, do not enter into liberal thinking. Liberalism is a cult of self.
Understanding this dynamic, the release of a mass-murderer from custody makes perfect sense. “This man has cancer, and releasing him proves that I am a compassionate person. Therefore it is good.”
Seeing the celebrations in Libya was sickening enough but I’m curious to know how many British and European Muslims were celebrating? If they were, we’d probably never know about it because European media try not to inflame anti-islamic sentiment among their own.
Even though he is dying,he should not be trusted and he should still be monitored.