The Times Online gets all warm and cozy with terrorist Al Megrahi in a puff piece repulsively entitled “At home with the Lockerbie bomber.”
And at least one Scot says “not in our name, Mr. MacAskill.
[ADDENDUM: Johns Hopkins professor of international law Ruth Wedgewood nails it, as does Geoffrey Robertson, member of (of all things) the United Nations Justice Council.
Wedgewood writes about some of the evidence implicating Al Megrahi, as well as the effect his release has on Libya. Robertson, in strong words that ought to have been voiced by our very own lawyer President (yeah, dream on) says:
The decision to release [Al Megrahi] for what any person of any intelligence at all would foresee as a hero’s welcome in Libya was lacking in compassion to every victim of terrorism and makes an absurdity of the principle of punishment as a deterrent. MacAskill’s arguments are both morally and logically fraudulent. We show mercy towards the merciless by abjuring torture and the death sentence. Crimes against humanity are so heinous that the perpetrator forfeits any claims to favourable treatment beyond that laid down by the Geneva conventions, namely humane treatment in prison overseen by the Red Cross. His release, in order that the criminal state which approved his crime may celebrate it and so justify its criminal actions (which include provision of semtex for many IRA atrocities as well as training terrorists for worldwide barbarities and the assassination of Gaddafi’s opponents at home and abroad, and in several cases in England), is a sad day for humanity and for the struggle for global justice. We should be ashamed that this has happened.
And yet there is much support for MacAskill’s actions rather than shame. Many Westerners have come to the conclusion that the most important thing in the world is to prove what fine and forgiving people they are. That way lies madness.]
Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely 
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:40 am
How does forgiving one of calculated, willful mass murder shift to be synonymous with the ethical standard of compassion?
What is this rot of post-modern, neo-Liberalism?
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
From the article:
“His mother, 86, had not stopped crying, he said. “I told her, ‘You should laugh, not cry’. She doesn’t know I’m ill.” He asked us not to tell her. ”
If I’d been the reporter I would have left his mother a note: “your son is a rat and he’s dying from cancer ~ love Vieux”
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
nyomythus: That’s what I thought at first. Now I’m following the money.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Minister David Miliband says it is a “slur” to speculate that the release of a mass murderer was influenced, even at the margin, by the bidding for oil extraction rights in Libya. One of England’s princes has been to Libya three times recently to talk about oil.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/21/al-megrahi-lockerbie-libya-scotland-opinions-contributors-terrorism-muammar-al-qaddafi.html
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Oh the son of the blood of divine right — not surprised.
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
It’s Sowell’s Vision of the Anointed put into practice not as a basis for social policy but as the basis for security and foreign policy, with predictably reprehensible results. It’s hard to imagine that the modern liberal mind is so insulated, so vain, so thoroughly solipsistic that the self destructive consequences of actions such as this are not foreseen.
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
By and large I believe it’s a short-sighted provincial jab at opposition politics — they’re in their kitchen eating ice cream with a spoon out of the bucket they could care less if civilization burns — their reservation in the bunk is reasonably secure — so ho hum, ta ta now. Scum!
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Megrahi should have been executed years ago.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Moral of the Story:
“If you are going to blow up an intercontinental flight, make sure most of the debris lands in Scotland.”
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Antoine de St-Exupery’s last book, “Citadelle” (published in English as “Wisdom of the Sands) presents the musings of the fictional ruler of a fictional desert kingdom.
The protagonist thinks of pardoning criminals who have been condemned to death, under the belief that even the worst criminal must have some inward beauty, but realizes that “by his death I stiffen springs that must not be permitted to relax.”
I thought of this passage after hearing about the release of Al Megrahi. This is so egregious that not only does it weaken “the springs that must not be permitted to relax”, it positively breaks them.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:42 pm
“What we got here” (h/t Strother Martin) is nothing less than one more bit of evidence confirming the slow-motion suicide of Western Civilization. We have lost the will to live and no longer have either the courage or the mental energy to gird our loins for the obvious long struggle ahead. I will say again what I continue to repeat each and every time an incident such as this occurs: We are proving possible that which once was thought physically impossible. Namely that it is indeed possible to simultaneously bury one’s head in the sand and whistle past the grave-yard at the same time.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Gray Says:
Moral of the Story:
“If you are going to blow up an intercontinental flight, make sure most of the debris lands in Scotland.”
Nailed it.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
“Anticipate” is the wrong word for what I feel, and wrong on multiple levels…
but I see a future where my president stands before the nation and the world and patiently explains why we had it coming after we are attacked ala 9/11 again.
We’ve really screwed ourselves.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:16 am
“Many Westerners have come to the conclusion that the most important thing in the world is to prove what fine and forgiving people they are. That way lies madness.”
Sorta reminds me of the left / socialists being generous with ‘other people’s money’. Now the same kind of mindset is applied to other people’s suffering caused by criminals…
August 24th, 2009 at 9:52 am
[...] the Lockerbie bomber Al Megrahi, who has now received a hero’s welcome in his native Libya. NeoNeocon quotes Geoffrey [...]
August 24th, 2009 at 11:36 am
This is strictly SATIRE in the one of the grandest traditions of western civilization.
and protected by free speech.
It illustrates what Scottish Law says to extremist murders…
http://i26.tinypic.com/3504eg4.png
August 24th, 2009 at 11:55 am
On the permanent campaign meme…
Stories out today about Paneta being unhappy about Holder’s various interrogation investigations (new spin on getting an old distraction back in the news).
Had a front page story spun as news, in the local fish wrapper, because it involved ‘analysis’ about how the protests against socialized medicine have a racial theme under the surface.
In other news, the jokes about state run media are funny because of the element of the truth in them….
August 24th, 2009 at 11:56 am
There are more than just screaming senior citizens at town halls.
There are also screaming Panetta’s.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8398902
Sounds like what happens when one party doesn’t LISTEN ∅bama
August 24th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Sorry, OT, but enlightening: Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press 8/9
August 24th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
# Baklava Says:
“Sounds like what happens when one party doesn’t LISTEN ∅bama”
Still, people were wondering what distraction the Obama admin would try to get in the news Monday because of the deficit projects put out Friday afternoon. The Justice Department’s investigations of the Bush admin were the #1 choice…. and here it is.
August 24th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I’ve been following this story in the London Telegraph which is hardly a screaming lefty rag. The comments are sobering. Overwhelmingly, we’re the baddies: The guy’s innocent. We’re bullying Scotland. We support terrorism (donations to the IRA), so we’re hypocrites. We torture and hang people all the time, so we’re even bigger hypocrites. We shot down that Iranian airliner and even gave the captain of the destroyer who blew it out of the air a medal. Again, it’s not the paper saying these things, it’s Brits writing in.
A few are take a more more worldly view which is the probably right one. Brown swapped a half-dead Arab for lucrative oil and gas deals with Libya. I suspect that for all our sputtering and stage-indignation, so have we.
Heaven forbid that we drill for our own energy and tell the rest of the world to drop dead!
August 24th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Thomass,
I can’t help it, but every time I hear about Panetta all I can envision is Piñata!
August 24th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
armchair – it is disheartening to learn what Europeans know and don’t know about the history of the last sixty years. While we are often told how poorly American students do in a dozen subjects compared to European students, and Jay Leno has certainly illustrated how ill-informed Americans can be, educated Europeans have stunning gaps in their knowledge. They have a very effective form of censorship known as “just not ever bringing certain things up.” It is similar to our own liberal/elite/journalism/arts & humanities echo chamber, but runs much deeper.
August 24th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
AVI, count the Japanese in that same group.
I was visiting friends in Japan who, on hearing that I’d been to Hiroshima, a bit sanctimoniously asked me how I felt about it.*
I indicated I regretted its necessity, and mentioned that I’d also visited Nanjing. No reaction. You know, Nanjing, as in “Rape of?” Blank looks.
They’d never heard of the Rape of Nanjing.
*(No problem here; my father was in the 4th Marine Division, scheduled to land on the Japanese home islands, and after having participated in the invasions of Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima, he had no illusions about what invading Japan would entail).
August 25th, 2009 at 7:22 am
What’s the bit about a mess of pottage? And that’s the interpretation that what Scotland has done here is smart. The stupid option is that they did it to “be nice.” WOW.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Shame/Honor cultures tend to pretend that if people don’t know something, that it never happened. Take the blue on blue incident with Tillman in Afghanistan.