Sometimes it makes one wonder

2009-10-05

By Robert Tribble

It has been almost 21 years now since the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which resulted in the deaths of 270 people including passengers, crew and people on the ground.
Abdel baset al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing.

The murderer served eight years of his life sentence or what equals about 11 days for each man, woman and child who died.

The Scottish government claimed that the early release was a compassionate one because Megrahi is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.
Sometime is makes one wonder what compassion he felt for the victims.

To make things worse the convicted mass murderer Megrahi received a hero’s welcome on his return to Tripoli, Libya, from his imprisonment in Scotland.

This really demonstrated the barbarism and vulgarity of his adoring audience.

Skeptics believe that the release was part of a deal to guarantee British access to Libyan oil fields.

If there was a deal it will eventually be revealed as those things usually are.

This nasty situation sometimes makes one wonder if anyone other than the families of the victims really cares about what happened.

America discouraged the release, and asked Libyan leader Momar Kadafi to place the terrorist bomber under house arrest, but some across the ocean arm twisting prevented the request.

The image of Megrahi standing with Kadafi’s son while the adoring crowd cheered may become indelible along with a flaming monk and Viet Cong general.

Saif Kadafi declared the release a victory for Libya, confirming that it was part of a deal to permit British exploitation of Libyan oil wealth.

Sacrificing justice for commercial interests is an abhorrent action and one without precedent. President Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financer Marc Rich is the only thing most of us remember that comes anywhere close to it.

More troubling in some ways of the sad spectacle is the hatred the Libyans apparently feel for the West. They celebrated the return of one of history’s greatest mass murderers who killed 270 human beings. And to top it all off their hero was accompanied home by the son of his country’s leader.

Sometimes makes one wonder. The people Megrahi killed were college kids returning home for Christmas and Scottish citizens minding their own business who found themselves in the path of debris, human remains and the remnants of a commercial airliner.

They were mostly Westerners from 21 countries flying aboard a United States flag carrier, none from a Muslim majority nation.

This episode sometimes makes one wonder at the failure of our efforts to neutralize the Islamic threat. The United States has attempted to reintroduce Libya into the family of civilized nations. Kadafi dismantled his weapons program and stated his opposition to terrorism. We have been negotiating the sale of weapons to Libya which hopefully will be suspended. Kadafi’s actions pleased the extremist elements of his country but showed his distaste for us.

Violence continues in Iraq and the situation continues to get worse in Afghanistan. Now Libyans have honored a mass murderer as a hero. We have spent billions of dollars and hundreds of American soldiers have given their lives in an
attempt to curb the Islamic threat.

Sometimes it makes one wonder if all of our efforts have made us safer.

They surely have because no terrorist have struck this nation for over eight years now as they did on September 11, 2001.



Tribble is the president of Fayette Newspapers, Inc.

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