A Christian Eye on Politics
...this act comes across as cowardly, conniving, crafty and insincere to the very core!... the surprise at the world-wide storm which has occurred, only serves to underline even further how rampant liberalism (now endemic in Britain and Europe) causes serious distortion of true values of verity, decency, nobility and justice.
The storm and fallout caused by the early release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison continues to reverberate around the world.
This man, after all, had been convicted of the slaying of 270 people.
On Wednesday 21 December 1988, an aircraft - a Boeing 747-121 - named Clipper Maid of the Seas —was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. The bomb had been planted on the plane by a Libyan pro-Gaddafi Islamist. Eleven further people in Lockerbie, southern Scotland, were also killed as large sections of the plane fell in and around the town, bringing the total fatalities to 270. As a result, the event has been widely named by the media as the Lockerbie Bombing.
In 2001, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, a Libyan, was convicted of involvement in the bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment. Yet, on 20 August 2009, this man was released after serving just less than eight years of his sentence. The Scottish government has asserted that the early release was "on compassionate grounds," because this man is suffering from terminal cancer. However, almost everybody who has studied this early release very carefully is pretty much unconvinced. The general conclusion is that this all all about trade and about Libya offering a generous new trade deal to the UK in which Scotland itself will also profit.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has - yet again - been made to look foolish and insincere by the whole affair. First of all Brown claimed no real knowledge of the matter, then it emerged that he had been in touch with the Libyan government over the matter, seeking assurances that the bomber's return to Libya would be 'low key.' This, of course, did not happen and Megrahi was treated as a great hero returning from war. Perhaps this, especially, has fuelled world-wide anger, especially in the United States, the home of many of Megrahi's victims.
Gordon Brown knew, of course, that he could claim that the release was a decision for "the Scottish government alone," - nothing to do with him! But nobody believes this and Brown has now fallen even further in his already rapidly-waning political credibility.
Even before the early release, several British newspapers, most notably the Daily Mail, had already been speculating that this man would be released early as part of a trade deal between Britain and Libya. This has also brought the increasingly unpopular Prince Andrew into the limelight with claims that Prince Andrew had held secret ‘detailed discussions’ over the release of the Lockerbie bomber with Colonel Gaddafi’s son when on a Libyan visit. Libyan officials quite openly claimed that the Prince held off-the-record talks with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi only a matter of days after Libya formally applied for convicted terrorist Abdelbaset Al Megrahi’s release. The Daily Mail reported,
'The alleged Royal intervention in the controversial affair came while the Prince was on an official Foreign Office-sponsored trip to Algeria in May to open Britain’s new embassy in the country.
Libyan government officials say Colonel Gaddafi’s son – who would later give the terrorist a hero’s welcome on his return to Tripoli – made a special visit to Algiers to discuss the developments with the Prince, Britain’s special representative on trade and investment.
The pair are said to have become friends after Andrew made several official and unofficial trips to Libya. Mr Gaddafi has also been a guest at Windsor Castle.
The Prince’s formal role is to help secure trade and investment deals for Britain and he was in Algeria at the behest of the [British] Foreign Office.
The involvement of the Prince would raise new questions about the deal done with Libya to free Megrahi, the man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103.
But told of the Libyan claims that the Prince had played a key role in the affair, Buckingham Palace last night issued a categoric denial.' (source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211433/Prince-Andrew-Lockerbie-talks-Gaddafi-son.html#ixzz0QgKrCcEW).But on Saturday 12th September, another damaging report appeared in the press, this time in the Daily Telegraph. An SAS source quoted by that newspaper suggests a possible link between SAS training and the release of Lockerbie bomber Ali al-Megrahi. A British Foreign Office spokesman said the suggestion of such a link was untrue, however, Britain's Ministry of Defence does not comment on special forces activities, and neither confirmed nor denied the Telegraph's report. But defence sources said that if they were to undertake such training it would be for regular forces only. Yet the Foreign Office admits there is ongoing defence co-operation with Libya. The Daily Telegraph quoted an SAS soldier as saying: "The IRA was our greatest adversary now we are training their backers..." (Libya, of course, used to be the IRA's greatest supporter and supplied that terrorist organisation with most of their weapons).
We are a Christian organisation and we fully understand about exercising compassion toward the suffering, however we soundly reject the terrible behaviour of the Scottish government and the (behind the scenes) connivance of the British government in this matter. It is a plain and hideous disgrace that a mass-murderer should have been given early release from his sentence because of trade considerations, or because of a training agreement, whichever might be closest to the truth. Time was when British governments were at the forefront of ensuring that justice was administered - come what may; but this act comes across as cowardly, conniving, crafty and insincere to the very core! This ruthless bomber should have ended his days in a Scottish prison, whether suffering from cancer or not. Meanwhile the surprise at the world-wide storm which has occurred, only serves to underline even further how rampant liberalism (now endemic in Britain and Europe) causes serious distortion of true values of verity, decency, nobility and justice. Truthfully, Scottish leader Alex Salmond and British leader Brown speak from a political liberal background of the furthering, and the support, of abortion and stem cell research on human embryos. So why are we surprised at the lack of moral integrity?
The Christan Hawk. September 12th, 2009.
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