It's very sad to hear all the humbug from the USA about Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. I can easily understand the families of the Lockerbie victims being upset, especially when they like most people have been kept in the dark about the full story but i am very disappointed that Obama, who I thought was an intelligent man, jhas joined in the humbug.
Perhaps it would help him moderate his ire if he called for ALL the documents and evidence surrounding both the Bombing of flight 103 and the trial. For example, the evidence suggesting that the bomb was put on the plane in Frankfurt or the Mediterranean. Most of the evidence suggested it had been placed on the flight at Heathrow. According to security personnel talking to one of the bereaved British families, There had been a break in at Heathrow the day before the bomb outrage and luggage had been apparently tampered with. Something else I recall from the time was that the bomb was fairly sophisticated and had some kind of pressure trigger, designed to detonate when the plane reached cruising altitude. If this was the case, then one would assume that the bomb would have detonated before it arrived at London rather than after it left.
Two hundred and forty-three passengers, 16 crew members and 11 residents of the town of Lockerbie lost their lives when the plane was blown up. 21 Nationalities were represented, not just Americans English or Scots people. The Americans especially have no monopoly on outrage and to the best of my knowledge, Megrahi. has no connection with the 911 attacks. America prides itself on its justice and sense of write or wrong, talks about freedom and democracy, human rights and many other things which sound fine and dandy which it seeks to export to the world. But it may not seem like that if you are an ordinary American citizen and have to suffer, surveillance, police harassment, the use of the armed forces in civil issues, compulsory vaccination, fluoridation etc etc, yet at the same time have little access to Medical care if they have no money and have to go cap in hand and throw themselves at the mercy of whatever charity still has some resources.
I talk to Americans daily, they are almost always, frank, honest and friendly, they seldom whine about their own situations but increasingly I meet up with members of the once broad church known as the Middle Classes who have been reduced to penury, who have lost their homes and families having been lifelong hard workers and tax-payers. They no longer live in the USA but a place better called the United Corporate States. Where the discrepancy between the richest and the poorest grows daily and the Middle Classes gradually dissolve into the newly unwaged and dispossesed.
I have never, unlike many of my generation, been opposed to capitalism with a small C,and I am pleased that people can make a profit or a living and create wealth and jobs for other people. But when resources, technology, the media, medicine, industry and even the military fall increasingly into a declining minority of already super-rich hands then the symptoms of this, such as power mongering, political manipulation, fraud war wongering, expansionism and greed are in no way surprising.
Using bombs and missiles, the USA has bombed, missiled, manipulated, over-run, occupied, robbed and stolen the resources of other nations and cultures more than any previous nation. Whether this was at the behest of or financed by either the Government or various interest groups and vested interests matters little, the fact remains that it has done so. It even controls its neighbours. It has walled off Mexico and seems to have bought out Canada. Its dabbled in the politics of many South American countries, especially those who dared to experiment with any other forms of government Any one who disagrees is either labele a Commie or a pervert it seems yet the biggest commies and perverts seem to hail from the "Land of the Free"
America needs to realise that the world and its people do not work like clockwork, which can be wound up by the White House whether they be in South America, Europe or the Far East, If Megrahi. really is guilty then maybe Karma has finally caught up with him, or maybe he has just been a very unlucky man. Whether innocent or guilty, its better and cheaper for him to die at home in his home country and with his family. The state of Libya and his family can pay the costs of his medical care and/or burial. Clearly he is not a well man and medical experts agree he has three months or less to live. Perhaps America feels its missed out on another opportunity to torture someone but as new evidence surfaces about its activities agains alleged terrorists in its internment camps one would have thought they had more than enough to waterboard and threaten with electric drills.
When Flight 103 exploded and fell out of the sky over Lockerbie on the Scottish Border every sane person wept for the dead and the bereaved, America of course went further and wanted vengeance like some Old Testament prophet. No Justice or Compassion was to be shown, Someone should be jailed or executed or both. As the saying goes, An Eye for and Eye leads to a blind World, a world which sees, if it sees at all, the whole planet as a cruel and violent place, full of cruel and violent people. But, if humans are to survive on this small planet then we must aspire to higher standards of truth and compassion, not double speak, double agents, deals behind closed doors and only justice at gun point paid for by the latest corporation. True power can exercise itself through grace rather than violence and it is this which the super-powers should practice rather than just preach about. Scotland has tried to do this and they are to be congratulated for doing so.
Here in the UK we are perhaps much more acquainted with senseless and bloody terrorism than the USA. For one example out of many thousands, lets look at the Birmingham Pub Bombs from the 70's On November 21, 1974 two bombs exploded which killed 21 people and injured 182.[The devices were placed in two central Birmingham pubs: the Mulberry Bush, at the foot of the Rotunda, and the Tavern in the Town, a basement pub on New Street (now renamed the Yard of Ale). A man with an Irish accent telephoned the Birmingham Post newspaper and said that there was a bomb in the 25 storey Rotunda office block housing the Mulberry Bush pub. Police went to the Rotunda to investigate. The police started to check the upper floors of the building but failed to clear the crowded pub which was situated at street level. Just minutes later, at 20:17, the bomb exploded, devastating the crowded bar. Warnings had just reached the equally crowded Tavern in the Town pub nearby,[1] when at 20:27 a second bomb there exploded. A passing West Midlands PTE bus was caught in the blast and subsequently written-off. A third device, outside a branch of Barclays Bank on Hagley Road, failed to detonate.
Not surprisingly there was much grief and anger. I know, I was iI was orking in Birmingham the following night and the fear was tangible. Spurred on by a rabble rousing press the hunt was on for anyone with an Irish accent. This was the only description really necessary. Random beatings of Irish locals took place and the police arrested and of course beat up several suspects themselves. Six men were immediately accused of carrying out the attack; they were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. They all spent 16 years behind bars, before their convictions were overturned only after the scientific evidence was discredited, and the documents setting out the confessions were found to be unreliable due to police tampering (i.e., the police wrote the "confessions" that the men signed after several days of torture). They were all released from prison after the ruling by the Court of Appeal on 14 March 1991.
Someone had planted the bombs and therefore someone (anyone) should be punished for ever and ever amen. Its a terrible thing to be guilty of being a foreigner, especially an Arab, Black or Irish one and therefore deened automatically guilty of whatever happens to be the problem. this bombing was just one of thousands of atrocities carried out by the IRA and the Loyalists factions who fought tooth an nail on first the streets of Ulster and eventually on the streets of mainland Britain. Tens of thousands were killed, and maimed and the emotional wounds have still not healed. Perhaps this is the time to explain that most of the explosives, guns and ammo was paid for with money collected in the USA from sympathetic groups of Irish descent. and much of the weaponry, ammo and explosives was purchased from Libya. Only after the 911 attacks in the USA did the majority of the American people discover what it was like to be on the receiving end of thiss kind of terrorism and fortunatelly much of the funding dried up.
It is just possible that that Megrahi. was in some way responsible, or at least connected to state terrorism but this was never proved satisfactorily and much evidence was never produced. Perhpas he was at some time employed by Libya, or maybe Iran or even Syria. Maybe he was just a patsy, framed for political advantage and fours. Or maybe he was just the man in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he has consistently protested his innocence from the beginning and still does even now after his release.
So, Mr President, please stop for a few minutes and think about six innocent Irish men who spent more than 25 years behind bars for no other reason than being Irish and living in Birmingham UK. and about countless others in the USA, Iraq, Afghanistan etc who have been arrested, tortured, renditioned (*sic) and killed for being Iraqi, Afghani, black or maybe just coming from somewhere which still has oil etc etc. And leets not forget the unknown thousands killed and injured by the assorted "Black Ops" carried out by the West. What do you want, Mr President, a world with its eyes open and hearts full of compassion desirous of a better future or a blind world full of hate and revenge and terror. ie; Bush thirde term. as a good starting point, please call off Judge Dread aka Mr Mueller at the FBI who seems to wish to out do the CIA and remember, if you are a religious man, "Let him who hath not sinned, cast the first stone!"
Perhaps it would help him moderate his ire if he called for ALL the documents and evidence surrounding both the Bombing of flight 103 and the trial. For example, the evidence suggesting that the bomb was put on the plane in Frankfurt or the Mediterranean. Most of the evidence suggested it had been placed on the flight at Heathrow. According to security personnel talking to one of the bereaved British families, There had been a break in at Heathrow the day before the bomb outrage and luggage had been apparently tampered with. Something else I recall from the time was that the bomb was fairly sophisticated and had some kind of pressure trigger, designed to detonate when the plane reached cruising altitude. If this was the case, then one would assume that the bomb would have detonated before it arrived at London rather than after it left.
Two hundred and forty-three passengers, 16 crew members and 11 residents of the town of Lockerbie lost their lives when the plane was blown up. 21 Nationalities were represented, not just Americans English or Scots people. The Americans especially have no monopoly on outrage and to the best of my knowledge, Megrahi. has no connection with the 911 attacks. America prides itself on its justice and sense of write or wrong, talks about freedom and democracy, human rights and many other things which sound fine and dandy which it seeks to export to the world. But it may not seem like that if you are an ordinary American citizen and have to suffer, surveillance, police harassment, the use of the armed forces in civil issues, compulsory vaccination, fluoridation etc etc, yet at the same time have little access to Medical care if they have no money and have to go cap in hand and throw themselves at the mercy of whatever charity still has some resources.
I talk to Americans daily, they are almost always, frank, honest and friendly, they seldom whine about their own situations but increasingly I meet up with members of the once broad church known as the Middle Classes who have been reduced to penury, who have lost their homes and families having been lifelong hard workers and tax-payers. They no longer live in the USA but a place better called the United Corporate States. Where the discrepancy between the richest and the poorest grows daily and the Middle Classes gradually dissolve into the newly unwaged and dispossesed.
I have never, unlike many of my generation, been opposed to capitalism with a small C,and I am pleased that people can make a profit or a living and create wealth and jobs for other people. But when resources, technology, the media, medicine, industry and even the military fall increasingly into a declining minority of already super-rich hands then the symptoms of this, such as power mongering, political manipulation, fraud war wongering, expansionism and greed are in no way surprising.
Using bombs and missiles, the USA has bombed, missiled, manipulated, over-run, occupied, robbed and stolen the resources of other nations and cultures more than any previous nation. Whether this was at the behest of or financed by either the Government or various interest groups and vested interests matters little, the fact remains that it has done so. It even controls its neighbours. It has walled off Mexico and seems to have bought out Canada. Its dabbled in the politics of many South American countries, especially those who dared to experiment with any other forms of government Any one who disagrees is either labele a Commie or a pervert it seems yet the biggest commies and perverts seem to hail from the "Land of the Free"
America needs to realise that the world and its people do not work like clockwork, which can be wound up by the White House whether they be in South America, Europe or the Far East, If Megrahi. really is guilty then maybe Karma has finally caught up with him, or maybe he has just been a very unlucky man. Whether innocent or guilty, its better and cheaper for him to die at home in his home country and with his family. The state of Libya and his family can pay the costs of his medical care and/or burial. Clearly he is not a well man and medical experts agree he has three months or less to live. Perhaps America feels its missed out on another opportunity to torture someone but as new evidence surfaces about its activities agains alleged terrorists in its internment camps one would have thought they had more than enough to waterboard and threaten with electric drills.
When Flight 103 exploded and fell out of the sky over Lockerbie on the Scottish Border every sane person wept for the dead and the bereaved, America of course went further and wanted vengeance like some Old Testament prophet. No Justice or Compassion was to be shown, Someone should be jailed or executed or both. As the saying goes, An Eye for and Eye leads to a blind World, a world which sees, if it sees at all, the whole planet as a cruel and violent place, full of cruel and violent people. But, if humans are to survive on this small planet then we must aspire to higher standards of truth and compassion, not double speak, double agents, deals behind closed doors and only justice at gun point paid for by the latest corporation. True power can exercise itself through grace rather than violence and it is this which the super-powers should practice rather than just preach about. Scotland has tried to do this and they are to be congratulated for doing so.
Here in the UK we are perhaps much more acquainted with senseless and bloody terrorism than the USA. For one example out of many thousands, lets look at the Birmingham Pub Bombs from the 70's On November 21, 1974 two bombs exploded which killed 21 people and injured 182.[The devices were placed in two central Birmingham pubs: the Mulberry Bush, at the foot of the Rotunda, and the Tavern in the Town, a basement pub on New Street (now renamed the Yard of Ale). A man with an Irish accent telephoned the Birmingham Post newspaper and said that there was a bomb in the 25 storey Rotunda office block housing the Mulberry Bush pub. Police went to the Rotunda to investigate. The police started to check the upper floors of the building but failed to clear the crowded pub which was situated at street level. Just minutes later, at 20:17, the bomb exploded, devastating the crowded bar. Warnings had just reached the equally crowded Tavern in the Town pub nearby,[1] when at 20:27 a second bomb there exploded. A passing West Midlands PTE bus was caught in the blast and subsequently written-off. A third device, outside a branch of Barclays Bank on Hagley Road, failed to detonate.
Not surprisingly there was much grief and anger. I know, I was iI was orking in Birmingham the following night and the fear was tangible. Spurred on by a rabble rousing press the hunt was on for anyone with an Irish accent. This was the only description really necessary. Random beatings of Irish locals took place and the police arrested and of course beat up several suspects themselves. Six men were immediately accused of carrying out the attack; they were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. They all spent 16 years behind bars, before their convictions were overturned only after the scientific evidence was discredited, and the documents setting out the confessions were found to be unreliable due to police tampering (i.e., the police wrote the "confessions" that the men signed after several days of torture). They were all released from prison after the ruling by the Court of Appeal on 14 March 1991.
Someone had planted the bombs and therefore someone (anyone) should be punished for ever and ever amen. Its a terrible thing to be guilty of being a foreigner, especially an Arab, Black or Irish one and therefore deened automatically guilty of whatever happens to be the problem. this bombing was just one of thousands of atrocities carried out by the IRA and the Loyalists factions who fought tooth an nail on first the streets of Ulster and eventually on the streets of mainland Britain. Tens of thousands were killed, and maimed and the emotional wounds have still not healed. Perhaps this is the time to explain that most of the explosives, guns and ammo was paid for with money collected in the USA from sympathetic groups of Irish descent. and much of the weaponry, ammo and explosives was purchased from Libya. Only after the 911 attacks in the USA did the majority of the American people discover what it was like to be on the receiving end of thiss kind of terrorism and fortunatelly much of the funding dried up.
It is just possible that that Megrahi. was in some way responsible, or at least connected to state terrorism but this was never proved satisfactorily and much evidence was never produced. Perhpas he was at some time employed by Libya, or maybe Iran or even Syria. Maybe he was just a patsy, framed for political advantage and fours. Or maybe he was just the man in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he has consistently protested his innocence from the beginning and still does even now after his release.
So, Mr President, please stop for a few minutes and think about six innocent Irish men who spent more than 25 years behind bars for no other reason than being Irish and living in Birmingham UK. and about countless others in the USA, Iraq, Afghanistan etc who have been arrested, tortured, renditioned (*sic) and killed for being Iraqi, Afghani, black or maybe just coming from somewhere which still has oil etc etc. And leets not forget the unknown thousands killed and injured by the assorted "Black Ops" carried out by the West. What do you want, Mr President, a world with its eyes open and hearts full of compassion desirous of a better future or a blind world full of hate and revenge and terror. ie; Bush thirde term. as a good starting point, please call off Judge Dread aka Mr Mueller at the FBI who seems to wish to out do the CIA and remember, if you are a religious man, "Let him who hath not sinned, cast the first stone!"
- PORTIA:
- The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:(190)
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;(195)
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
