Bomb a Plane, Get a Pardon

August 21, 2009

- See all 10 of my articles

My writing spot is normally not for another couple weeks but this Middle East story was too big to ignore. I am sure most of you reading this have already heard or seen what happened this week with Al Megrahi “the Lockerbie bomber” but I needed to recap. First let me apologize if my writing sounds angry but I am.

So the story is that this guy bombed a Pan AM flight back in 1988 which killed 259 people. Of those 189 were Americans but that is not critical to my rant or to the story. This happened over Lockerbie Scotland hence his nickname. He was convicted in 2001 and was sentenced to life in prison. He was recently diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer with three months to live so the Scottish released him so he could “die at home”. Here are my many problems with this.

  1. I am not a big supporter of the death penalty but you know some people clearly deserve it. Why does a guy who consciously kills 259 people get to live?
  2. Why the compassion of letting him die at home? Many people serving a life sentence end up dying in prison and some have done far less evil things like maybe only killing one person instead of 259. On top of that, why give compassion to someone who had none. He didn’t let anyone off that plane or give anyone a way to escape. I am sure the 259 people included children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and many people that deserved to “die at home”. He was also convicted only in 2001 so this is not a guy that served 60 years with good behavior so society was ready to forgive him and give him a decent way to exist this world. This guy served a handful of years, probably fewer than a common drug dealer.
  3. What happens if he doesn’t die in three months? What happens if he miraculously recovers?
  4. Lastly and maybe the most upsetting part is he got a hero’s welcome when he arrived in Libya. Has the world lost all decency? I think we should have bombed the entire crowd that showed up for him. This type of reaction shows you exactly why you can’t negotiate with terrorists – Hezbollah, Hamas and the rest of them. They kill and die for honor, human life has no value which makes them an impossible foe.

In closing, before you comment go talk to someone who had someone they knew murdered. It should not be that hard to find a person. Just ask anyone who had family members in the Holocaust. Once you talk to them, see if you would have the same compassion for this man.

5 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. Nicholas Cardot
    Aug 21, 2009 @ 19:12:30

    I’m a soldier in the United States Army Old Guard and part of my duties include conducting funerals in Arlington National Cemetery.

    One day while working in the cemetery I had the very unique privilege of meeting a woman whose husband had been in the Pentagon on that fateful day 8 years ago: Sept. 11, 2001.

    I was in Illinois when those towers and the Pentagon were bombed with commercial jets so meeting this woman was the closest I had come to that experience in our national history.

    Her pain was visible and yet she talked about her husband and his service to our country with pride.

    The damage that those killers did and the damage that the killer in your story here did is far greater than most people realize. Those are American lives were talking about. Are they some cheap item that we just have enough of so it doesn’t really matter when someone decides to take a few out?

    And to think that he got a heroes welcome! If I ever meet that man I will spit in his face!

    I’m sorry. Now I’m ranting.
    .-= Nicholas Cardot´s last blog ..A Classic Example of Noteworthy Branding =-.

    Reply

  2. spivey
    Aug 21, 2009 @ 19:56:17

    First off, I do not agree with the decision to release this particular man on compassionate grounds, and seeing the “hero’s welcome” that he got made me angry and feel a little sick to my stomach.

    However, regarding the concept of compassion in a more general sense, I think compassion and forgiveness are the only real ways to heal yourself and get past horrible acts done by evil people. I’m not saying we should release murderers and terrorists left and right, but paying back hate with hate will only consume us as well. Of all the families of victims, the only one that sounds to me like she is truly healed is the sister of a man who was killed in this attack. She does not (seem to)bear a grudge, and realizes that no matter where this man dies, it will not bring her brother back.

    I am a Christian and God forgives me my sins as I forgive others. He also says to leave room for His justice. I do not know if I would be able to forgive if I had a family member killed, in this or any other manner. I hope that I would be able to have the strength to do so.

    Regarding your requirement to speak with someone who has had a family member murdered before posting, I am currently deployed in Iraq and have not had a chance to speak with the families of the men from my unit who were recently killed. I hope it is still all right with you if I post.

    Reply

  3. kosmo
    Aug 21, 2009 @ 20:34:30

    Regarding #3, I am pretty sure they could revoke the release. A compassionate release isn’t the exact same thing as a pardon.

    Reply

  4. Peter Rabbit
    Aug 21, 2009 @ 21:48:56

    spivey: Thanks for posting, I appreciate the feedback. Good luck on your tour of duty.

    I asked people to speak to someone who lost someone before posting as unfortunately we have a lot of people in America who are spoon fed by the media just like the extremist in Muslim countries. These people have probably never left their state and know more about their HS football team then world politics. Those are the people that I don’t think can understand how people would feel about the release of this murderer as their heart is in the right place but they are too quick to forgive us they have probably never lost anything.

    kosmo: good luck with Libya giving him back to you.

    Reply

  5. spivey
    Aug 22, 2009 @ 11:32:05

    PR:

    If your point is to not take it lightly, I can agree with that.

    Take care.

    Reply

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