Before I retire to the pub for the rest of the evening, I would just like to leave you with this one final thought on the al-Megrahi affair
Taken from Rod Liddle's column in The Spectator
The problem with this story is that it is difficult for ordinary people with an averagely developed moral sense to discern upon whom we should turn our guns first. I’ve been mulling this over for a while and decided it should probably be that third party, the Americans, for that familiar stench of hypocrisy now emanating from Washington DC. One by one, American politicians have lined up to condemn Britain for having released the man convicted of having blown up Pan Am Flight 103 in the skies above the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Some two thirds of the passengers were American citizens. The director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, called the decision to release the cancer-bedevilled al-Megrahi a ‘mockery of justice’. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stuck the boot in too, calling the release ‘totally inappropriate’. Well sure, perhaps. But at least al-Megrahi was convicted and served a portion of his sentence. In the single year before the Lockerbie bombing the IRA murdered 20 people, mainly civilians, and maimed thousands of others — 11 dead and many more injured in one single atrocity in Enniskillen in November 1987. That campaign of terror, waged against British citizens for more than 30 years, was bankrolled by donations from the USA — and in those 30 years not a single terrorist was extradited from the US to face charges here, despite our repeated requests. Both federal and local US courts refused extradition requests almost as policy, while the funding of the IRA continued without interruption and was still raking in the money even after 9/11, when the Americans suddenly decided that they ought to start proscribing certain terrorist groups. The IRA was not, for some time, one of the groups so proscribed.
The truth is, Britain has been more successful in appealing to Libya to extradite alleged terrorists than it has been in appealing to our ally, that country with which we enjoy a ‘special relationship’. Not a single extradition granted in 30 years: we should remember that when the likes of Mueller is shouting his fat mouth off about mockeries of justice. We remember faux-Oirish US politicians giving succour to the Provos; we remember the imperviousness of every US regime, Democrat and Republican, to our pleas for justice. So see how you like it now.
& that's it. I am off to find The Englishman & immerse ourselves in pints of finest foaming
Comments
Hear Hear!
Posted by: ajdshootist | August 28, 2009 6:01 PM
What a load of bollocks...typical trot stuff from uber liberal liddle,an ex beeb lovie.
Posted by: thud | August 28, 2009 6:17 PM
Thud, Liddle is many many things but a liberal he certainly isn’t. Secondly, I am afraid he is spot on with this one:
a) the IRA was funded in no small part from the USA
b) US Courts refused to extradite ANYONE wanted on terrorist charges to the UK
So you will have to forgive us if we just occasionally point out America’s rank hypocrisy when it comes to the extradition of terrorist suspects
Posted by: Mr Free Market | August 28, 2009 6:27 PM
Um, help remind me where that link to Americans funding whomever it was that committed the Lockerbie bombing?
I don't recall if there were extradition requests made by the US for al-Megrahi, but if that was the case I'll admit to ignorance.
Anyway while I don't dismiss the points made in the article the major point made is still a bit of bait and switch at least, or moral equivalence at worst, imo.
If the pointing out the policy of helping the IRA by the US (not as official policy I might add) is acceptable shall a list of atrocities committed by the Crown against its subjects in Ulster as well as other locations in the UK be a proper refutation?
At least one of the main fund raisers for that US support of the IRA is finally worm food as of this week.
Posted by: KenS | August 28, 2009 7:26 PM
It was a Kennedy thing, supporting the IRA and thank God he's finally dead and can do no more harm, but his dad Ambassador Joe tried even worse for Britain.
Posted by: DirtCrashr | August 28, 2009 8:28 PM
Sadly, Liddle is correct, in that part at least. No links necessary. The U.S. never sent back an IRA terrorist (despite several requests from the Brits), and Noraid was enormously popular in Boston, Chicago and NYC.
Shame on us.
But two wrongs don't make a right, and Scotland was wrong to send back this terrorist bastard, cancer or no.
Posted by: Kim du Toit | August 28, 2009 9:57 PM
Funny how the irish bastards in NY (ive nothing against the irish, I quite like the ones Ive met-mostly, but anyone to do with the IRA, including the f'in pope is a dirty bastard, the kennedys were dirty bastards as well, I worry that clinton and prez hussain are upset about this, it means that it must have been the right thing to do! personally I doubt the conviction anyway, maybe he had cancer and was paid to be thrown under the bus so the gadfly could have a public re-habilitation and get on with selling oil to france.
One thing, just because a prisoner has cancer, and I bet the medical care is better in Scotland than Lybia (maybe that is why the jocks outed him-being tight maybe his medical bill was getting big and london would not cover it?) why should any prisoner get out just because they are dying? unless they are nearing parole why let them go?
Posted by: chris Edwards | August 29, 2009 12:02 AM
We Americans tend to have short memories. I was a child and then a teenager during the 70's and 80's. I remember reading in the papers about the violence in Northern Ireland and the bombings in the rest of the UK. Oddly until today I was not aware that we had never extradited any of the terrorists back to the UK where they could face justice.
But you are right, now that the shoe is on the other foot, we don't like the fit at all. Sadly our governments are going to learn nothing from this entire ordeal.
Still holding out hope for one B2 flight over Libya. One JDAM and problem solved for good.
Posted by: Kevin Knowles | August 29, 2009 6:58 AM
http://www.theospark.net/2009/08/stormbringer-sends.html
Posted by: Gary | August 29, 2009 11:01 AM
KenS, you obviously have first hand experience of the Troubles? Just asking because it never was Crown forces oppressing poor Catholics, it was locally born Ulster folk doing exactly what the Yanks had been doing to their Blacks for years.
NOW WHAT ABOUT THE ATROCITTIES COMMITTED BY TERRORISTS OF BOTH CREEDS?
Thats what I spent 3 years of my career dealing with and trying to prevent - next time stand up so we can hear you more clearly, in fact drop your pants as they are muffling your speech from your arse!
Posted by: TimC | August 29, 2009 7:12 PM
Mr Fm...no problem with the America /IRA thing as I have witnessed it at first hand...but Liddle? he wrote speeches for the friggin labour party....not a champagne socialist? hmmm.
Posted by: thud | August 29, 2009 11:30 PM
You'll find no lover of the PIRA here, and I'm one-quarter Irish. The bastards ought to be exterminated and any American who funded them, including the Kennedy family, should be jailed. We should dig up Jack, Bobby, and Ted and jail their rotting corpses.
Obama's first reaction to this was that it was a "mistake". Talk about an understatement! It ranks right up there with "broke the rules" when North Korea launched a multi-stage missile. The media had to spin it into "condemn" for him.
Posted by: POWinCA | August 30, 2009 10:13 AM
Even a liberal can be correct about some things. I ask the question though...were the extradition requests made during a Democratic majority rule of the house...as in that drunken sot, Tip O'Neill? That might explain part of why many were not extradited, but I could be wrong.
Nope, we don't like it one bit, and even less because of Obama and Shrillery.
Posted by: Cricket | August 30, 2009 9:18 PM