And another thing…

I await the further inquiries into Lockerbie we are belatedly promised. Al Megrahi did not act alone.

I pray the release was right and believe it was.

Those who decry politicians, and minsters in particular, might consider that such decisions are neither lightly taken nor are there infallible answers to such questions.

Let us one compare and contrast the cheer at the SNP 2005 Conference to the conviction of a political rival who had bereaved not one of them to their calls for us to offer compassion on behalf of a mass-murderer who’d only been responsible for the deaths mostly Americans, and standing ovation delivered to Macaskill at the 2009 Conference.

Truly worthless individuals.

I note the inference that the bomber continuing to live could lead to ‘… the end of his (MacAskill) career in government at worst’. Using that logic, if he’d died the day after arriving back, then MacAskill’s career would now be living in Bute House!

You either agree with the decision or not. That is everything. How long the bomber lives is an irrelevance to the judgement taken.

Why was it right Quietzapple?

Perhaps the best comment on the Megrahi affair was a cartoon by Neil Bennet in Private Eye – a city type saying ‘I see compassion’s hit $140 a barrel’.

As for certainty on whodunnit search me guv. It seems very unlikely to me that Megrahi is an innocent player, but even unlikelier that he acted alone.

What struck an odd note was the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic church aligning to pontificate (as it were) on the ingrained nature of Scottish compassion. In the Glasgow I grew up in, clergy of both churches commonly told us that our pals, either Prods or Papes according to which church you went to, were going to hell.

Oh and 1960s Scottish newspapers carried job ads that specified no ‘Catholics need apply’ with no great objection from the Church of Scotland, so all this native institutional compassion must be a very recent and shallow-grounded thing.

@Pip,

No. While I personally disagree with the release, I would not have minded as much as I do if he had died fairly soon afterwards (since to be released, you’re meant to die within 3 weeks). To carry on living makes a mockery of the “compassion” of the inept Scottish govt (and Labour as I doubt they had nothing to do with it) and so will put the last nail in the coffin as it were.

If Al Megrahi had died within 2 days, MacAskill could have said “see, compassion”. Now its, “see, I’m inept!”

In ethical terms, the various expressions down the ages of the so-called Golden Rule embody by implication the principle of compassion: Do to others what you would have them do to you. [1]

Ranked a great virtue in numerous philosophies, compassion is considered in all the major religious traditions as among the greatest of virtues. WIKI

“I oppose capital punishment, and I do not want Al-Megrahi or anyone else to die (well, no-one that you have ever heard of, anyway)”

Now that’s really intriguing…

Quietzapple: “Golden Rule embody by implication the principle of compassion: Do to others what you would have them do to you.”

If I committed mass murder I would expect to die in prison. I understand, in the pursuance of my chosen career, that life means life.

So where does that leave us now with your Golden rule ?

It’s quite interesting to compare and contrast this post with your previous one.

In that one you define a war criminal as someone who deliberately targets civilians. The Lockerbie bombing was clearly targeted at civilians so while we might not label the person who ordered it a war criminal (because we were not at war) it is somewhere in the same territory surely.

If we accept the verdict of the court then Megrahi was guilty of the crime, acting as an agent of the Libyan Government. Yet he was the only one punished for it while the head of the Libyan Government has been rehabilitated – at the behest it would seem of Tony Blair. It was Blair after all who arranged the deal in the desert. The point was well made on the cover of Holyrood magazine the week Megrahi was released when they published pictures of Gadaffi with Blair, with Brown and with Obama.

So to summarise: assuming the verdict was correct Gadaffi has got away with it completely, with Megrahi as the scapegoat. We later learn that Megrahi’s release on compassionate ground was considered expedient by the Labour in London while Labour in Scotland jumped up and down about it. Now we have wee Bill Aitken joining in the jumping up and down by demanding to see Megrahi’s medical records, even though if any member of staff disclosed them they could be sacked.

What a farce. No wonder it is SNP politicians that win Politician of the Year over and over with competition like that.

Scott S – and here was me thinking MacAskill is no doctor and instead relied on medical advice as to the likelihood of the bomber dying with 3 months (not 3 weeks as you stated). My point? Simply that whenever the bomber dies is a side issue – by all means criticise MacAskill for releasing the guy at all if you like, but not for following the medical advice that may turn out to be incorrect.

@Triffid:

“would have” and “would want” differ, doubt you can see that.

btw I cannot claim authorship of the golden rule.

Our species are pretty fond of it, all over our planet.

When you are leaking toxic fluid we may make an exception, as you suggest . . .

Of course, the above comments all fall into the trap of believing Megrahi actually did it.

The authenticity of the key piece of evidence (the timer) is unravelling at a rate of knotts, while key questions about the security procedures in place at Heathrow on the day of the bombing remain unanswered, as does the cover-up about said procedures until after the trial.

Megrahi’s conviction has made “Scottish justice” a laughing stock world-wide, almost as much as MacAskil’s twisting himself up in knotts defending the very system which got hte wrong man. As Quietzapple points out, only an Inquiry, blocked by four Prime Ministers and counting, will shed light on the worst failure of British inteligence pre Iraq.

Of course, the above comments all fall into the trap of believing Megrahi actually did it.

The authenticity of the key piece of evidence (the timer) is unravelling at a rate of knots, while key questions about the security procedures in place at Heathrow on the day of the bombing remain unanswered, as does the cover-up about said procedures until after the trial.

Megrahi’s conviction has made “Scottish justice” a laughing stock world-wide, almost as much as MacAskil’s twisting himself up in knots defending the very system which got hte wrong man. As Quietzapple points out, only an Inquiry, blocked by four Prime Ministers and counting, will shed light on the worst failure of British intelligence pre Iraq.

Everyone deserves to die. It’s the price we pay for the priviledge of life.

@Allan: Oh no I didn’t.

ie accept that he did it.

Interestingly you blame the person who announced the policy and not those who left him alone to make it.

I watched a very interesting Panorama last night, and the interpretation of the Law might have applications here too

Shouldn’t the complicity of all receive the same treatment Tom? I look forward to the restatement of your intent to include all the decision makers, not just the one who did the deed

Kenny Macskill was the only decision maker as he had to be acting in a quasi-judicial capacity. Whether that is correct is another matter, I tend to think such decisions should be handed to a tribunal or panel of judges as Alan Miller suggets. However under the system which exists at present Kenny MacAskill was the only person who could take the decision.

All the conspiracy theories about UK ministers putting pressure on the Scottish Government are a load of tosh. Kenny MacAskill’s decision suited the UK Government but that was not the reason that he made it.

‘Do to others as you would have done to yourself.’

Maybe we should have dropped him from 40,000 feet instead then. If I ever kill 300 innocents I want pain and torment rained down upon me, now please to that to others. There you go, still sticking to your golden rule.

‘Sick spectator sport’. Nothing sick about it old fruit. Highly wholesome and enjoyable. The more painful his demise the better.

O/T but I do like your banner add concerning GB’s sale of our gold reserves. Classic!

BTW Tom . .

Will you be requesting a banner headline highlighting how much better off Britain would have been had Thatcher/Howe switched much of our Gold to a more balanced reserve about 1982?

Might have avoided Black Wednesday even . . .

Brown might then have had other currencies etc to sell when we needed to diversify into the Euro, which is still doing pretty well.

Roger the Dodger might recall Mr Heath’s imprecation to those who said they would be happy to be the UK’s hangman, that they should volunteer to be hung by mistake.

Let’s hope he doesn’t die of prostate cancer in a foreign jail while claiming, so as to convince some intelligent people who have studied the matter, not to have committed mass murder.

He is in line to remain a fairly witless troll mind, dead or alive.