The War on Terror... and other abstract nouns

Almost from the moment Kenny MacAskill announced his decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds, the backlash began. For the first time since his inauguration last January, Barack Obama actually seemed pretty miffed. Even Gordon Brown claimed he was 'repulsed' - although this comment appears to be more directed toward the rapturous welcome the shellsuit-clad Megrahi received in Tripoli, than any comment on his release. Perhaps it was the shellsuit itself that Brown found repulsive.

Now I don't want to get into too much detail about Megrahi here. Plenty of people in the know believe that his conviction was unsafe, and based on circumstantial evidence - although this of course was not a factor in the decision to release him. Balancing the need to punish a man convicted of 270 murders, against the need to show that "we" have a moral superiority over terrorists and can recognise that in some circumstances it is better to treat people with compassion rather than revenge, is a minefield. I'll leave it to those who are paid to make these decisions.

But I do want to focus, briefly, on the backlash. And not just the silly idea of boycotting Scottish products which has been mooted, presumably by the Freedom Fries brigade.

Broadly speaking, it seems that the major objection to Megrahi's release - understandably - is that many families remain bereaved by the murder of 270 civilians back in December 1988. Worse than that, he has failed to show any remorse for the crime - not least, presumably, because he had (until his release) been appealing against his conviction.



I remember clearly when I first heard about the Lockerbie tragedy. I was horrified. There is something about terrorism in the air that really has an emotional impact. And of course the terrorists know this. 9/11 is the prime example.

So, fair enough, I say. If you lost a loved one on Pan Am flight 103, or on the ground in Lockerbie itself, then you have every right to feel angry about Megrahi's release. As many relatives of the victims have pointed out, Megrahi didn't show a shred of compassion to the people he killed, so why should he be the beneficiary of compassion? Why, indeed, should anybody who blows up airliners full of civilians feel anything but the full force of the law?

For example...

Five months before Lockerbie, the USS Vincennes was steaming through the Straits of Hormuz. At the same time, Iran Air flight 655 was flying from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. 290 passengers and crew were aboard the Airbus A300, including 66 children. In the process of chasing some Iranian patrol vessels, the Vincennes shot down the Iranian jet, with the loss of all lives on board.



It took four years for the US Government to admit that the Vincennes had been in Iranian territorial waters at the time of the incident, and that the Airbus had been in Iranian airspace. The Americans' explanation that the aircraft had been mistaken for an attacking F14 Tomcat is of course laughable - the Airbus is 54 metres long and cruises at 515mph; whereas the Tomcat is just 19 metres long and travels at up to 1,500mph. This is a bit like mistaking an African elephant for a domestic cat. In broad daylight. With state-of-the-art military radar and aircraft recognition equipment. And at least one decent pair of binoculars. And a big sign saying "This Is An Elephant".


In August 1988, then President George H W Bush said of the incident: "I'll never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are." Which just about demonstrates the US attitude to destroying aircraft in mid-air... unless someone else does it, of course. It wasn't until 1996 that the US agreed to pay over $130 million in compensation. Which sort of looks like an admission of guilt. A bit.

So where is the outrage? The commander of the Vincennes, Captain William C Rogers III, was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1990 by President Bush "for exceptionaly meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer.... from April 1987 to May 1989". No trial took place, and Rogers was not subjected to a court-martial, despite the fact that he stated he did not believe the Airbus (which was transmitting an IFF code) was non-hostile. Sort of like mistaking a white flag for an RPG launcher, only even more stupid and reckless.

I don't know about you, but if I had lost a relative on Iran Air 655, I might be more than a little put out that the man responsible for its destruction was not only allowed to go unpunished, but was actually openly rewarded for his conduct at that time. Arguably, had the US taken this incident more seriously instead of attempting to cover it up, Lockerbie may never have happened.

But Iran Air 655 was still an accident, right? Well, possibly. But this wasn't.

6 October 1976. Cubana flight 455 is en route from Barbados to Jamaica, with 73 passengers and crew on board. Two explosions rip the aircraft apart, and the pilot crashes it into the ocean, once it becomes apparent he will not be able to make it back to land. All on board died.



14 October 1976. Luis Posada Carilles and Orlando Bosch are arrested in Caracas. Weapons, explosives, and a radio transmitter were found at Posada's company premises. Both men had been trained and employed by the CIA. A declassified CIA document quotes Posada as saying "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner... Orlando has the details" in September 1976.

8 August 1985. Two co-conspirators are found guilty of aggravated homicide in a Venezuelan court, and sentenced to twenty years. Bosch got off on a technicality (evidence wasn't translated into Spanish in time), and Posada escaped and went on the run.

Fast-forward to today. You might think that the United States government, with all the noise it makes about pursuing terrorists, might have nabbed these two by now. Perhaps they are languishing in some hellhole prison after being extraordinarily rendered by the CIA. Er, no.

In 1990, President George H W Bush (yes, him again) granted Bosch a pardon. He now lives in Miami. Posada was in fact arrested by US authorities in 2005, but only for illegally entering the United States. The charges were later dismissed - apparently because Posada faces the possibility of torture if extradited back to Venezuela. And they say Americans don't do irony. Like Bosch, Posada now lives freely in the USA - something that 73 innocent people will never be able to do.

Bosch, Posada, Rogers, and any number of other US-backed killers remain alive and at liberty; Abdulbaset al-Megrahi is about to die. It seems to me that Megrahi has served his sentence. Perhaps now we need to go after those who have yet to be held to account for their own crimes. And perhaps we can take some advice from a man that all US Presidents claim to follow: "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."