Bomber Dies?

Daily Telegraph

So, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is dead.  The man accused of the Lockerbie bombing passes away but the uneasy sense of injustice does not.  In spite of the decision of Scots Judges in the trial few believe this man committed this outrage.  Clearly, as we have stated before, a political stitch up has taken place to satisfy a sense of justice, and the result was that justice was not done!  Two points remain.  Evidence keeps 'leaking out' that Megrahi could not have been the bomber but few seek to investigate this.  What have the authorities to hide?  The other point is Captain Will Rogers action of downing Iran Air IR655, killing 290, including 66 children.  Ronald Reagan not only walked away from this event he awarded a campaign medal to Rogers.  How do the crew of his ship feel now I wonder?  Many Americans appear too keen to accept this man's guilt, yet many relatives have no belief in his being the bomber.  Too many questions still remain unanswered, I suspect it will be 50 years before answers appear.

The Heart Of Midlothian paraded the Scottish Cup before their millions of fans today.  Travelling through Scotland's historic capital the joyous throng cheered the magnificent men in maroon!  Oh how I wish I had been there with them (although they appear not to have missed me) and cried my eyes out with happiness.  Oh joy!  It is difficult to believe but there was a time I wondered if I would ever see Hearts win a trophy.  In 1962 I first stepped through the hallowed turnstile at Tynecastle Stadium and watched them defeat the Airdrionians by 6 goals to 1 and thought it would always be like this!  The sun shone, the sky was blue and the world seemed good.  That year we won the League Cup and it appeared to my mind that joy would always be mine!  The victories would keep coming and I would be there to see it!  However reality came into things.  After the fifties, when the Heart of Midlothian swept all aside, the sixties saw a change, a change for the worst.  After missing out on the League Championship in 1964/5 we entered upon a 'youth policy.'  This meant 'cheap!  (a lawyer was chairman!)  Then followed years of despair, as you will guess I was there, at almost every game!  Standing at Paisley, with the sleet hammering into our faces, we sang 'We shall overcome,' and lost three nil to a St Mirren side that got relegated.   I saw a great deal of Scotland at this time, and usually returned depressed! It wasn't meant to be like this!  It was 1998 before Stephan Adam (oh joy!) waltzed round the Rangers defence and smacked the winning goal home.  How we rejoiced!   Almost forty years we had waited for this, a phrase much repeated as we watched the open top bus slowly make its way through the crowds.  The pain had gone!  In 2006 we did it again!  And now we have won the Scottish Cup for the third time so few years!  (tears flow at this point) Who would have thought this would happen.  I give thanks to God he allowed me to support the Hearts, a proper football team, not one with scurrilous attitudes or reasons to be embarrassed. How grateful I am!

However we must take a moment to consider the Hibernian players and fans who suffered such a defeat yesterday.  After all the last time we met in the final, in 1896, we won that one also!  The wee team must despair at our constant success, and habit of trouncing them every time we play them, a habit that stems from the first encounter on Christmas Day 1875, we won that one nil.  Let us consider their pain, anguish, torment and despair thoughtfully.

  

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Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, has been released from Greenock prison and is on his way back to Libya.

Quite right too!

There are serious doubts as to this man's guilt. There clearly was political interference in this trial, and Scotland, with its own government, has been pressurised both by the UK and the US governments. I am proud of the way the Scots have decided to follow their own inclinations, and correct inclinations at that, to put mercy, a part of the Scots legal system, at the heart of the judicial decision. This was a legal decision, and a correct one.

How did we get into this mess?

The most likely reason is the incompetent, 'Gun-Ho' attitude of the USS Vincennes, under Captain Will Rogers III. The ship was known as 'Robocruiser,' by other US warships in the Gulf at the time. The US had placed many warships in the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war for reasons of their own. Such ships began challenging every aircraft, commercial or otherwise, even including those approaching Dubai International Airport! Their panic, inspired by lurid anti-Iran propaganda, their incompetence and lack of training, their lack of knowledge of air routes and how commercial airlines operated, added to the 'John Wayne' closed minded bullying so beloved of American military men, inevitably led to disaster!

On 3rd July 1988, Iran Air IR655 took off on a regular commercial flight and headed over the Gulf. The pilot, Captain Mohsen Rezaian, an experienced pilot and a regular on this route, communicated with three air controllers as he flew. The channel he used meant he could not accept incoming calls from the Vincennes, as the ship ought to have realised, and he continued to ascend while the panicking US warship below decided he was in fact 'diving' to attack. Concluding, against all the evidence, that this was an F-14 Iranian Fighter the Yanks shot two heat seeking missiles and brought down 290 passengers and crew, including 66 children. Their bodies could be seen falling from the sky by other US ships.

The US propaganda went into full spin, supported by the ever faithful Margaret Thatcher. Claims of attacking Iranian gunboats, the airbus diving with a suicidal pilot and other lies filled the media. All were proved to be a lie. President Reagan, a comedian that would never have been elected in any other nation, apologised to the world, and considered this 'sufficient. He wrote to Congress stating 'This matter....is closed.' As he spoke most of the bodies lay unclaimed, and unrecognisable, in a warehouse.

Later, the USS Vincennes returned home to a hero's welcome. Te crew received 'combat medals,' and lauded by US for their prompt action. The dead were forgotten, after all they were mostly Iranian, and they were enemies sworn to destroy America. So that's all right then. The children probably had no idea America existed even when they fell out of the aircraft at 10,000 feet! However, they know now, don't they!

Aircraft leaving Heathrow and heading for North America follow a path towards the west coast of England and cross the border into Scotland shortly before heading over the Atlantic. On the 21st of December, four days before Christmas 1988, Pan-Am Boeing 747-121, named 'Clipper, Maid of the Seas,' flying at 31,000 feet, exploded just as it reached this point. A mere six months after Iran Air IR 655 had been brought down. The plane landed in the small Scots town of Lockerbie killing 243 passengers, 16 crew, and 11 people on the ground. 270 in all.

After an exhaustive investigation, covering many parts of the world, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was the only man convicted of the crime. The fact that one man took the blame indictaes something somewhere has never been revealed concerning this conviction. One man could never have taken this action, so who did? Did the Ayatollah Khomeini's talk of vengeance lead to Lockerbie? Did Ahmed Jibril, the leader of the PFLP-GC, or the Syrians have a part in this? Will we ever know? I doubt it.

One thing is clear, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is dying. Scot law allows for mercy, even to those convicted of serious crime, around three dozen such claims have already been made in Scottish prisons this year already. He may well have had a part in this crime yet I agree with this decision. It reflects well on Scottish standards, and indeed on the majority of the relatives of the many Britons killed in the Lockerbie incident. It reveals a great deal about American attitudes and in particular those relatives of US dead who wish to see this man die in jail. I wonder how they reacted to the USS Vincennes incident? Did they notice this happening? Did they excuse this as a ship 'defending' itself? is it possible these relatives were amongst those honouring the men responsible for the Iranian Airbus being brought down?

Life is very hard sometimes. Barbara W. Tuchman, an excellent American historian, wrote a book called, 'The March of Folly,' in which she used four wars to show how a lack of understanding of your enemy leads to conflict. A failure amongst US and Iranian political leaders, alongside Saddam Hussein's war with Iraq, political 'spin' ensuring the enemy is painted black and truth is avoided, on all sides. A culture with moral lack, and fear amongst men forced into places and situations they do not understand, all these led to 560 needless deaths!

We will hear much more of this situation for a while to come. We will however never find the truth! The media, following the lead of their owners will say whatever they are told to say, and some thought 'Pravda' was a lie, the papers concerned with the need to make money as opposed to honest journalism. Truth does not make money, giving the people what they 'wish' to read does!

Sending Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi home shows Scotland in a good light, merciful and just. I agree with the decision, as should all people. It does not help the relatives, but neither does the lack of truth, and that will never be revealed.