Ok, let's see if I understand this right.
U.S. President Barack Obama is upset that the British Government released the convicted Lockerbie Bomber. This mass murder was horrific! On Wednesday, December 21, 1988, a Pan American World Airways jet travelling from London's Heathrow Airport to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York exploded over Lockerbie, in southern Scotland. Everyone on board, all 243 passengers and 16 crew members, perished. Innoncents, all of them, murdered. The carnage continued on the ground, killing 11 townspeople in Lockerbie, as large sections of the plane rained down on the community.
Pan Am flight 103 will not be forgotten.
In 2001, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, a Libyan, was convicted of involvement in this brutal massacre and got life in jail. On August 20, 2009, the Scottish Government released the convicted killer and allowed him to return to Libiya. The release was based on compassionate grounds as Al Megrahi is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.
The bomber received a hero's welcome upon his return to Libya. Boy, what a message that was.
All of this has upset the Obama administration and rightfully so.
There is a problem with all of this indignation from Obama. He wants to close the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp. The camp houses prisoners captured in Afghanistan since early 2002. The prisoners are classified as "enemy combatants". They wear no uniforms and mix in with the civilian population. As of January 2009, some 220 prisoners remained in the camp. Some of these prisoners are dangerous for sure, and if released will go back to the theatre of war and may even participate in the mass killing of innocents. We read about these bombings which take place in mosques, schools, and outdoor makets everyday. The word horrific does not adequately describe what is going on, and what some of these folks can do and have done.
I agree with Preident Obama: the Lockerbie Bomber should not have been released. But how does he justify the release of those at Guantánamo Bay?
