Ghost of a flea

The map is not the territory

Can there be anyone paying attention who is in the least surprised to learn the British government sold out the dead of Lockerbie? One is tempted to observe, you know, maybe it is all about oil. But such would be to miss the point about this squalid little deal, the squalid little men behind it and the undeniable outrage to the murdered and their families.

First, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi should never have been tried in the first place. The man was not and is not a terrorist. The man was an is an agent of the Libyan "government". Lockerbie was not an act of terror. Lockerbie was an act of war.

I blame President Ronald Reagan for not treating it as such.

Second, if the law had any role to play in the matter, it should have been American law by which this Libyan agent was tried, convicted and sentenced to death or to life imprisonment - real life imprisonment - in the United States. Just because this act of war ended in the skies over Scotland does not mean this act of war was directed against Scotland. It was not, it was directed against the United States. Scottish victims were not targets but bystanders. As such, Scottish jurisprudence should have had little if any role to play beyond the collection of evidence and the representation of Scottish victims on the ground.

Nevertheless, to point fingers at the Labour party, the Scots and the British Establishment is entirely justifiable. Given the cretinous masquerade of compassion to which the government of Scotland has subjected the free world, they have effectively victimized once again not only the murdered and their families but all free peoples in the face of Libya's sordid version of jihad. That said, while there is a small lesson to be found as we watch the British Establishment descend once again into a grotesque parody of itself there is little advantage - justified as it is - in pointing at them as they do so.

If anything, their performance only serves to underline our complacence.

The answer is not to be found in the law. The answer is to be found in war.

That is not my conclusion, it is not even my observation. It is the decision of the enemy and it will be made one way or another. It will be made whether or not we choose to recognize the fact before we are forced to do so at the point of a sword. And for so many of our countrymen, not even then.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 30, 2009 02:04 PM