AL-MEGRAHI'S RELEASE.....

The most despicable scene in the annals of Libyan history took place last Thursday on the tarmac of the Tripoli International Airport; with the arrival of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a convicted criminal, responsible for the Pan Am bombing that snuffed out the lives of 270 people.

A near hero's welcome was accorded a murderer, whose prison sentence was curtailed on the flimsy excuse that he was suffering from a terminal cancer; and that the decision to allow him to return to his country was made on "compassionate grounds", because of his condition. Compassion?

The real reason, however, as has been reported in some circles (Britain's Sky News), was that the deal to release him spawned from a Libyan trade contract with Britain; and although, Britain's Foreign Office had denied that allegation, the circumstances that permitted "espionage" prisoners to be released in exchange for other commodities sounded extremely familiar. The families of those who died would not want that to be the case, or else, it would be a marked and permanent stain on the British. That kind of "exchange" happened from time to time, but the one that was just witnessed from a prison facility in Lockerbie, was going too far.

Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan President, had thumbed his nose at the world community in times past; and as his attitude showed, when he embraced al-Megrahi in Tripoli on Friday, he categorically demonstrated that he could not care less about what others thought. His gesture was an affront to decent people everywhere, and it should be counted as showing contempt to the world, one more time. His callousness would precede him wherever he went from now on.

As for the British, and particularly, the Scottish authorities who had recently flexed their political muscle to present to the rest of the world of their independence from White Hall (Westminster), it would be recognized that their conscience was not pricked for a moment, even for those who died on the ground, their own citizens, let alone the passengers and loved ones of the passengers of the Pan Am plane that al-Megrahi had a hand in its bombing. By their decision to release him (al-Megrahi) on "compassionate grounds", the Scottish had only proved that they were an independent entity; but they have not been able to indicate that they were politically "sovereign" by any chance.

The U.S. must condemn the release of al-Megrahi more vehemently than it already did.