Tit For Tat

The day the Pan Am flight was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie still lives on in my memory. It shook the world to its core and struck at the very heart of the free world that such a callous, cowardly atrocity could be enacted above our sovereign territory and so brutally.

It was a mere appetiser in terrorist atrocity terms when compared to 9/11 and to some extent Britain had been numbed to sensational acts of violence after years of IRA campaigns but Lockerbie was defining moment - and for many the connection to Libya was one that damned that nation, if not forever, then for a long time.

The flight was bound to the USA and it was an American airline and so many of the 270 victims were US citizens and so this hit both countries with an equal intensity. In Ireland, we had long differentiated the fact that the Government and the vast majority of citizens had distanced themselves from the extremists within the IRA and its sister organisations - they were rogues, dissidents, terrorists. What made Libya different was that the rogue behaviour went right to the top - to its Dictator, Col. Gadaffi.

It came as a huge surprise to most people in the UK and the US, I am sure, who were old enough to remember the old Libya and you didn't have to be that old to remember that President Clinton regularly dropped bombs on Libya, when in the aftermath of 9/11 that Libya was hurriedly, without warning or question, welcomed back into our protective net. Gadaffi had apparently denounced terrorism and that was good enough for anyone. As if the British Government has no memory or conscience about those whose lives were so cowardly taken that terrible night above Lockerbie, they started feeding on Libya's prizes almost immediately.

As soon as Tony Blair could get his fresh face there, Brown since and Straw at the helm, it seems, we, Britain, have been negotiating with the former rogue state, happy to sell the legacy of those who died over Lockerbie for some oil. A 'Prisoner Transfer' deal was struck, and to the annoyance of the Scottish Justice System, who had found Megrahi guilty of the crime and sentenced him to life in prison as the crime was deemed to have been committed on Scottish soil although the bomb may have exploded over England, the Lockerbie bomber's 'transfer' was added into the agreement.

OK, so technically he was recently released on compassionate grounds - he was dying. But what are the families and friends of the Lockerbie victims going to think? For most of us, a life sentence meant that you end your life in prison. What about the feelings of average Scottish people or British generally? What about the feelings of the Americans? Cut it whatever way you want, that bomb exploded above Britain and a British judicial system convicted and then released the bomber - in the eyes of Americans, not the Scottish alone. If the Americans had had their way, Megrahi, would have been tried in a US court and either be dead now or long forgotten in a US jail where his chances of survival would have been slim long before his fatal illness struck. In particular, the man at the FBI who led the whole investigation to find Megrahi was infuriated.

In an apparent tit for tat move, President Obama, is welcoming Government officials from Japan and China prior to the forthcoming G20 talks in Pittsburgh. But all he has afforded the 'Special Relationship' so far is a chat by the coffee machine and he has rebuffed attempts to have some showpiece talks. Just about every US citizen would have been reviled to have witnessed the scenes when Megrahi returned home, a national hero of a former rogue state having been convicted of killing 270 people, and more reviled to have seen a Scottish flag waving in thanks. It will not be lost on US officials and citizens that Gordon Brown is himself a Scot.

The whole sorry saga of Britain's frenzy to get oil deals and sell out justice for the 270 people who died at Lockerbie is a disgusting indictment on modern politics. I condemn the Americans for their own part in suddenly allowing Gadaffi back into the mainstream with no caveats but Britain just could not wait. To us, it wasn't about forgiving terrorism, it was about trade and big money - and we all know how our 'Champagne Socialists' feel about big money these days.

In many instances, I believe our Government has blood on its hands for lots of other reasons. In the case of the Lockerbie bomber, I think it has behaved shamefully and is a disgrace to all people who remember the Lockerbie bombing and the cold-blooded shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher on the streets of London and then watched her killer just walk away under diplomatic protection.

The matter has been conveniently and expertly brushed under the carpet as per usual in this country. But to their credit, the Americans have not forgotten and it looks like Britain has gone down a notch or too in the pecking order of world politics as Obama deliberately avoids directly meeting Gordon Brown and his flunkies.

Good on Obama, good on America. We deserve it.