One of the luxuries of being away from Australia (well, not for many Americans, since I was indistinguishably present in Austria), is that one can, from a distance, gain a different perspective.
Seeking out an English language newspaper, today I paid six bucks for a copy of the Times.  Isn’t it ironic when one considers that the Australian can be picked up gratis from a metropolitan railway station but another national fourth estate treasure holds its price

A couple of days ago the Times reported that Britons and overwhelmingly, Americans are seriously unhappy with the decision to free the convicted terrorist – the Libyan former spook Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, just 8 years into a 27 year sentence for murdering 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. The murderer, let’s be quite clear is alleged to be dying of prostate cancer and has, it is said (by presumably medical experts in direct communion with God) only three months to live.

This compassionate act displays the depth of the British legal system and strongly contrasts it with the “laws” supposed to be held as fundamentalist truth – by  fundamentalists.  The Times reported that justice has been done and that British justice does not preclude access to compassion.

But it really does call into question the motivation of the British authorities for whom the need to be seen to be compassionate by a fundamentalist dictatorship is apparently a priority.

How can this be ?  How can a British government politician facing certain annihilation at the next election, or any public servant or diplomat justify this supine act ?

The Times was even-handed in dishing out the vitriol.  They reported that the United States ‘deeply regretted the decision”.  Mon brave !  Translation : Obama and the really reasonable team are seriously pissed off.  Big mistake !

So what could be the motivation ?

Perhaps the most outrageous part was the circus plastered over the front page of the Times on Friday 21 August.  It includes a photograph of the murderer, being escorted down the gangway from General Gaddafi’s private plane – by his son – to a “hero’s welcome”.

Big mistake #2.  And big revelation.  British compassion does not lead to Libyan contrition.   The clash of values systems.

At least the Brits – well the Scots are up to a bit of arse covering with the Scottish Parliament being recalled to discuss (and big prediction ‘condemn’) the release.  The Times presaged a public inquiry and an opportunity to spend a few million more taxpayers’ pounds in pursuit of the last few million they spent to secure the conviction and maintain the inmate alive in incarceration.

From the comfortable distance that Australia has from British politics – mostly – the decision to release a mass murder looks like arrant nonsense and must be deeply offensive to the families of the victims. The appalling release of fundamentalists complicit in the Bali and Jakarta bombings after a few years’ incarceration in the minds of many Australians was not compensated by the execution of the three murderers.  Moreover, many Australians including even some who lost love ones in these atrocities, expressed the view that execution was stooping to a lower form of justice not acceptable  in civilised nations and that martyrdom for the convicted murderers was highly counter-productive.

And perhaps here in lies the answer.  If death from prostate cancer for the Lockerbie bomber is certain, this is certainly not a death in custody that the British government wants on its hands.  Particularly when one considers the recent efforts both the Americans and the British have been putting into rehabilitating at least one dictator.

So is the price of North African oil cheaper than that of the Middle East or is it any easier to justify morally ?