Two headlines from Britain. The first describes how the Lockerbie bomber, convicted of killing 270 people, was released to a hero’s welcome in Libya on “compassionate grounds”. The second describes how an 18 year old girl has been jailed for bullying someone on Facebook. For the first story, let’s turn to Andrew McCarthy at the NRO who explains the half-hearted attempts to keep the Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in custody.
The Obama administration did nothing meaningful to stop it from happening. Perhaps the White House and the State Department were too embarrassed to try. In June, when they made arrangements with Bermuda’s prime-minister to transfer four of the Uighur detainees (trained jihadists) from Guantanamo Bay to the tiny island, they cut the British government out of the secret negotiations — even though Britain, aside from being our closest ally, is responsible for the foreign policy and national security of Bermuda, its protectorate. Laughably, the president is reported to have called for the terrorist to be placed under house arrest and to have “warned” Colonel Gadhafi “not to give him a hero’s welcome.”
They gave him a hero’s welcome anyway and there is some reason to think that it isn’t just Megrahi who is happy. The Daily Mail says the Libyan’s release is now being linked to a trade deal with the UK. “Mr Gaddafi, who discussed the case with Business Secretary Lord Mandelson when they met in Corfu just weeks ago, hailed Megrahi’s the release as a ‘victory’ for all Libyans. Megrahi himself called his freedom ‘something amazing’. Sitting on a sofa in his family home in Tripoli he said: ‘I’m very, very happy. This was always my hope and wish to be back with my family before I pass away.’ Smiles all around, then, and three cheers for the value of engagement. Well the British may be soft on terror, but not the US. No sirree. Why even though the word hardly isn’t used any more doesn’t mean the administration isn’t against it. Whatever “it” is. McCarthy says,
Obama’s Justice Department, meanwhile, gave a lesser-charges plea deal to Ali Saleh Kallah al-Marri, another member of al-Qaeda’s second-wave plot. The deal caps Marri’s potential sentence at 15 years and permits the judge to impose as little as the time Marri has already served, meaning about six years. … And the Justice Department recently hired Jennifer Daskal, a left-wing activist from Human Rights Watch, to help shape its detainee policies. She has worked in behalf of terrorist prisoners for years. To give just a thumbnail sketch, Daskal has expressed doubt about the guilt of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (arguing that we may have tortured him into admitting to the atrocities he has repeatedly bragged about committing); has lamented that one detainee, “a self-styled poet,” suffered abuse in U.S. custody when he “found it was nearly impossible to write poetry anymore because the prison guards would only allow him to keep a pen or pencil in his cell for short periods of time”; and has argued on behalf of terrorist detainee Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he allegedly launched the grenade that killed U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer, because a prosecution of Khadr would violate his “rights as a child.”
Meanwhile, an 18-year old British girl “who posted a death threat on Facebook, yesterday became the first person in Britain to be jailed for bullying on a social networking site.” The Daily Mail explains.
People have previously been jailed for harassment and stalking on social networking sites but she is thought to be the first to be jailed for bullying via the internet. … Meanwhile term ‘Facebook Rage’ is entering our language, often defined as feeling anger when a relationship breaks down and a former partner begins posting updates about their love-life. … Facebook was also in the dock a fortnight ago after a judge banned a gang of thugs from posting menacing photographs of themselves online. In a landmark ruling, nine men pictured making gun gestures on social networking websites will be locked up if such images appear again.
Making “gun gestures”! That’s almost as bad as playing the air guitar. But that’s the British for you. Thank God the real press in America (as opposed to the alternative media like this site) continues to provide all the news that’s fit to print.
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