Eleven and one-half days. That’s how much prison time columnist Charles Krauthammer reckons Libyan terrorist Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi served for each of the 270 people he murdered when he planted the bomb that blew Pan Am flight 103 out of the skies. Nothing like the 27 years to which Megrahi was sentenced. But the terrorist has terminal prostate cancer, or so the doctors say, so the Scottish authorities decided “compassion” and “Scottish values” dictated his release and return to Libya, where he formerly served as an intelligence agent.
American outrage at the decision of Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to ignore the pleas of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and allow Megrahi to return to Libya in time for Ramadan, and to a hero’s welcome, was predictable. But nevertheless it seems to have come as a surprise to Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), which wants to break free from the United Kingdom and become an independent country — taking the North Sea oil with it, of course. Salmond says that the relationship with the United States will be unaffected by the decision, and will remain “strong and enduring.” He might be counting on the millions of Americans who claim Scottish descent, and the 50-member Friends of Scotland Caucus in Congress, which has its own tartan. Never mind that this is the same Scottish leader whom the Financial Times reports has “criticized the folksy ‘whisky-and-shortbread’ image of Scotland among their American cousins.”
