When I was a small boy living in Scotland the Lockerbie bombing haunted me. If it could happen to that little village I was SURE it could happen to mine. Especially since we lived next to two large RAF bases.
And when we left Heathrow airport about a week later for a Mediterranean holiday, I expected the plane to blow up at any moment. All the way there and ALL the way back. So at the time, if I'd had the chance, I would have smothered the bomber with my teddy bear.
But now that he is dying and has been released on compassionate grounds, and some Americans are in a foaming rage. And threatening to boycott Scotland.
A FURIOUS anti-Scottish backlash over the decision to free the Lockerbie bomber erupted last night as Americans threatened to cancel trips across the Atlantic and were urged to stop doing business with Scotland.
And every Con in Canada from Small Dead Chihuahuas to the National Disgrace has jumped on the bash Scotland bandwagon.
All I can say is I've never felt prouder to have been born in that small but beautiful country..
And I agree with this guy.
For 16 years now, our statutes have given us leave to release from prison anyone who is deemed by competent medical authority to have three months or less to live. It was a concession rooted in compassion, pity and forgiveness. Few in the United Kingdom have ever taken issue with it. It is a good and just law. MacAskill simply applied it.
You don't sacrifice the values of a country upon the altar of political expediency. And you certainly don't take any morality lessons from the United States.
Scotland needs no lessons in matters of fairness from a country that has been routinely waterboarding suspects in Guantánamo Bay.
The next time Clinton calls to express her disgust about the decision to send Megrahi home to die, perhaps someone in the Scottish government could ask her in return about the leniency shown to US soldiers involved in the Mai Lai massacre in 1968. And then they can remind her about the US warship Vincennes, which blew an Iranian Airbus and its 290 passengers out of the sky in 1988.
I'm sorry many of the relatives of the victims are so angry. And I share their disgust about the way the dying bomber was received in Libya. But that's Libya's problem not Scotland's. And revenge isn't justice or a Scottish value....unless you belong to a Glasgow street gang. So they are just going to have to live with it until the bomber dies.
Because values are what make a country. And showing decency and compassion in an ugly world...or showing the scummy terrorists that we are BETTER than them... is as they say PRICELESS.
So let the Americans stay away. The Scottish people don't need them. No fish and chips and mushy peas for them...
That'll teach 'em...
Let them scream I'm so ASHAMED to be Scottish. WAAAAAAAH !!!
But when I next visit my humble little village on the north east coast of Scotland. Like I do in the following tape.
I'll be looking out of the window of the plane as it comes in to land in Glasgow.
Thinking you don't have to be big to be GREAT.
And singing this song....
