Well done Scotland for freeing Lockerbie bomber

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted for the Lockerbie bombings has been released from prison in Scotland on compassionate grounds. He has not completed his life sentence but has prostate cancer which is set to kill him within the next months.

America disagrees with this compassionate release because they have a warped concept of justice and punishment - compassion does not come easily to the mass American conscience. Scotland's decision has been opposed publicly by Obama and byHillary Clinton and these two represent the upper echelons of the Democrats, the liberal ones in America.

For the Americans, the purpose of punishment isn't as much to prevent further crime or to punish the individual who has committed the crime, as it is to satisfy the insatiable bloodlust of their paleoconservative populace. It is of no consequence to them whether a criminal 'sees the error of his ways' or straightens up and changes his behaviour - what matters is how much this criminal should be made to suffer, how many liberties can be taken away and how to ensure that everyone is aware of it. What sort of mindset are we breeding where we imprison and kill people people, essentially out of respect for their victims' families? Fuck rehabilation; they'd rather see a stoning.

al-Meghrahi is dying of cancer and I cannot see what the Americans seek to achieve by letting him die in prison. Contrary to popular belief, and to common practice, prisons aren't supposed to kill people - certainly not prisons in Scotland. It would have been very spineless to allow him to die in prison in order to 'send out a message' that terrorism is bad - that would have shown a disregard for his humanity and isn't this 'lack of humanity' what al-Meghrahi is being punished for?

'Time for change' seems a fleeting memory now - Obama's not that different after all is he. I applaud the Scottish government for making this compassionate decision, and especially for them to stay true to it under intense scrutiny from the mob across the pond. The Lockerbie bomber is a bad man but if we are to deny him human treatment, we are opening the door to greater evils within the mainstream of society. If the US can't see that through their sullied patriotic tears, it really is their problem and the decline of their global cultural hegemony ought to be welcomed with open arms.