Quentin Letts: British weariness with terrorism
[Quentin Letts is political sketch writer and theater critic for London's Daily Mail newspaper. A former New York bureau chief for the London Times, he is the author of Fifty People Who Buggered Up Britain, a series of vituperative torpedoes aimed at Britain's political and cultural elite. He writes a weekly column for Forbes.]
The only surprising thing about Britain's release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi is that certain big shots in the U.S. were surprised. FBI director Robert Mueller spoke of al-Megrahi's release as "inexplicable" and "detrimental to the cause of justice," while George W. Bush's former U.N. ambassador John Bolton said he was "appalled by the decision."
Can two such intelligent and well-briefed men truly not have expected modern Britain to behave in this way?
Cynics would say that immovable honor and legal absoluteness have never been a characteristic of British governments. During our Empire years, we Brits developed quite a reputation, I fear, for being underhand and shrewd. There was propaganda from the likes of Rudyard Kipling--great poet, not such a great chronicler of the truth--about the Englishman's word being his bond, but the most successful colonizers have always had a little salt in their soul, and that is the way we behaved in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The story of how terminally ill al-Megrahi got freed from his Scottish gaol to receive a hero's welcome in Libya is slightly different. This is not simply a case of the slippery, cunning Brits doing dirty deals in the souk, although there was probably a little of that going on. It is not just about Gordon Brown's Labour Government sucking up to the Gaddafi regime in the hope of landing some juicy oil contracts, although Mr. Brown's silence on the issue so far suggests that he may have done things he ought not to have done. Be advised that Brown is one of life's flak dodgers. He didn't get where he is today by being forthright. His behavior so far in the al-Megrahi affair--keeping his head down and trying to point to others for the blame--is classic Gordon.
But these are side issues. The al-Megrahi story reflects a national weariness in Britain about terrorism, a feeling that agents of violence, in the end, have to be talked to and that even when the most bitter anguish has been suffered the wise politician never says "never." These are lessons we learned during the terrible years of republican terrorism in Northern Ireland, and they are lessons we were taught, as it happens, by U.S. politicians...
Read entire article at Forbes
The only surprising thing about Britain's release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi is that certain big shots in the U.S. were surprised. FBI director Robert Mueller spoke of al-Megrahi's release as "inexplicable" and "detrimental to the cause of justice," while George W. Bush's former U.N. ambassador John Bolton said he was "appalled by the decision."
Can two such intelligent and well-briefed men truly not have expected modern Britain to behave in this way?
Cynics would say that immovable honor and legal absoluteness have never been a characteristic of British governments. During our Empire years, we Brits developed quite a reputation, I fear, for being underhand and shrewd. There was propaganda from the likes of Rudyard Kipling--great poet, not such a great chronicler of the truth--about the Englishman's word being his bond, but the most successful colonizers have always had a little salt in their soul, and that is the way we behaved in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The story of how terminally ill al-Megrahi got freed from his Scottish gaol to receive a hero's welcome in Libya is slightly different. This is not simply a case of the slippery, cunning Brits doing dirty deals in the souk, although there was probably a little of that going on. It is not just about Gordon Brown's Labour Government sucking up to the Gaddafi regime in the hope of landing some juicy oil contracts, although Mr. Brown's silence on the issue so far suggests that he may have done things he ought not to have done. Be advised that Brown is one of life's flak dodgers. He didn't get where he is today by being forthright. His behavior so far in the al-Megrahi affair--keeping his head down and trying to point to others for the blame--is classic Gordon.
But these are side issues. The al-Megrahi story reflects a national weariness in Britain about terrorism, a feeling that agents of violence, in the end, have to be talked to and that even when the most bitter anguish has been suffered the wise politician never says "never." These are lessons we learned during the terrible years of republican terrorism in Northern Ireland, and they are lessons we were taught, as it happens, by U.S. politicians...