Libyan Ambassador Responds to Criticism

When Abdel Baset al-Megrahi landed in Tripoli following his release from Scotland last week, the world saw a single event in two very different ways. Through the prism of the Western media, Americans saw a terrorist being given a hero's welcome by a country eager to celebrate mass murder. Libyans saw a dying man—believed to be innocent by his countrymen and many others world-wide—being embraced by his family.

These words are penned by Ali Aujali, the Libyan ambassador to Washington.

He explains,

Most of those on the tarmac were members of Mr. Megrahi's extended family and tribe who have followed his plight and know he has very little time to live. The Scottish flags they flew alongside Libyan flags were not an endorsement of the terrible deeds of which he was accused. They were a powerful sign of solidarity between two very different nations that nonetheless share the value of compassion.

Interesting column. Read the full article, Why Libya Welcomed Megrahi, from the Wall Street Journal. Then, you make up your mind.

Terror Victims Getting Short Shrift at the White House?

Debra Burlingame a former attorney and a director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation, is the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, writes in today's Wall Street Journal On-line she and other victims feel "we'd been had" by the Obama administration as it dances around the issues surrounding justice for familes of 9/11 and the USS Cole attack. It seems the patience has worn out.

"Now, after more than eight years of waiting, Mr. Obama was stopping the trial of Abu Rahim al-Nashiri, the only individual to be held accountable for the bombing in a U.S. court. Patience finally gave out. The families were giving angry interviews, slamming the new president just days after he was sworn in."

She continues, "the Obama team quickly put together a meeting at the White House to get the situation under control. Individuals representing "a diversity of views" were invited to attend and express their concerns." The take on all this?

"We'd been had."

Delay, obfuscation, and out-right do-nothingness permeate the lives of terror victims families as they deal with the folks in Washington, D.C. Parents of kids murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists in the 1990s are still waiting for the US to bring to justice the killers of their kids.

Sami Al-Arian, poster boy for terror supporters the world over, was not brought to trial until 8 years after his books, records and computers were seized by Federal agents. The result, aged evidence that didn't translate well in the ears of the jurors. The trial resulted in an acquittal of the most serious charges and a plea by Al-Arian to supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

President Obama has not been clear on what his true intentions are on the release of Guantanamo detainees and how he will deal with captured terrorists in the future.

Read the full article Obama and the 9/11 Families