Terrorists Who Don't Face Justice: A Disappointing Trend
Outrage over the decision to release on “compassionate grounds,” Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the convicted bomber of Pan Am flight 103 who killed 270, including 189 Americans in 1998 has hit a nerve about how the worst extremists seemingly outflank justice. As the ailing convicted perpetrator of the second-worst terrorist attack in history against U.S. civilians is sunning himself amid cheers, flowers and hugs in Tripoli, an examination of the outcomes of other terrorism cases over the last century, big and small, yields its own pattern of disappointments.
Even before Megrahi’s release last week the case presented extreme difficulties for authorities and families alike. The trial, held by agreement in the Netherlands, not Scotland, commenced well over a decade after the attack, and a co-defendant was acquitted. By the time of his release Megrahi would have served about 12 days imprisonment for each life he took.
Of the other top five terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens besides Pan Am 103, only two resulted in the arrest and conviction of a perpetrator. The April 19, 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City Murrah federal building that killed 168 resulted in the execution of bomber Timothy McVeigh by lethal injection in 2001. For the other conviction, one has to go back almost a century to the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building which killed 21. For the rest of the most deadly attacks perpetrators escaped the bar of justice either by eluding capture--some permanently, or choosing the method and timing of their own demise.
Terrorist Incidents Directed Towards Americans by U.S. Deaths
1. 9/11 Attacks, Incendiary Bombing by Aircraft, NY, DC, PA 2975 killed, 9/11/ 2001 Al Qaeda
2. U.S. Marine Barracks, Truck Bombing , Beirut, Leb., 241killed (US) 10/23/1983 Hizbollah precursor
3. Pan Am Fl. 103, Aircraft Bombing, Lockerbie, Scotland, 270 killed (189 US), 12/21/ 1988 Libyan Agent
4. Murrah Fed. Bldg., Truck Bombing, Oklahoma City, OK, 168 killed 4/19/1995 Anti-gov't extremists
5. Bath MI School Bombings, Bombing, 44 killed, 5/18/1927 Disgruntled taxpayer
6. Wall Street Bombing, Horse cart Bomb, NY, 35 killed, 9/16/1920 Socialists/Anarchists Suspected
7. Los Angeles Times Bldg., Bombing, Los Angeles, CA, 21killed, 10/01/ 1910, Union militants
The 19 perpetrators of 9/11, the worst terrorist attack against Americans which killed over 2970 people, yielded no trial, but tons of conspiracy theorists. All the direct murderers died in the crashes. The October 1983 truck bomb attack, allegedly by a precursor of Hizbollah, that killed 241 sleeping servicemen on a contentious, but internationally designated peacekeeping mission, never resulted in a criminal trial. Accused mastermind Imad Mughniyah was allegedly involved in a string of brazen kidnappings and fatal bombings against American civilians, as well as government and military officials. He was eventually indicted by American authorities on another charge. The indictment stemmed from his masterminding of the hijacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985 where a U.S. sailor was murdered and dumped from the rear of the aircraft in Beirut. He was also indicted in Argentina for bombings against Israeli and Jewish targets in incidents that killed the most Jewish civilians since World War II. Mugniyah eluded capture by the U.S. in separate incidents where the French and Saudis thwarted the attempts. He also skirted death along with his spiritual advisor, when a car bomber allegedly tied to the U.S, killed 62 Lebanese civilians instead. His luck finally ran out decades later when a bomb from an unknown assailant exploded in his car in Syria in February 2008.
The September 1920 bombing of Wall Street was the worst terrorist attack in American history at the time. The horse drawn bomb killed over 35 people, but the attack by suspected anarchists was never solved. The Bath School bombings in May 1927, by an anti-tax school board member, who blamed taxation for his financial distress, claimed 44 other Michiganders, the majority of whom were grade school children. The bomber Andrew Kehoe died in one of the blasts. A smaller, more recent blast at LaGuardia airport in 1975 remains unsolved.
This year has seen its own set of heartbreaks. The Palestinian terrorist who in 1985 ruthlessly killed Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly American wheelchair bound tourist was released from an Italian prison this April for “good behavior” -seven years short of his thirty-year sentence. Klinghoffer was aboard the hijacked ocean liner, the Achille Lauro, when he was shot in the head and dumped into the sea. The actual mastermind of the attack Abu Abbas was convicted in absentia in Italy, but evaded authorities until his April 2003 capture by U.S. Special Forces. He died less then a year later of natural causes.
In a related, but still unsolved domestic terror attack, Alex Odeh, West Coast director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was murdered by a bomb blast in Orange County, California. Jewish extremists, including one deceased and one serving a life sentence, along with others perhaps in Israel, were suspected but never charged. It is believed Odeh was targeted by terrorists for advocating support of the Palestinian cause during the course of the Achille Lauro hijacking.
Cases from the racial turmoil of decades ago continue to reverberate today. Two adjudicated cop killers from the Black Liberation Army have apparently outflanked the legal system. The BLA is believed responsible for the death of at least 15 police officers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Herman Bell, already serving a life sentence in a New York prison for murdering two police officers in Harlem in May 1971, was given probation this summer in California for the shotgun killing of a San Francisco police sergeant in August of that year. FBI Most wanted Joanne Chesimard, 61 remains at large in Cuba after armed cohorts sprang her from prison in 1979. She was convicted of the execution style murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foester. Both are regarded as folk heroes by some on the far left.
Earlier this month, racist Billy Wayne Posey, a prime suspect in a Klan murder conspiracy died of natural causes at 73. Posey was allegedly involved in the infamous murders of three young civil rights workers, two Jewish and one African-American, near Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1964. A grand jury, with a relative of Posey’s on it failed to indict him by one vote. The only person to face state murder charges, Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005. Mr. Posey outlived all of the victims' mothers including Fannie Lee Chaney and Carolyn Goodman who passed at 84 and 91, respectively in 2007. The death comes less than three weeks after a group of civil rights experts conferred with Attorney General Eric Holder about civil rights era “cold cases” including this one.
The sometimes-conflicting goals of the American justice system are deterrence (discouraging crime), retribution (proportionate punishment), incapacitation (removing the dangerous offender from society), and rehabilitation (reforming attitudes). These cornerstones of justice are undermined when homicidal extremists from long ago cases kill innocents and evade appropriate punishment. It sends the wrong message to victims’ families today and would be terrorists tomorrow.
Deepak Chopra: What Is Justice for Lockerbie?
As bystanders to tragedies like the Lockerbie disaster, you and I have no moral weight; we are outsiders. But we aren't outsiders in our own lives, where we face moral choices just as tangled.
If applause is what Gordon Brown wants, he's not getting it. When, for the sake of his country, is the British Prime Minister going to do the decent thing -- and resign?
Megrahi's release and hero's welcome in Libya, along with the leak of two letters from Britain's justice minister, have prompted calls for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to stop evading the issue.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld: Libyan Oil Is Thicker Than American Blood
The pretext "compassion" for the allegedly terminally ill Libyan prisoner, barely disguised the real reason -- oil buried deep in the Libyan sand.
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but they fought "imperialism!!!" They're freedom fighters! AHHHHHH Levin you've said it best.
Oh and the US and A convicted of terrorist acts by the ICCR for mining Nicaraguan harbours..
Care to reply My Levin? There certainly are a large number of terrorists in this world who have escaped justice. Is it only brown people who commit terrorist acts while we white people in the west commit "surgical strikes"?
Care to expand on the Cuban airliner bombing and where the accused/wanted man now lives???
The Bushies should have made the list.
How many did they kill in a war of fabrication?
about a million people, and 5 million refugees.
How about the justice that Kissinger and Nixon faced for killing a million people in Indochina?
What about the justice for the victims of the Mai Lai slaughter?
How about justice for the innocent children of Gaza who were murdered by the 4th largest military in the world without any country on earth coming to their aid?
How about all those killed at Afghan weddings by bombs dropped from 20,000ft ?
Is this article really about justice?
Cubana Airlines 1976: all killed. The bomber/terrorist is free in the USA courtesy of Jeb and George Bush.
The USA wrote the book on the killing of civilians using airplanes.
Alex Odeh was NOT simply an advocate and CAIR is a noted supporter of extremism and terror. There has been proof that CAIR's former president raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah. For this author to list a supposed "Jewish extremist" as an example of of a terrorist that did not get justice when we do not even know who killed Odeh is inappropriate in this article.
One of the biggest failures: no trial for the perpetrators of the bombing of the Argentine Jewish Community center. Those victims had done nothing to anyone and they were murdered simply because of their religion by Iranian terrorists.
NEWS JUST IN........
Southern Poverty Law Center. Posted August 22, 2009.
What follows is a detailed listing of major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the years since Oklahoma City. These have included plans to bomb government buildings, banks, refineries, utilities, clinics, synagogues, mosques, memorials and bridges; to assassinate police officers, judges, politicians, civil rights figures and others; to rob banks, armored cars and other criminals; and to amass illegal machine guns, missiles, explosives and biological and chemical weapons. Each of these plots aimed to make changes in America through the use of political violence. Most contemplated the deaths of large numbers of people — in one case, as many as 30,000, or 10 times the number murdered on Sept. 11, 2001.
Here are the stories of plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since 1995 — plots and violence waged against a democratic America.
http://www
When will the Bush gang see Justice?
When Democrats stop making a high priority of protecting the System.
“Deterrence, retribution , incapacitation, rehabilita
There remain a couple of other methods we might try.
The Hatfields and McCoys merely annihilated each other. Until there was no one left to cause trouble.
Or, we could try reprogramming the bit that appears to be at the centre of the problem.
I agree bring BUSHCO to justice!!
AMERICANS CHEERED WHEN WE BOMBED BAGHDAD
They thought it was so exciting watching power plants and water supplies and civilian neighborhoods being obliterated by America's finest live on tv. It was better than the Superbowl.
It was like the forth of july every night in millions of homes across America. America was so proud to be slaughtering innocent people 10,000 miles away.
As for Lockerbie.
Sadly the victims families will likely never know what really happened.
We did not simply bomb Bagdad. We bombed military installations and Saddam's castles. We did all we could to avoid civilian casualties. Most of the civilian casualties occurred over the next five years at the hands of Iranian and Saudi backed terrorists. Your outrage is selective.
Pray tell: what did Saddam do to the USA?
We also bombed utility plants, restaurants where we thought we'd catch Saddam or his family members, and other targets dep within a heavily populated city. We killed lots of civilians!
There's also the general from Haiti we removed in 1994 who then moved to the States in a deal rather than facing justice for his crimes. Then there are the Cubans who have been actively involved in bombings in Cuba which killed civilians on purpose to try to destabilize Castr's govt. We aren't even trying to pursue them (votes from Florida more important than justice). Posada Cariles ring a bell?
And as to Joanne Chesimard/ Assatta Shakur: the trial was flawed, testimony suspect, and how did she shoot a trooper standing behind the car after she'd been shot in the back and couldn't even get out of the car on her own? And while you speak of the BLA, how about the high number of questionable shootings in the black neighborhoods by white police all during the sixties and beyond?
If any lesson is to be learned it is that justice depends mostly on money and position, and whether you are part of the right skin color group.
what is the point of in having justice ? / sending mix messages to very bad-men who do evil deeds !.
under the cover of a reglious act ! [as if we are believe that ?? ]
Why is Luis Posada Carriles free in the USA after bombing a Cubana Airlines plane killing all on board in 1976.
The USA wrote the book on mass civilian killings using airplanes.
The author states opinion and myth as fact. Feels good to be self-righteous in the service of state power, I guess. Homicidal maniacs, if there are such people, often wear suits and hold high office. I would suggest that our system encourages it, in fact. Dozens if not hundreds of ruthless terrorists who have committed acts exponentially more horrendous sit today across the United States, from Texas and Nevada to offices in Langley, in the Pentagon, in capitols in Washington, DC and London and elsewhere. It is morally reprehensible to be blind to that which we have responsibility for, while we blame others for their response to our damage. The only thing different about 9/11, if it turns out that it wasn't the false-flag, inside job it appears to be (as the Murrah Building and the 1983 WTC bombings were), is that the direction of the attack was different, and that it was small-time, "retail terrorism", as opposed to the US/Western
He was tried in Scotland. The Dutch parliament by special act declared that section of Holland Scottish terrirory for the duration of the trial otherwise he could not have been tried under Scottish Law. That's a really basic fact and when you make basic mistakes like that and your sunning himself quip without bothering to mention the rather pertinent terminal cancer bit it underlines the rest of your post.
Of course when the rest of your post consists partially of people avoiding justice by being dead it all gets a bit surreal being as that's just the state that the U.S. justice system would normally seek to put them in so it's all saved you a bit of effort or is it just not as satisfying when you can't pull the switch?
He's almost certainly innocent, he's gone home to die, you never extradite any of your criminals or mass murderers so stop crying and deal with it.
See Brian Levin, J.D.'s Profile
As a practical point, the trial was geographically held in the Netherlands. The fact that Scottish law was used, however, did not lessen the additional distance that victim's families and others had to travel. Your blanket statement on his innocence despite his conviction, is also telling. Lastly, in big
terrorism cases a trial is important not only for punishment but to establish the facts of the crime so that later there will be a historical record of evidence from an actual proceeding.
As a point of fact it was Scottish territory for the duration of the trial. It was geographically, legally and factually held in Scotland unless you hold that Alaska is part of Canada and Cabinda part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as geography apparently trumps law and fact.
Which victims? There were more nationalities than Scottish and American on the flight and the distance to be travelled could not be set to suit everyone. The majority would have had to fly to Scotland anyway from the U.S. and there are more connections to Holland from the U.S.
My blanket statement that he is innocent is not blanket in that I said he was almost certainly innocent but is based on the fact that he was convicted on his own against all logic and on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence bought by several million dollars by the U.S. authorities. The appeal might have uncovered some facts for the victims families but would also have led to his release had he survived long enough.
More garbage from you.
What laws were used on Luis Posada Carriles, the American terrorist that bombed the Cubana Airlines plane in 1976?
Where did the trial of Luis Posada Carriles take place?
No mention whatsoever of the basement bombing of the WTC with the rent-a-van.
When I read the headline, I thought oh no, not another attack against an already tattered and torn caricature of Bush or Cheney. But then I was pleasantly surprised by something screaming to aspire to high school newspaper journalism.
The center for studying what other people do to us when we abuse, oppress, and mistreat them.
He won't spend that much time "sunning himself" because he has terminal cancer, a fact you've carefully ignored.
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