A Pair

[Sarkozy has 'em]

The President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, has refused Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's offer to release a French journalist arrested in Iran in return for the release of Ali Vakili Rad, an assassin convicted of murder in a French court. President Sarkozy said France would not submit to "chantage", to blackmail. He announced there would be no exchange of the wrongfully arrested journalist for the convicted murderer.

One thing interesting about this is that it neatly demonstrates what few doubted about the Iranian regime. One is that they are thugs who engage in false arrest and blackmail as a matter of course. The other is that they consider a convicted murderer one of their own. Civilized nations imprison or extradite murderers. Iran strives to free them.

Which illustrates a fundamental difference between civilized peoples and barbarians. Civilized people do not consider murder a legitimate instrument of government. Barbarians do.

Civilized governments respect the rule of law. Barbarians do not.

Contrast the UK

The United Kingdom recently released Abdel al-Megrahi, a Libyan murderer convicted of bombing a 747 jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. Among the 270 people al-Megrahi and his accomplices murdered were 180 Americans. The official explanation was that it was a "compassionate release" based on al-Megrahi being expected to die of prostate cancer in less than three months.

Since then it has come to light that both Scotland and England are involved in negotiations for lucrative oil deals with Libya. That the doctors who made the diagnosis were in the pay of the Libyan government. And today that the doctor who made the diagnosis knew nothing about prostate cancer and could not possibly make a prognosis of death in three months.

The Scottish government claims that the release had been approved by the prime minister's office. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has denied responsibility and claims it was the Scottish government's decision. Each day brings a new revelation of scandal.

The mass murderer Al-Megrahi was given a hero's welcome in Libya - speaking of barbarians as we were, this was both the Libyan government and the Libyan public who gave him the welcome. The US Senate passed a resolution condemning the release of al-Megrahi. President Obama said that it is not the end of the US-UK special relationship. Meaning that it was a significant enough affront to American relations with Britain that the special relationship was called into question.

What does this say about British respect for the rule of law? What does it say about the sincerity of their condemnation of murder? The British are polite enough, but are they civlized? The Mother Country has become the muthah country.


Compare President Sarkozy's response to the gangsterism of Ahmadinejad, to the sorry spectacle of British corruption, hypocrisy, and pandering to Qadaffi. Maybe we need a better criterion of who our friends are than whether they speak English or not.


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