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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012368579_bplibya16.htmlIf we're going to hate, shouldn't we direct our hatred at the actual people who made the decision to let him go? If a parent were to shoplift an expensive new toy for a crying child would you hate the child?
BP's statement Thursday repeated earlier acknowledgments that it had promoted the transfer agreement to protect a $900 million offshore oil-and-gas exploration deal off Libya's Mediterranean coast.
The British justice minister at the time, Jack Straw, admitted shortly after al-Megrahi was repatriated and freed that the BP deal was a consideration in the government's review of his case.
In the end, al-Megrahi was not released under the prisoner-transfer agreement. Instead, to the consternation of the Obama administration, and of many of the victims' families, the Scottish government released him under provisions in Scottish law that allow for a prisoner's sentence to be commuted on humanitarian grounds, because of al-Megrahi's cancer. That freed him from serving any further prison time in Libya, as he would have had to do under the transfer pact.
Wine is sunlight, held together by water - Galileo Galilei
Un jour sans vin est comme un jour sans soleil - Louis Pasteur
Water separates the people of the world; wine unites them - anonymous
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world - Ernest Hemingway
Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance - Benjamin Franklin
