Yes, Studio, Apparently you are once again correct. The comment from Qaddafi thanking his "Good Friend" Prime Minister Brown, raises a number of questions, that still remain unanswered.
Diogenes, Again, you just totally baffle me with your thought processes..... If this homicidal murderer had been released on a stretcher, shackled, and placed under house arrest to die with his family, then maybe it wouldn't have been such a hard pill to swallow. Instead, the man climbs aboard a 737 in hospital garb, barely able to make it up the steps of the plane, and WALA: He arrives in Tripoli in a business suit to a Hero's welcome, confetti flying, and miraculously, he is able to scale down the stairs, gallivant across the tarmac, and swap sugar with Qaddafi himself. The following was shared by Dick Thompson, but I thought it was an interesting analogy: =================== When Italy let the Achille Lauro terrorists go free - terrorists who had only killed a handful of people, Ronald Reagan dispatched the U.S. Navy to intercept the airplane flying them home, over international waters, forced the plane down, and brought them to justice. At 5:30 P.M. on Thursday, October 10, President Reagan was aboard Air Force One, returning to Washington, D.C. from a speaking engagement in the Chicago area, when word reached him that the terrorists were getting away. He authorized the carrier USS Saratoga, patrolling the Adriatic Sea, to put seven F-14 Tomcats into the air. Their orders: divert the Egyptian aircraft to a NATO base at Sigonella, Sicily. The appearance of the Tomcats unnerved the EgyptAir pilot, who compliantly altered course for Sicily. He had no way of knowing that the American "top guns" had orders to refrain from shooting down the 737 without direct instructions from the president. Initially the Italians were not disposed to cooperate, scrambling their own warplanes to prevent a landing at Sigonella, but after a call from Reagan, Italy's Prime Minister Bettino Craxi gave permission to land. The American plan was to load the Palestinians onto a U.S. military aircraft and transport them to the States. But when American troops encircled the 737 they found themselves surrounded in turn by Italian soldiers. Italy had decided that since the Achille Lauro was an Italian vessel, the hijackers should be tried in Italian courts. The terrorists faced charges of premeditated murder, kidnapping and hijacking. When Reagan called Craxi this time, the Italian leader wouldn't budge -- Abul Abbas and his cronies would remain in Italian hands. After Arafat threatened *uncontrollable reactions" if the Italians turned Abbas over to the Americans, Italy refused a U.S. request to extradite the terrorist leader. Abbas was soon freed. In 1986 the four hijackers were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms, The American public emphatically approved of the bold mid-flight interception of the Achille Lauro terrorists. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak decorated the 737 pilot and demanded an apology from the United States. Reagan vowed he would never apologize. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
