My Friend, Murdered Over Lockerbie
Hanne-Marie Maijala
Maybe it's because I'm of Scottish descent that I feel so ashamed today. Maybe it's because I have a hard time connecting the dots when discussions about terrorists revolve around the word "compassion" rather than "justice."
Or maybe it's because I personally knew Hanne-Marie Maijala that I'm shaking with rage as I type these words.
Hanne-Marie Maijala was brilliant and beautiful and kindhearted. We're supposed to speak well of the dead. I've never bought into such phoniness, yet, in Hanne-Marie's case, she embodied all those qualities and more.
We both attended Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute in north Toronto -- the class of '81. If anything, I wish I had gotten to know Hanne-Marie better. I wish I would've had the chutzpah to ask her out on a date. But the fact of the matter is Hanne-Marie was way, way out of my league. So, aside from meaningless chitchat in the hallways, I had to admire Hanne-Marie from afar.
And there was much to admire. Hanne-Marie was a unique specimen indeed -- brains and beauty, wit and grace. When she graduated from LPCI, she went on to Harvard. Things came so easy for Hanne-Marie.
But on Dec. 21, 1988, Hanne-Marie boarded Pan Am flight 103 for what would become an abbreviated one-way trip. Pan Am 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, and 259 passengers and crew members plus 11 people on the ground died. It ranks as one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in history.
A piece of filth called Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was finally convicted in 2001 for his role in the bombing. He's never shown an ounce of remorse.
And yet, in a shockingly inexplicable ruling, Scotland's justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, gave al-Megrahi a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. The 57-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent is suffering from terminal prostate cancer and MacAskill decided to free him for "compassionate" reasons.
Does MacAskill even know the meaning of the word "compassion" Has he spoken to the 270 families that had to bury their loved ones thanks to al-Megrahi's atrocity? What "compassion" did al-Megrahi show for his innocent victims when he vaporized them?
If anything, al-Megrahi lucked out on in terms of geography. If Pan Am 103 had crashed in, say, Laredo, Texas as opposed to Lockerbie, Scotland, he would've received the long needle years ago.
We'll never be able to prevent acts of terrorism. New York. Bali. Mumbai. The list goes on.
But what we can control is our response to terrorism. Which is to say we shouldn't show terrorists or rogue nations "compassion." Rather, we respond with deadly force.
The success of such a tactic is, ironically, Libya itself.
In 1986, the U.S. had had enough of the "Mad Dog of the Middle East," Muammar Gaddafi. Tripoli was bombed. Gaddafi escaped harm, but his 15-month-old adopted daughter was killed and two of his sons were injured (please bear with me as I wipe a tear from my cheek; oh, never mind -- it was just a raindrop).
But the bombing made for a profound wakeup call. Only after Mo experienced some home grown suffering did he realize dispatching agents to blow up planes and discos was wrong.
Eventually, Libya stopped sponsoring terrorists and paid out $1.5 billion in compensation to victims. Apparently you can teach an old mad dog new tricks.
Indeed, terrorists understand lethal force. Naively showing them "compassion" will contribute more to our undoing than all of their bombs combined.
I don't know what Hanne-Marie Maijala would say about al-Megrahi's early release if she were alive today. After all, unlike al-Megrahi, she and 269 other victims, will never get a second chance.
As for the Libyan-bound mass-murderer, all one can hope for at this stage is that his battle with cancer will be a long, drawn-out affair. And an excruciatingly painful one at that.
