NEOAVATARA

FAIL.

That is all you can say about the handling of the release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the lone convicted terrorist in the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1989.

First, for anyone to say that the foreign affairs officials in the administration did not know that this was coming is either a complete lie, or complete incompetence.  Stories about Megrahi’s release were being leaked as early as March.  And now, we know for a fact that the Obama Administration did know about this months ago.   The Boston Globe reports that Attorney General Eric Holder was informed of the highly likely release as long ago as June. Holder even warned Scottish and British officials of the repercussions of such an action.

Now, I don’t even want to get into the reason for the release, because it is clearly a mess.  The Scots claim they did this because of humanitarian reasons…and that just doesn’t meet the ‘sniff test’.  And now, with documents being released by the British government, this likely will become a greater mess, as the connections for ‘oil-for-hostage’ rumors persist.

But the Obama Administration did NOTHING to prevent this release.  At the very least, Obama himself should have come out and made clear that America could not accept the release of Magrahi.  This was a clear victory for worldwide terrorism.  Why Qaddafi wanted to create this mess for himself is beyond me…he had lost any capital he had built with the West.  The celebration on the terrorist’s arrival in Libya…few things have turned my stomach like that.

But Obama was virtually silent on the whole issue.  He had a half-hearted statement of rebuke the day after, but that was it.  Now, it is bad enough that Obama feels he can’t speak truths to our enemies.  But now, he can’t pick up the phone and call our allies?

I want to know if Barack Obama did anything to stop this.  The evidence, so far, says the answer is ‘no’.  We know that Obama knew about the potential release months ago.  He had the time to raise public awareness, and put pressure on the Scots and Brits.  But he did nothing.  So, for all practical purposed, President Obama tacitally approved of the release; inaction speaks volumes.  And if that is the case, this is an embarrassing failure on the part of the Administration.