My Lai and Lockerbee

It must be an accident, of course, but the uproar over the release of the one man convicted in the Lockerbee disaster coincides poignantly with the reappearance of Lt. William Calley, the officer convicted of mass murder in the killing of 300 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968.

The man convicted in the Lockerbee disaster, which killed more than 300 people (it missed me by one day on that flight)in 1988, was the only person brought to trial. He was prosecuted in a Scottish court by the U. S. Attorney General. He was released--under Scottish law--on humanitarian grounds; he is dying of cancer.

The man convicted in the Lockerbee disaster was alleged to be the "mastermind," though obviously he did not personally murder anyone on that flight. He has consistently claimed himself innocent, and until his release had an appeal of his conviction pending.

Lt. William Calley recently made a speech at at Kiwanis Club is the United States. Lt. Calley was a platoon commander in Vietnam. He admitted to what happened at My Lai: there was no doubt of his guilt. He and his platoon were "frustrated" at not finding any Viet Cong to kill, so they went into a small village and murdered 300 civilians. Then they burned the village--and the evidence of their crime. Lt. Calley was convicted, not of ordering the massacre, but of personally murdering at least twenty-two people. But he was responsible for the deaths of 300 people. Not Viet Cong, not enemies, but civilians: people like those who flew on the Pan American flight that exploded in mid-air.

Lt. William Calley's prison sentence was never carried out. The President of the United States intervened, and Lt. Calley went free after three years of house arrest. And is still free.--and making speeches at civic club lunches.

But Americans--including a former U. S. Attorney General and even our president--object to the release from prison of a dying man who even as he approaches death insists that he was not guilty of the crime for which he was convicted.

We talk about "justice," and the "rule of law." WHO ARE WE TO TALK ABOUT JUSTICE AND THE RULE OF LAW?

We didn't punish Lt. Calley for ordering the murder 300 innocent people--a whole village--out of "frustration." We didn't even punish him for killing at least twenty-two people with his own gun. Now we are in the process of trying to pardon ourselves--every one of us--for torturing people at Guantanamo, in Afghanistan, and in dozens of other concentration camps around the world: and we won't even release them from their torture camps.

In the average American mind,"justice" is utterly meaningless. "Might Makes Right" is the motto of this country, the first article of our popular constitution. Though this country proclaims piously to believe in a "higher power"--an American God--there are really only two powers we believe in: and neither of them is what anybody else would call God. Americans believe in military power, and the power of money.

What the rest of the world fears most--as it has since 1945--is that when the money runs out, the United States will still have its military power--its nuclear bombs--and will destroy not just My Lai or an airliner, but the world.

Can't we change? Can't we learn to be civilised? Please?