Flinx

It depends on the type of cancer as to how mobile you are in your final few. But we are talking months right now not days. One of my uncles that died of prostrate cancer was fairly mobile, painfully yes, right up till his last 2 weeks with his family. Bone cancer on the other hand makes your last 3 to 4 months a pure living hell that all you want to do is die and don't have enough in you to try. Lung cancer is again different. As well as all the other types and since people react differently with each type, degree of pain and mobility in the final month or so varies extremely.

Yes it would have been more humane but then the human race is not really humane as a group but individuals can be. But I can think of one reason not to kill him out right, why make him a martyr? As a martyr his fellow believers think he is in their version of heaven, in jail they think he's being punished for years and might lose his beliefs.
In jail he serves a purpose, dead he's focal point for his cause.
We didn't "gain" anything really but we also didn't give them a martyr to the cause. Propaganda is a wonderful thing, when it's on your side.

Plan9

Wow, you place a lot of faith in the old global jihadist movement... and you also assume they need more excuses to do what they do. They make up excuses... they've perverted a religion and culture to wage an endless war. One dead dumbass is hard gonna show up on the Martyr radar.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

uncle phil

Flinx, ever spent time in a "war-zone?"

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"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
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"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
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never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

Flinx

True, I do have a bit of faith that they need an excuse, as small as that excuse may be. I guess I should have said potential focal point instead of just focal point.


Why do you ask?
Not if your definition is Vietnam, Korea or WWI/II then no. But I have lived where you could be stabbed (2 scars), shot at (once I know I was the target, the others I hav'nt a clue really too busy I guess. It's a good thing most people don't know how to actually aim, god bless hollywood) or just plain beaten up (couple other scars there), does that count?
On the other hand I have listened to friends and family that HAVE been shot at for their country (god bless them all) on this topic and find that their opinions are split about 50/50 to let him rot and dam thats nice he got to go home.

CandleInTheDark

Justice denied.

270 people die due to his actions. 270 people were denied the company of their family, and many more relatives were denied the company of their loved ones. It is a perverted sense of compassion that identifies with the wolf more than the lamb.

This man sits still convicted in the eyes of the justice system in Scotland. He was not pardoned, he was not found innocent. His guilt was proven in a court of law, and if that court could not find him innocent now he shouldn't have been released. His state is not unique, his condition not so grave as to demand to denying justice to the rest of society, and the victims of his actions.

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Where there is doubt there is freedom.

samcol

I'm not sure how to take this. The reason is that my first trip to DC involved this story. I was very young about 10 I think? Anyway the I just happened to be at the Arlington Cemetery the day president Clinton was presenting a memorial to the slain.

Anyway, there were countless family members of the deceased there and I felt very out of place after the checkpoints and being near the families. We sat right next to them. The whole thing was very surreal seeing a sitting president for the first time and all.

The thing that struck me was the most was a man who stood up in the middle of the president's speech and shouted "Bomb Gaddafi mister president, Bomb Gadaffi" over and over again. As if that wasn't a shock enough, Clinton carried on like nothing was happening in the crowd even as the secret service swarmed this man. His chants were quite overwhelming to everyone including the crowd and press except for the presidential party.

I guess after all these years I should learn more about this incident and form an opinion, but this moment was my first experience in global politics and sadly I don't know much more about it.

I still remember Hillary wearing her hat and rarely making eye contact with the families. The whole thing was so surreal.

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It's time for the president to hand over his nobel peace prize.

dlish

i read somewhere that out of about 35 odd applications of cases where the prisoner has applied for release based on compassionate grounds in scotland, 23 have been granted, so its not really a new thing or something unheard of in the scottish justice system.

scotland is also a sovereign state and should not wilt to political pressure or threat of boycott because americans think that their brand of justice is right.

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An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

Vigilante

My visceral reaction is to kill him and call that mercy. he won't die of cancer, after all.

However, to let him go home is the right thing to do. Yes what he did was awful, but there is something about showing this man compassion despite his actions that is divine. At least to me it is.

The other thing is the Scots made the decision. It has nothing to do with me. Neither do the deaths. I am but an observer.

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-Winston Churchill

spindles

Sorry - and offtopic, but that is a funny typo - I'd say with prostrate cancer he wouldn't be mobile at all. Prostate cancer on the other hand...

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who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?

Flinx

ahh another oops on my part. I probably should have looked a bit closer.

percy

In today's paper. Seems the bomber is willing to give alleged info if inquiry into bombing is justified.

I don't have much faith in inquiries, especially something like this where international politics is involved at every level

Lockerbie bomber backs call for inquiry