William Helms: “in December 1988, a few days before Christmas, a terrorist bomb exploded on Pan Am flight #103 over Scotland. 270 people…”

“in December 1988, a few days before Christmas, a terrorist bomb exploded on Pan Am flight #103 over Scotland. 270 people died--murdered is the more fitting word--including 189 Americans. It was one of the worst terrorist attacks in history. Next month, two Libyan suspects are scheduled to go on trial in the Netherlands for the bombing. These two Libyans are believed to have planted the bomb, but there is widespread belief that the Libyan government ordered the attack. Though the United Nations has suspended sanctions on Libya since Qadhafi saw fit to turn over the two suspects in the Pan Am 103 bombing, Libya has by no means been restored to the status of a civilized nation. Libya is a rogue nation that has been an avowed enemy of the United States for three decades. (``The time has come for us to deal America a strong slap on it's cool arrogant face,'' Qadhafi said in 1973--at the same time he ``nationalized'' all foreign oil concessions in his country. ``Nationalized'' in this instance is a dressed-up word for outright thievery.) So it is Qadhafi's regime that stands accused of the deliberate murder of American servicemen in the 1986 La Belle discotheque bombing. The same regime whose top officials have been convicted, in absentia, by French courts for bombing a French jetliner, killing 171 people, including seven Americans.”