“The quality of mercy is not strained” — that is, constrained, or obligatory — she tells Shylock, but rather something that falls freely, like rain.
MacAskill acknowledged that Megrahi himself showed no compassion, but rightly said this alone was not a reason to deny him compassion in his final days. He then appealed to the values of humanity, compassion, and mercy as “the beliefs we seek to live by” and framed his decision as being true to Scottish values.
We can reasonably disagree with MacAskill’s decision, but we should acknowledge that — unless there is more going on than appears on the surface — he was motivated by some of the finest values we are capable of exercising. And, if we believe that Megrahi was not sufficiently punished for his crime, what are we to make of the treatment of former Lieutenant William Calley?
In 1971, Calley was convicted of the murder of “no less than 22 Vietnamese civilians of undetermined age and sex.” He was also convicted of assault with intent to murder a Vietnamese child. Yet three days — yes, days — after his conviction, then-US president Richard Nixon ordered that he be released from prison and allowed to serve his sentence in a comfortable two-bedroom house. There he lived with a female companion and staff to assist him. After three years, he was released even from this form of detention.
Calley always claimed that he was following orders. Captain Ernest Medina, his commanding officer, ordered him to burn the village down and pollute its wells, but there is no clear evidence that the order included killing non-combatants — and of course if such an order were issued, it should not have been obeyed. Medina was acquitted of murder.
After decades of refusing to speak publicly, Calley, who is now 66, recently said that “not a day goes by” when he does not feel remorse “for what happened that day in My Lai.”
One wonders if the relatives of those murdered at My Lai are more ready to forgive Calley than the relatives of those killed by at Lockerbie are to forgive Megrahi.
Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University and a laureate professor at the University of Melbourne.COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
RSS