"Gaddafi Regrets Reagan Died Without Facing Trial"

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, said today he regretted that Ronald Reagan, a former US president, had died without ever being tried for 1986 air strikes that killed dozens of people, including the Libyan leader's adopted daughter.

"I express my profound regrets over Reagan's death before he appeared before justice to be held to account for his ugly crime in 1986 against Libyan children," Gaddafi said.

Reagan ordered the April 15, 1986, air strikes in response to a disco bombing in West Berlin that killed three people, including two US servicemen. Washington blamed Libya for the blast.

Libya said more than 40 people died in the strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi. The targets included Gaddafi's home, where his 15-month-old adopted daughter died. www.sabcnews.com

Replies: 1 Comment

Monday, June 7th, News Update posted:

Reagan was the Original Forrest Gump Who Struck Lucky

by Trevor Royle

It was fitting perhaps that Ronald Reagan died on the eve of the D-Day celebrations. Unlike other Hollywood actors such as Jimmy Stewart who gave up tinseltown to fly for the US army air force, Reagan remained an actor, not a doer. Later in life, before Alzheimer's disease cruelly felled him - he called the affliction "riding into the sunset", another Hollywood cliché - he would tell Israeli politicians that he remembered seeing the liberated concentration camps at the end of the second world war. It sounded good, but too bad that he was not wearing a uniform at the time but was working for a documentary unit.

In that sense there was always more than a touch of vaudeville about Reagan. He was a bad actor who knew his limitations. Not for him Gary Cooper's heroic sheriff role in High Noon (a White House favorite for successive presidents). And not for him the youthful John Wayne in John Ford's Stagecoach, two movies which helped to define 20th century America. He was always on the outside looking in, the minor bit-player who was always small-town America. www.commondreams.org