Death In America

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday June 12, 2001

IN years to come, the execution by lethal injection of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh will be, like the bombing itself, a prominent calender mark in United States history.

The April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building was America's worst case of domestic terrorism. McVeigh said he planted the bomb in vengeance for the 80 people who died in the Branch Davidian showdown at Waco, Texas. In his last days McVeigh abused the reputations of the Gulf War soldiers he fought with when he described the 168 people killed in his Oklahoma revenge as `collateral damage'.

It is true the Congressional hearings on Waco traversed evidence of government complicity in that sad saga, and there are many in America's white supremacist underbelly who will elevate McVeigh to martyrdom.

But all right-thinking people will abhor his crime, and they will support the decision of the US Government to execute him, even if his death brings into stark contrast the moral dilemmas posed by capital punishment.

The execution of an innocent is out of the question here because McVeigh has admitted his primary role in the crime. He recruited a friend, Terry Nicholls ? serving life in prison ? to help him, but it was McVeigh who drove a bomb-laden car to the front of the building and lit the fuse.

In the end, the arguments over capital punishment revolve around whether the State has the right to take a life in exchange for a life. The Christian Church may be in retreat across the Western world, but modern civilisation still relies on one of the Ten Commandments ? Thou Shalt Not Kill ? as a cornerstone of belief.

McVeigh broke that commandment, not once, but 168 times.

As this shameless killer went to his death last night, his prepared last words were to come from a 19th century poem, Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.

`I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul,' McVeigh was scheduled to say.

He was neither. He was a remorseless killer, and although capital punishment remains a moral dilemma for most of us, the United States had every right to take an eye for an eye.

Money from coal

SWISS-OWNED commodities company Glencore has been an aggressive investor in the Hunter Valley coal industry in recent years, buying a string of sometimes unwanted mines and turning them into efficient, profitable operations.

Now, with the dollar down and coal prices up, Glencore is looking to turn a profit on its purchases by floating the mines on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Mining companies are chancy territory for investors. As cyclic stocks they rise and fall with the regular booms and busts of demand, and starting new mines can an expensive business. Glencore has chosen to work with the Hunter's mining unions, not against them, and an employee share plan would be one way to see these cooperative beginnings translated into long-term success for all involved.