abolition of capital punishment early on Saturday morning, when he pointed out that the use of the death penalty in the United States had discriminated against blacks.

But he was quite wrong when he added that "there are no morals in the US'' and "if you want moral leadership there is none there''.

Not content, he continued: "Look at our example. (Environment Minister) Mr.

(Arthur) Hodgson and I saw fit to go to Washington with the Assistant Cabinet Secretary and we met with the Pentagon.

"You know you have the right to call us foolish. We went to the Pentagon to try and raise the moral issue of the base clean-up with people who kill people for a living.'' It is not clear if Mr. Lister was trying to be funny or if he was being deadly serious.

But to suggest that the US defence establishment has no morals because they "kill people for a living'' shows a misunderstanding of the purposes of the military of any country, including Bermuda's.

Mr. Lister should know that the US military is created to defend America's interests. Does the US military kill people? Yes, when US lives or interests are at stake, and sometimes in order to prevent worse bloodshed.

But the US , because it has a written Constitution and Bill of Rights based on moral principles, does exercise moral leadership for the world. America's political process may be flawed at times, but few other countries can claim the same moral underpinning.

The statement is almost certainly already being read by US Government officials. They may choose to ignore it, but it could also set back any hopes Bermuda had of getting compensation for the Bases clean-up.

That's too bad, because Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Lister had appeared to have made major progress in convincing the United Kingdom to brings its influence to bear on the US on the bases. Now he may have wasted his own good work.

He should withdraw the statements and apologise.

LIFE MEANS AT LEAST 25 YEARS EDT Life means at least 25 years In spite of the generally high level of debate in the House of Assembly, there were some misstatments.

Opposition Leader Pamela Gordon's statement that people convicted of premeditated murder could be released on parole after ten years was wrong, as was a statement in yesterday's editorial which said people could be released after serving less than 25 years .

The abolition bill is quite clear in saying that the sentence for premeditated murder is imprisonment for life with no possibility for release on licence until 25 years of the sentence have been served.

That means that the minimum sentence for people who commit premeditated murder is 25 years with the possibility that a convicted murderer could spend the rest of his life behind bars. That decision will be up to the Treatment of Offenders Board.

That is not to say that the issue should not be revisited by MPs in the future to give judges the right to impose longer sentences where the crime justifies it.

It would appear that the votes -- if a free vote was held -- could be mustered to give judges more discretion if an amendment came back to the House. This is something the Opposition and the Progressive Labour Party MPs who chose not to vote in Friday's debate could consider.