[Families of Pan Am 103, one of the US organisations of relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie disaster, issued a press release on the current Libyan situation on 14 March. It reads as follows (with links deleted):]
Gaddafi has been branded by the international community as a serial violator of human rights, as well as by his own people. He is also the admitted No. 2 international terrorist, second only to Osama Bin Laden, having caused the murder of hundreds of Americans, French, UK and other innocent citizens in the bombings of U.S. bound Pan Am 103 killing 270, UTA flight 772 killing 170, the La Belle Disco bombing in Berlin, dozens of other terrorist attacks, and delivering large shipments of plastic explosives for IRA terrorist bombings, plus killing thousands of his own people who regularly disappear into his torture chambers or are assassinated abroad. (...)
Oil companies have invested $50 billion with the Gaddafi regime since U.S. bilateral sanctions were lifted five years ago. (...)
Oil interests therefore have a financial interest to let Gaddafi stay in power. Without a no fly zone and U.S. help, Gaddafi is expected to destroy the rebel forces. He has promised and has apparently begun to slaughter thousands in a "river of blood" all Libyans who have opposed him. With a Gaddafi victory, there likely will follow a new genocide for Libyans and a possible return to terrorism.
Prior to turnover of the Pan Am 103 indicted terrorists for trial, a letter by former UN Secretary Kofi Annan stated that the U.S. and UK had agreed not to pursue the case so as to destabilize the Gaddafi regime. (...) When Gaddafi agreed to give up his WMD program in 2003 after the U.S. invaded Iraq and Libya was labeled as part of a terrorist "axis of evil" by President George W. Bush, secret talks were held in London by top U.S. and UK officials, and Gaddafi's secret police henchman. The agreements reached remain secret, but after Libyan sanctions were lifted, the U.S. and UK both refused to pursue the criminal investigations of the Lockerbie bombing, notwithstanding Libya's formal promise to the UN that it would fully cooperate with U.S. criminal investigations of its admitted aviation bombings. Embarrassment for U.S. officials involved in the secret dealings with the Gaddafi regime is apparently another unstated reason for U.S. government inaction.
After the UK released the convicted Lockerbie bomber to Libya in 2009, the arms embargo was lifted and arms contracts allowed Gaddafi to buy modern weapons now being used against the Libyan people. (...)
President Obama has said Gaddafi must go "immediately," and that the U.S. is "considering all options," but so far has failed to take any military action to back up his words. If he does nothing now after peaceful demonstrators have been slaughtered and Gaddafi threatens genocide against his own people who do not support him, President Obama will have shown the world how weak his crisis leadership is.
Secretary Clinton gave a major speech in January that the U.S. will now support democratic forces in the Middle East; however, she doesn't favor a no fly zone needed to save a Free Libya and has not recognized the Libyan National Council in Benghazi. No fly zones in northern Iraq protected the Kurds from slaughter by Saddam Hussein, and saved many lives in Kosovo and Bosnia. Failure to impose this in southern Iraq allowed Saddam to crush after the Gulf War a 1991 rebellion that could have deposed him and avoided the entire Iraq War. Instead, this week Secretary Clinton is scheduled to close the Libyan embassy and evict the Libyan diplomats who are now opposing Gaddafi.
The UN was established after WWII mainly for collective security, so dictators could not run rampant and start major wars by international inaction. UN Security Council Resolution 1970 and the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide which the U.S. supports provides for force to stop genocide within a nation member. Tomorrow a No Fly resolution is expected to be presented. A petition in support by concerned citizens nearly a million strong is available on line. (...)
"If the U.S. does not act and Gaddafi wins, the U.S. will have restored an old enemy and sent a message to all democratic forces in oppressive regimes that we are indeed feckless, unreliable, oil sucking hypocrites," stated Paul Hudson, father of a Lockerbie victim and co-president of the Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie.
I think you have mis-attributed this press release. There are several groups representing victims families in the US. I believe the one that issued this PR consists of 2 members.
ReplyDeleteWhichever group issued this press release should take a look at what Russia Today has to say about the idea of a military intervention in Libya.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the hawks get their way again...time to bomb people again.
ReplyDeleteColonel Gaddai's real and alleged conduct and his support for the IRA was the reason Libya provided a convenient scapegoat for the Lockerbiie bombing. The creation of the "Libyan solution" wa a work of political genius and not only drew a line under the "Vincennes Incident" and compensated the families of these human sacrifices but also achieved laudable objectives in radically modifying Libya's external policies. Through sanctions it was a way to put the Colonel back in his box and to modify his countries external behaviour. (He was of course left to do what he liked at home). The evidence for this is the specific demands made of Libya in order to have sanctions lifted. These relate to the IRA and other terrorist/liberation groups and are detailed in my article Lockerbie - Criminal Justice or War by Other Means at www.e-zeecon.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteI hope the people of Libya liberate themselves and I believe they will (perhaps with some covert assistance) in this microcosm of the WWII desert campaign.
No-fly zone is now a no-drive-your-tanks zone. Can you believe we will be bombing another Arab country, anytime soon, from tonight??? Cameron == Blair
ReplyDeleteIt is nothing less than a declaration of war if we do. In response to your "Can you believe...." question Blogiston. No I absolutely cannot believe it.
ReplyDeleteTime we started making leaders go to war with their troops again: they'd soon give up on their warmongering then.
Consider the irony here. A no fly zone, and yet other countries can fly in to carry out air strikes. Bizarre.
ReplyDelete1."William Hague warns over Israel settlements" - but will he push for a no-fly zone to protect innocent Palestinians? No, he's just playing politics and talking tough to give the impression UK foreign policy is even handed and consistent.
ReplyDelete2. "Cameron tells Bahrain king: reform, not repression" - but will he push for a no-fly zone to protect the oppressed Shia majority? No, he's just playing politics and talking tough to give the impression UK foreign policy is even handed and consistent.
It does not surprise me to read that some nationalist Scots are unhappy about, and find fault in disabling a mass murderer. After all, Scottish nationalists were not even in support of disarming Hitler.
ReplyDeleteVery simple: those who feel the urge to stand with Gaddafi are welcome to join his side. Gaddafi is getting low on mercenaries, anyway, and the Scots, like others in the northern parts of the UK, know already he pays well. Just get in touch with the Justice for Megrahi Committee, they have the connections and the money to help you do the honorable Scottish thing. Also, this could be the last opportunity for Nazi, oops,"nationalist" Scots to use stolen Libyan funds for leverage against the English.
I wonder where these losers will turn next, Chavez? Better than North Korea. Chavez has oil, too, and of course he shares those wonderful Christian values that Hitler had and Cardinal O'brien and Jim Swire derided the US for lacking.
Come all you compassionate Scots, the Brother Fuhrer needs you now!
I do with this comments section had the "falling-about-laughing" emoticon.
ReplyDeleteMussa Kussa: I see your no-fly zone, and raise you one cease fire.
ReplyDeleteI just listened to Libya inviting UN observers to oversee the cease-fire and actually heard a BBC anchor man on News 24 asking, during a debate about this, if the UN could possibly get out of accepting the invite! Is this our "impartial" BBC? They are actually openly saying that the resolution is clever in that the words "regime change" aren't mentioned.
ReplyDeleteLoose definitions of "genocide" bother me. Was Abraham Lincoln guilty of genocide against his secessionists? Were they even trying to take over the whole country, or just half of it? Etc ...
ReplyDeleteBut good on the UNSC for protecting the rights of citizens with armies to express themselves by putting a new flag on the country, so Europeans can get Libya's oil without Gaddafi, and also more directly. Look for many changes in their banking system, public sector, living standards, restructured debt, etc.
But they can finally quite being framed for heinous things every other year.
Actually, Rolfe, what you and the rest of the Gaddafi sympathizers need right about now is a "weep" emoticon... say it ain't so, Muammar :'-(
ReplyDeleteYou see, Suliman, that's your problem. You can't understand that a belief that Megrahi was railroaded and some other bunch of evil murdering bastards carried out the Lockerbie atrocity, does not equate to sympathy with or support for Gadaffi.
ReplyDeleteBelieving that this particular evil murdering bastard (Gadaffi, I mean) didn't carry out this particular atrocity, doesn't make him any less of an evil murdering bastard, in the grand scheme of things. And there are more terrorists than him in the world.
I don't know about your country, but round here we prefer to get the right person for a crime, not just to convict someone because he looks suspicious and happens to be handy. The fact that the Zeist judges went the latter route is the source of the disquiet, not sympathy for Gadaffi, who deserves everything that (hopefully) is coming to him.
Adam, I made that very point just the other day about a group of citizens just inventing a new flag in ANY country in the world and the action being tolerated. Especially if they were armed.
ReplyDeleteIndeed a few years back a group of people were shot dead in Ohio by the National Guard during a Vietnam peaceful protest.
On that note, I suspect Mugabe, Kim Jong-il and Simon Cowell aren't responsible. That doesn't mean I wish to underplay their malfeasance.
ReplyDeleteSuliman: you are the one who needs to reassess what you actually stand for. I'm clear about that here thanks very much.
ReplyDeleteI cannot help the cynicism, but as I saw that jet explode and plunge into Benghazi this morning, I immediately thought, 'friendly fire?' - this thought being the product of watching western military "Adventures in Arabia" go wrong over the last 25 years.
ReplyDeleteHow long before we have to stomach the inevitable scene of a compound of women and children devastated by a surgical strike from our air force? Collateral damage, I think the euphemism was last time.
Followed by Arabs (like Suliman Grundy - "Attack them please!", on Monday..."Get out you infidels!", by Saturday) telling the West to stop killing Muslims and intervening in Arab business.
For sure Blogiston: no one does "friendly fire" quite like the West.
ReplyDelete(Think you're wrong about Suliman tho..............I'd bet he's an American these days, so whatever they do is okkkkkkkkkk.)
ReplyDeleteNo, Rolfe, the problem is all yours, not mine, and it is called disingenuousness. The problem was never about your claimed belief or disbelief, it is about the certainty of what you have done and continue to do in the service of Gaddafi's agenda. Every time you offer that Gaddafi is a murderous bastard, I will ask you to specify whether you came to this epiphany before or after your Justice for Megrahi campaign was formed in collaboration with that murderous bastard's agents. I find it difficult to believe that your knowledge of Gaddafi's murderous record only came about after your JFM leader honored him last September. It is disingenuous of you to pretend now that his murderous record ever amounted to anything at all with you. Your JFM presents itself to the Scottish public as a campaigner for compassion-cum-inquiry, to restore the wounded honor of Scotland's judicial, all in partnership with the Gaddafi agency that wrote the book on his brand of murderous-bastard justice. You honestly think that you can stand on that pile of corruption and still pretend that my disgust is based on what you believe, not what you do? I'll be damned!
ReplyDelete"Believing that this particular evil murdering bastard (Gadaffi, I mean) didn't carry out this particular atrocity, doesn't make him any less of an evil murdering bastard, in the grand scheme of things. And there are more terrorists than him in the world."
No shit! The question, however, never was about other terrorists in the world. Besides, in view of your record, how could you see other terrorists in the world as anything but more opportunities to form alliances? They represent other opportunities for joint ventures to recover Scotland's judicial honor. You have done it once--so far--with no regrets. Your attempt to show contempt for murderous bastards, or even strategic conflicts with them, is evidently disingenuous.
[continued below]
Well, I left it long enough to see what the "continued" was going to be, but no cigar.
ReplyDeleteBensix had it right. We don't believe Mugabe, Pol Pot, Idi Amin or Pinochet was behind Lockerbie either. That doesn't mean we support their regimes.
It's not acceptable to cave in to a kangaroo court ignoring the rules of evidence, twisting rationality way past breaking point, and bringing in a verdict that something happened which quite self-evidently didn't happen, just because the effect of this was to blacken the already-stygian reputation of Suliman's favourite bogey-man.
I did post the continuation of the above, yesterday, but Blogger ate it. Here is another try to get Rolfe & Co. to see that no one is accusing them of legitimating the bastard-murderer machine of Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, or Pol Pot...
ReplyDeleteRolfe said, "I don't know about your country, but round here we prefer to get the right person for a crime, not just to convict someone because he looks suspicious and happens to be handy."
If the sanctimony were true, you would not have formed an alliance with Gaddafi agents whose raison d'être
is the abomination of justice. Look up the kind of justice that your partners dealt to Omar Dabboub, Mustafa an-Nuwairy, Mohammed Hfaf, Rashid Kaabar, and others. Part of coming to know Gaddafi as a murderous bastard is knowing what kind of justice his henchmen carry out on his behalf. If your goals at JFM were genuinely as stated, you wouldn't have enabled a known instrument of propaganda and deadly injustice to claim part ownership in your campaign for justice. But, as the old Bedouin said when asked for evidence of the existence of God, "Dung reveals the 'Dunger' [name for camel]..." The proof is in the pudding, Bedouin pudding, if you like? :-)
Ask yourself as a scientist, Rolfe. How much of your proclaimed "legal" objective requires, predicates or in any way justifies your alliance with Gaddafi agents? You are rational people who choose their partners deliberately not superfluously, right? You would have weighed the pros and cons of having a single non-British JFM founder be (1) a Libyan, and (2) an agent of Gaddafi. And how in the hell could that serve your stated objective, even if your Libyan partner were not an agent of Gaddafi? It wouldn't, there are true risks with no--apparent--strategic gains.
Your appeals to the Scottish government are a Scottish affair that--prima facie--requires no reliance on Gaddafi's agents. There is no question that your stated objectives are incommensurate with the established means, i.e., the objectives are disingenuous. What does hold together is a partnership where all partners are beneficiaries, and that makes your JFM another proxy, another posse of Western civilian mercenaries crusading under the banner of justice for a murderous bastard. Admit it, Rolfe, don't just go silent every time I confront you. Come clean and apologize to the Scottish public before you do to the Libyans, disavowing your association with JSU, your desecration of Justice, and your affront to Libyans. Or continue to bury your head in the sand, if it suits you. Above the surface, however, the dung will continue to give away the dunger.