Friday 25 March 2011

Qaddafi unites Arabs against him in bid to oust "mad dog"

[This is the headline over an article published today on the Bloomberg Business Week website. It reads in part:]

President Ronald Reagan called Muammar Qaddafi a “mad dog” in 1986 when he ordered air strikes on Tripoli. A quarter century later, it might be the Libyan leader’s fellow Arabs who ultimately broker his downfall.

After opposing the Reagan response to Qaddafi’s terrorism, the 22-member Arab League is backing the bombing campaign led by Britain, France and the US to ground Libya’s air force and halt Qaddafi’s attempt to crush a rebellion. (...)

Before renouncing nuclear weapons in 2002, Qaddafi was a pariah as one of the earliest backers of terror attacks abroad, according to the US and European governments. His regime has been responsible for the death of at least 440 people in four countries, as well as brutality in Libya.

Reagan’s military action followed the April 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque that killed two US servicemen and a Turkish woman. Four people, including a Libyan diplomat, were convicted by a German court for participating in the attack. (...)

The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people and the only man convicted of the atrocity is a former Libyan intelligence officer. It was followed a year later by the attack on a French UTA plane over Niger, when 170 people died. Qaddafi in 2004 agreed to pay $170 million in compensation, the French government said. (...)

The final break with the Arab world came March 12 when the Arab League, meeting in an emergency session, asked the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, which has Africa’s largest oil reserves, to thwart attacks by Qaddafi’s forces on civilians.

While Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said on March 12 one or two members of the Cairo-based group had voiced concerns, he reiterated this week that countries remain “committed” to UN efforts to halt the 68-year-old Qaddafi. (...)

In London, a police officer was killed in 1984 by gunfire from inside the Libyan embassy, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported at the time. The Libyan suspects were allowed to leave the country under diplomatic immunity and the U.K. broke diplomatic relations with Qaddafi.

The turnaround in relations with the West started in 1999, when Qaddafi allowed the extradition of two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing. He abandoned nuclear weapons development efforts after 2002 and pledged to destroy a chemical weapons stockpile. He also renounced terrorism.

Libya paid $1.5 billion into a compensation fund for terrorism victims to settle claims related to attacks, including the 1988 bombing of the U.S.-bound airliner over Lockerbie, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certified in 2008.

The actions led to an easing of sanctions and improved ties with the U.S. and Europe. Western investment to expand Libyan oil production followed, as did Libyan investment in the West ranging from a stake in Italian bank UniCredit SpA to a 1.5 million-pound ($2.4 million) donation to the London School of Economics. (...)

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair visited him in his tent in Tripoli in 2004 and said Qaddafi had found “common cause” with the West in fighting terrorism.

Scottish authorities released Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al- Megrahi, the only person convicted of the jetliner attack over Lockerbie, on compassionate grounds in 2009 because he was said to be dying of cancer. He remains alive, according to Scottish officials responsible for monitoring him.

[With another busy weekend in prospect at Gannaga Lodge, it is unlikely that there will be further posts to this blog before Monday, 28 March.]

27 comments:

  1. MISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011, doc. nr. 1090.rtf. (google translation german/english):

    The hasty, dubious French French bombing of Libya to the detriment of Europe, become excused more and more as the Revenche for the PanAm 103 bombing and other unsolved terror attacks for which Libya is held responsible...
    The Scottish Parliament had it failed opening the files of the Scottish Criminal Cases Reappeal Commission (SCCRC) and the document under National Security (PII) for the exoneration Libya's.
    The 'Scottish Fraud' in the 'Lockerbie-Affair' against Libya is forensically provable!
    The new forensic pictures (proof comparison) from the highly respected “Forensic Institute of the Canton Police”, Zurich/Switzerland will be published on 30th of March, 2011 on our webpage: www.lockerbie.ch

    by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland

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  2. ebol - well spotted.

    I've searched in vain through the findings of both the trial and appeal for any reference to the forensic tests on the physical evidence ever being subjected to DNA testing?

    While in 1988 such tests may not have been validated by the time of the trial they were practically routine.

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  3. Another marvel of Western ethics!

    Repetition, which is a form of multiplication, does not always result in an amplification. It can actually diminish and degrade information. Arithmetically, of course, multiplication reduces value when the multipliers are fractions. And when you multiply fractions by other fractions, the end result is a big fat zero. The above quoted report, and the way in which it was repeated by Prof. Black, is a very good example of multiplying fractions.

    The original piece says early on about Gaddafi, as quoted above, "His regime has been responsible for the death of at least 440 people in four countries, as well as brutality in Libya."

    That's the seed fraction. Note the striking difference in the way that Gaddafi's responsibility is specified: ≥ 440 in 4.0, and... some brutality in Libya "as well." What the hell happened to the notion of parallelism and even-handedness? It goes out the window. The 4.0 countries whose victims warrant precise specification are: US, UK, Germany and France. Of course the authors elaborate and detail their number of 440 victims, complete with dates, locations, how much was paid for whom, etc. Gaddafi's brutality in Libya? Oh, who cares. Actually, in their long original article, the authors did find room to insert the following:

    At home, Qaddafi’s worst acts include what Human Rights Watch described as a “mass killing” of as many as 1,200 people at Tripoli’s Abu Salem prison in 1996.

    Note that the killing of 1200 people cannot be described as an unqualified mass killing. No, it has to be put in quotes. On pure arithmetic grounds, we know that 1200 is almost three times larger than 440. Apparently, we are not comparing raw integers, here, but quantities with units, in which case 1200 Libyans can be of much lower weight than 440 Westerners because 1 Libyan equals a fraction of a Westerner. This is the first instance of multiplying by a fraction.

    Further, Prof. Black did not copy the entire article, only a subjectively chosen fraction of it. He made sure to quote the parts that dealt with Lockerbie, LaBelle, UTA, and even the shooting of the one Yvonne Fletcher. But the killing of 1200 Libyans is evidently not important enough for Black. One sentence about 1200 victims is much too long and extraneous for Black, who was busy including the full accounting of 440. That's the second fraction, and the dung still gives away the dunger. By the time Black is done with his filtering, the reader gets zilch.

    If Prof. Black thought Libyans were full humans, like the British and the Americans, etc., he would not have formed an alliance with Gaddafi agents. The Libyan students who were killed by the Gaddafi organization that Prof. Black collaborates with in Scotland, are not full-size crimes because those were not British, not Americans, and not French. They were only fractionally human, so killing 1200 of them does not amount to anything worth quoting.

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  4. "does not amount to anything worth quoting"

    Bit like you Suliman. well, apart from that bit.

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  5. Jo G: Try to discuss ideas based on established facts, please.

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  6. MISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011, doc. nr.1091.rtf.
    Nasty and ghastly !!! Psychological Warfare against Libya...
    British minister warns of new Lockerbie:
    "Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi could stage a Lockerbie-style attack in revenge for coalition air strikes if he is left in power, British Justice Secretary Ken Clarke says."
    Clarke, who is also Lord Chancellor, the most senior legal figure in the cabinet, told the Guardian newspaper on Friday that there was still uncertainty in the government about the direction of the Libyan campaign. (Sky News Australia)
    +++

    Still the Official Report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) into Lockerbie bombing blocked by Scottish Authorities...
    Some of the Scottish Officials are the true criminals in the 'Lockerbie Affair', are responsible for manipulating evidence in the Lockerbie Affair and are still protected by the Scottish Justice !
    (They are not involved in the PanAm 103 bombing, but responsible for the conspiracy against Libya).
    Please watch now the full documentary film "Lockerbie revisited" by Regisseur Gideon Levy, shown to Scottish members of Parliament about important facts concerning the conspiracy against Libya.

    http://www.123video.nl/playvideos.asp?MovieID=593392

    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland.

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  7. @suliman:
    "...not be described as an unqualified mass killing. No, it has to be put in quotes."

    Things in quotation marks are often exactly that: quotations. When "mass killing" is in quote marks here, it means that exactly that expression was used by HRW.

    It does not mean, that it is not really a mass killing as there were "only" 1200 Libyans.

    Did you now note the quote marks around "only". Now these quotation marks mean that the author - me - takes a distance to this word, as 1200 dead is very many.

    I don't for a second believe that you can't differ between these usages. I'd rather believe that your need for seeing something bad in certain people makes you blind.

    - - -

    "Further, Prof. Black did not copy the entire article, only a subjectively chosen fraction of it."

    RB cuts out passages he find especially relevant to the Lockerbie-case. Note the title of this blog.
    Yes, they are "subjectively chosen". What else could they be?
    There is always a link to the full text.

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  8. FWIW: I don't know why I am not "SFM" but just "SM".

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  9. "Try to discuss ideas based on established facts, please."

    Indeed Suliman: start with the 800 page SCCRC findings on Megrahi's conviction.

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  10. MISSION LOCKERBIE, doc. nr. 1092.rtf. (google translation, german/english):

    Before Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke warned that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could stage another Lockerbie-style terror attack, in revenge for Britain's involvement in air attacks.
    In the present situation --- Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron, should be show the people of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, wheter Libyan officials have something to do or not with the Pan Am 103 attack ? He should open, as evidence, the files of the Scottish Criminal Cases Reappeal Commission (SCCRC) and the document under 'National Security' (PII).
    In 6 parts of the verdict Al Megrahi, is a spectacular miscarriage of justice !
    Do not forget: through the Scottish "Lockerbie-Indictment", the Libyan people 8 years had suffered by the UN embargo...
    Mr Abdelbaset and the Libyan people deserve the right to prove that the truth is revealed and that their honour will be fully restored.

    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland. URL: www.lockerbie.ch

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  11. suliman,
    Did Gadaffi imprison or torture you or any member of your family or did he kill any member?

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  12. People revolting wherever there are a lot of Arabs; Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and earlier The Ritz, and now Fortnum and Mason. Where will this end...a no-fly zone in Rifkind's Kensington? It could push up the price of hampers and high tea.

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  13. MISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011, doc. nr.1193.rtf. (google translation german/english):

    What the hell wants UK Prime Minister David Cameron doing against the Leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, for regime change ?
    More and more, the unsolved "Lockerbie Case" as an excuse for the hasty military intervention will be highlighted.
    MP Cameron if you do not have fear of the truth, open the exculpatory secret SCCRC-files and the document under 'National Security' (PII) in aid for Libya...

    Cameron has the very important "Building Business Bridges Whit Libya" (Libyan British Business LBBC Counsel) destroyed and thus accelerated the crash of the UK economy into a Immeasurable catastrophe !
    It is feared that the majority of Libyan Muslims (SUNNY) after the horrific attack on their country, ex friend UK take on the future business blacklist.

    by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland. URL: www.lockerbie.ch

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  14. No Ruth, but Suliman`s friends did a bit of murdering themselves. L.I.F.G, Suliman? Tell us a bit about yourself.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8POHluG86IU

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  15. Mission Lockerbie, 2011, doc. nr.1194.rtf. (google tranlation, german/english):
    Great Britain's psychological dirty warfare against Libya. For the Memory of Seif El Islam, ex friend of United Kingdom...

    Is British Lawmaker, Lord Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke's warning of a possible Lockerbie-style attack carry out from Colonel Gaddafi --- a preparation for the next nasty blame assignment against Libya --- for a future terror attack at Great Britain --- likewise how the disastrous PanAm 103 attack, not carried out by Libya offiials.

    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Telecommunication Switzerland

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  16. Grendal,
    The question was not for you to answer.

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  17. Nor did I attempt to, Ruth.

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  18. The Arab world ... it league agreeing to a no-fly zone, support from al Jazeera, which runs like CNN with this issue, but with more mentions of Allah, and we hear, sending fighters/mercenaries, weapons and so on. Many of those supported are Islamists who want an Emirate of Benghazi. Others are hardened al Qaeda recruits who've fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    They have slaughtered hundreds already in that area of the country (130 at al-Baida, reported, but blamed on Gaddafi's forces with no evidence - Suliman and Grendal know the incident I'm talking about and the evidence that does exist).

    Is the Arab world, Saudi Arabia in particular, using more foreign adventures, as they did with Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s, to placate hard-liners at home and/or export their own Wahabbi ways again?

    Is this a thing to be excited about and proud of?

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  19. Suli: If Prof. Black thought Libyans were full humans, like the British and the Americans, etc., he would not have formed an alliance with Gaddafi agents.

    Ah, so Black's a racist too! Just like Dr. Swire! Racists, shills, mercenaries, drunks, money-grubbers, and undignified unregistered agents of a foreign terrorist syndicate. Wow, we're so lucky to have you around!

    And if it weren't for you pointing out his "filtering," we'd be completely unable to click the link he provided to the full friggin article. You are like a savior!

    Except for that you don't save anything real and we don't need you.

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  20. I watch Al Jazeera all the time, and have been watching since before the US government pressure lead to it being dropped from major US cable channels. The channel never mentions Allah from what I see - but maybe they are slightly different from their sister, Al Arabiya: don't know for sure. I am not Jewish, but I can't even detect a anti-Israeli bias either...they even have a weekly news program hosted by David Frost. They are the most neutral news channel on air by a country mile - the British news channels are steadily sliding into pushing the party line - the US news channels aren't news as I recognise it (an insult to the informed viewers' intelligence).
    Al Jazeera is populated by professional journalists from the UK and some from the US. Their reporting on the Arab revolts has been exemplary for being so objective, courting opinion from the Arab world, Israel, Russia, as well as the US and UK.
    When I switch back to watch the BBC coverage, it is apparent, a biased editorial line is being followed by the British channel.
    Even Al Jazeera's coverage of the Japan nuclear disaster was more accurate - as it has transpired: they had proper nuclear experts predicting some weeks ago exactly how bad things were going to get based on scientific facts, not the face value scenarios being promoted by the Japanese government and replayed without questioning by the BBC, ITV and Sky News channels.

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  21. Blogiston, I would have agreed with you a couple of months ago but I`m now with Caustic Logic on al Jazeera`s Libyan coverage. It has been almost as crass and shallow as the BBC`s and Sky`s. The Qatar connection, perhaps?

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  22. Well, I suppose the crucial test will be when Doha is besieged by revolting Arabs demanding reform, as to how Al Jazeera report this one.

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  23. I admit I'm not watching it, just going off what others have said. I've got no big opinion on al Jazeera in general, and the greater mentions of Allah I just imagined from the audience as well as the interviewees, who come across pretty religious to any and all cameras.

    But it's been noted by others, that their usually different reporting is coming across in line with the West here.

    The Arab League's strong (initial) endorsement of "no-fly" (aka one-sided cease-fire/surrender demand) is apparently a small surprise, even with their (late and weak) protests that they apparently didn't realize this meant shooting into Muslim lands. Puh-lease!

    And we're hearing about foreigners coming in from Arab countries to help. The guys seen in this video seem a troubling lot. So it starts to look like part of some unseen pattern, rather than isolated anomalies. Patterns are shaped by interests, so it's time to speculate on the interests.

    I hear the protesters just re-took Brega and Ras Lanouf with help that they're calling "like God's Air Force!" They're advancing towards Sirte at the lest. And if any illegitimate Gaddafi forces shoot back, it's a breach of their own cease-fire agreement, and they'll be bombed by the "like God"'s sky forces, for shooting civilians.

    I'm sure Suliman, along with a million others out there, is peeing himself with glee at this rather insane, Orwellian, and highly unfair precedent.

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  24. If the conflict is extended I suspect we'll have Lockerbie waved in our frightened, trusting faces rather more. (That's how they'd see it, anyways.) Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't mind if the G-Man was slapped in Court - if he's guilty we might see some evidence at last; if he's not it might raise awareness of the issue - but is anyone enthusiastic about the prospect of yet another war based on fraudulent nash'nul sec'yoo'rity concerns?

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  25. The original Bloomburg article wrote that "His regime has been responsible for the death of at leat 440 people in four countries as well as brutality in Libya." Other matters such as Libyan sponsorship of the Abu Nidal group went unmentioned.

    Sulliman takes this as racist, that the life of a Libyan is worth less than a Westerner although clearly many Libyans (for example the former Justice Minister) have no problem with the prison massacre.

    The Western Governments were concerned with the safety and security of their own citizens and residents including the so-called "stray dogs." Ostensibly iraq was not invaded to put a stop to Saddam Hussein's domestic atrocities but because of the external threat he posed.

    This blog is about Lockerbie. I have argued (notably in my article Lockerbie Criminal Justice or War By Other Means at www.e-zeecon.blogspot)was blamed for reasons largely but not entirely unrelated to the bombing itself. It solved two major problems - firstly the need to present the case as solved (and a false solution wa imperative) and secondly to deal with the unrelated problem of Libya's external behavious.

    The 1992-3 Sanction resolutions (sponsored by France, britain and the USA) were intended to put the West in a win-win situation with Colonel Gaddafi both to modify the regime's behaviour and to bring about regime change by making the average Libyan's life as miserable as possible or to provoke a revolt by actually handing over the two suspects. A trial was the last thing the west wanted. Colonel Gaddafi's objective with the Lockerbie crisis wasn't the truth or justice but essentially regime survival.

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  26. Adam on the Sirte issue this is said to be a Gaddafi stronghold support wise. If those people fight against the rebels will the West assist the rebels in killing them. For the people in Sirte are part of that group we keep calling "the Libyan people" even if they don't support the rebels. The West seems to want to give the impression we're not killing "people" just Gaddafi's guys. But what about his supporters? What will they do if they choose to fight the rebels?

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  27. Jo: I think "the Libyan people" are now defined as those on the rebel side. The illegitimate regime and (however many) paid thugs and duped loyalists are all that stand in the way of true freedom in Libya. It's unfortunate, but ...

    So yes, if they resist effectively the takeover of Sirte, the civilized world will surely do what it can to neutralize that. We don't want our boots on the ground, but the boots there need a lot of help from the sky Gods. But when it comes to the city itself ... "pinprick bombing" of "military installations" that's 350% more intense and residential than reported, to scare the population into fleeing? It's tricky doing, to be sure ...

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