[What follows is an excerpt from a long interview with Tam Dalyell published in today’s edition of The Scotsman:]
On the question of Lockerbie, he remains convinced of Libya’s innocence and states, in his book [The Importance of Being Awkward: The Autobiography of Tam Dalyell], that the United States was aware of the plot to bomb the Pan Am flight by Iran as retaliation for the downing by America of an Iranian passenger jet in the summer of 1988. As he writes: “I came to conclude that a Faustian agreement had been reached, whereby the Americans would
connive at one airliner being destroyed.” As he corrals two volumes of research into seven pages in his memoir, it is best to conclude that nothing will change his mind: “What I think is that the Libyans might have known about it. Were they the perpetrators? No, they were not.”
Hmmmm. Let's look at the headline over the previous blog post.
ReplyDeleteSuddenly, I think I know how Magnus Linklater feels....
MISSION LOCKERBIE, 2012:
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the Swiss Police Commissioner Hans Cretton* (code name) expressed his concerns. "The first was that the CIA had planted the fragment of MST-13 in the wreckage found at Lockerbie".
Henderson and Richard Marquise told him this had also crossed our minds. Neither of us believed the CIA or any government official would do such a thing, but we had discusseed the possibility ...
(MEBO - hi, hi, hi, naive setting).
(* Text from formerly FBI Task Force chief Richard Marquise written in his "diary - Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation").
by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Telecommunication Switzerland. URL: www.lockerbie.ch
For some there is a neat simplicity in linking Pan Am 103 and Iran Air 655. It’s only cricket, you destroy one of ours and we’ll destroy one of yours, to even the score!
ReplyDeleteHowever in context Iran Air 655 was just one incident in Iran’s 10 year war with Iraq (Iraq supported by everyone and remember Iran-Contra) which had consumed a million lives.
If Iran wanted revenge they would do so in any way they could and not anonymously, because it’s hardly revenge unless you claim responsibility – and why bomb a plane as opposed to a crowded foyer or any other target?
Iran Air 655 and everything else did provide Iran with a motive to strike back, which is why through filtered news they were the initial scapegoat, but if motive is proof, then all the victims of American aggression and agent provocateurs would be guilty.
I don't think anybody ever suggested that motive is proof, did they? Means, motive and opportunity. Put these together and you have something to work on.
ReplyDeleteThe trick with these terrorist attacks is to make it pretty clear who did it, but not to leave enought evidence that anyone actually gets convicted of the atrocity. If it was the Iranians, I'd say they judged that pretty well.
Yes, but means, motive and opportunity could apply to almost everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnd if the IRA claimed responsibility for their bombs, why would Iran not do the same?
And if there is not enough evidence on which to convict, how do you make your responsibility clear, without claiming responsibility?
I said, "If it was the Iranians, I'd say they judged it pretty well."
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, everybody and his dog thinks it was the Iranians, and yet they haven't suffered the slightest retaliation for it. If it was the Iranians, I'd call that job done, and not be saying, "oh but this guy Dave on the internet thinks we should have gone about it differently."
Iran suffered high casualties in a 10 year war and is suffering sanctions and assassinations today, but you say ‘they have not suffered the slightest retaliation for Pan Am 103’, which was allegedly in revenge for Iran Air 655!
ReplyDeleteAnd you make it pretty clear you think Iran did it, without claiming they did it, because ‘everyone and his dog believe they did it’, because allegedly John Bedford noticed some unidentified luggage at Heathrow!
What more evidence do you need?
So presumably you also believe all those blaming Libya and Megrahi (and Fhimah?) have been pretending all along?
You have a very simplistic mind, you know. The fact that the bomb suitcase was introduced at Heathrow (lots more evidence about that than just what John Bedford saw) isn't actually a part of the evidence that point to Iran. That's a whole different section of evidence.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if Iran did it or not. I said everybody and his dog thinks it was Iran. Not quite the same thing.
The mentality of the people who believe in the fairy-tale of the invisible levitating suitcase at Malta is something for the psychologists to play with.