[This is the headline over an item published today on John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury website. It reads as follows:]
The latest issue of Private Eye carries the following article about everyone’s favourite Lockerbie crank Patrick ‘clinically sane’ Haseldine.
Most hacks and news organisations have long blocked or junked rants from the Lockerbie-bombing conspiracy theorist Patrick Haseldine. Not so The Ecologist magazine.
Oliver Tickell, the new editor, has just published “the shocking truth” of Lockerbie by the man who styles himself “emeritus professor of Lockerbie studies”. Haselnut has long claimed that Pan Am 103 was blown up by the apartheid South African government in order to kill an unfortunate Swedish passenger, Bernt Carlsson, the UN assistant secretary-general and commissioner for Namibia.
As well as aiming various far-fetched accusations over the years at people connected to the Lockerbie investigations and trials, Haseldine has also claimed that he was “nominated” for last year’s Private Eye Paul Foot Award – by which he meant he had in fact submitted his own material for consideration.
What, is this for real? Has someone actually published Patrick's ravings?
ReplyDeleteSurely the Last Days are upon us!
Haselnut! Beautiful! Hah, hah!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThis must be this article referred to.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2224221/flight_103_it_was_the_uranium.html
PH writes
* URENCO case dropped *
Following Bernt Carlsson's untimely death in the Lockerbie bombing, the case against URENCO was inexplicably dropped and no further prosecutions took place of the companies and countries that were in breach of the United Nations Council for Namibia Decree No. 1.
Despite this fairly obvious evidence that Bernt Carlsson was the prime target on Pan Am Flight 103, there has never been a murder investigation conducted by the CIA, FBI, Scottish Police or indeed by the United Nations.
Well, that is a motive.
But death and destruction over USA and anything including Americans is a wish shared among at least tens of millions of people, if not hundreds, so we need a something a bit more specific.
As Robert F. pointed out recently - if you want to take out one man, it seems imprudent and risky to take down a whole plane, simply because an act of that size is likely to be investigated thoroughly and huge rewards - as we saw - would be offered and the case would be unlikely to be closed. Which is among the reasons probably why 99.9999% of all premeditated murders targeting a single victim is not done by downing an airplane with a bomb.
Anyway, if PH has 'more' evidence, I suppose he'd have written about it?
If not, his theory is as good or bad as any other theory without evidence, even poorer founded than the official explanation.
I can't judge for the veracity of the article, but if it is factually correct it is not actually bad in itself. In fact it's quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteAll it amounts to is, however, the assertion that the South African government had a possible motive to get rid of Mr. Carlsson, and that his death seems to have been politically convenient for them.
He doesn't go into any evidence suggesting the South African government actually did anything to bring the plane down. Even the story about the flight rearrangements doesn't get an airing.
Somebody put a bomb in that baggage container, and it does so happen that they put it right in front of Mr. Carlsson's suitcase. But 259 people on the plane were killed indiscriminately, so that's no reason to assume a connection. Somebody's case had to be the one behind the bomb.
As was said, an umbrella tipped with etorphine would have been a better bet. Now I'm beginning to sound like Dave.
The only reason I wish Patrick to be afforded of more oxygen is so that I may laugh even more!!!!!!! It will doubtless kill me in the process though. The Ecologist has made something of a serious blunder here. Perhaps they ought to stick to what they know best. Whatever that is.
ReplyDeleteRobert.
Al
ReplyDeleteI can't be bothered going over the Markov stuff again (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov and also see what the South African government of the day was brewing what they were brewing courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Coast)
Great thing this Net stuff, don't ya dink?
Haselnut! Why didn't I think of that?! Drat! Hats off to the Eye!
Pip, pip,
Robert.
Dear SM,
ReplyDeleteI just knew there was a reason why I liked the Norse! I sincerely hope you are not a one off!
Pip, pip,
Robert.
Dear Robert,
ReplyDeleteI read about Op. Coast last time you gave the link.
It could have destroyed my whole day if it wasn't because there are no illusions left.
We all knew that absolute power corrupts absolutely - but does it really need to make you a total sicko too?
That damned net, the damned tree of knowledge with its bitter fruits.
Dear SM,
ReplyDeleteThe Net is marvellous. It just depends how you take it and use it. A simple tool that exemplifies one of the many qualities that make us what we are: our incredible social and communication skills (quite apart from our immense creativity). I love it. JFM could never have achieved what it has as quickly as it has, albeit that on occasion it eels like we are moving at a snail's pace, but that ain't our fault.
I do agree that Coast makes for a hugely distressing read though. One of the less attractive aspects of humankind.
Yours,
Robert.
Of course I am not really shooting the messenger. We wouldn't want to live in blissful ignorance.
ReplyDeleteThe pain is to discover. The cruelty, blindness, hypocrisy, indifference, passivity.
The more there is to fix, the harder it is to ask the man in the mirror: "Did you make a difference?"
You know, I thought you were just talking generally when you said it would have been far easier to get rid of Bernt Carlsson with an umbrella tip, if he had been the target. Reading that lot, I see this was far more than an abstract observation. Not just for Bulgarian spies, I note.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the counter to that might be, such a death would be highly suspicious. However, hide one body in hundreds, and it becomes less obvious. See the method chosen by the Barrayaran military to assassinate Prince Serg, in the Bujold novel Shards of Honour.
You can second-guess anything you like to any conclusion you like. What you need, though, is evidence.
Dear Rolfe,
ReplyDeleteThe thing is that some of these toxins are so damned sophisticated and novel (the Markov one perhaps not) that, unless the pathologist concerned were particularly clued up, au fait with such exotica and as sharp a a razor, they could easily end up putting the death down to something that it wasn't. We all know how flawed some forensic officials can be, don't we?
Pip, pip,
Robert.
Was my previous comment censored? Does everybody have to agree with "the clique"?
ReplyDeleteThe words "pot" and "kettle" occur. Patrick Haseldine has made many ludicrous claims. I cannot even see a motive for murdering Carllson. After all he was on his way to a HANDOVER ceremony marking the end of his involvement in Namibia.
Ashton too has made many ludicrous claims unsupported by a shred of credible evidence. It escapes me how Francovich's "depury" and the co-author of the risible "Cover-up of Convenience" can accuse somebody else of being a conspiracy theorist! To me there is no difference between the two of them. They have both spent 20 years peddling a hoax. Still as Quincy Riddle would say they are on the same side!