Monday 17 March 2014

Why the focus on Libya as the perpetrator of Lockerbie?

[An article headed Chaos: the complete disarray of the now “free” Libya published yesterday on the website of American magazine The Source contains the following:]

Libya finds itself in a state of complete disarray increasing day by day in the three years following the coup of its notorious leader, Mu’ammar Al-Gaddafi.  Just last week the former prime minister, Ali Zeidan, was voted out of office by parliament and has fled the country.

Currently, the common place rule of law is scattered, finding itself in the hands of violent and fiercely independent militias based in Misrata, in western Libya, who have launched an offensive against eastern rebels that could very well spark an all out civil war very soon.

This picture reflects an uncanny resemblance to Iraq, but without the major US or NATO oversight, since the US largely sat behind the scenes as a rebel-led overthrow of the former Libyan government took place.  Nonetheless, it still paints a valid picture of the current status of several countries in the Middle East today, following the 2011 Arab Spring.  Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria – all countries either currently or successfully having attempted to overthrow leaders – all have one common factor or potential possibility:  complete and utter chaos playing out in all out civil war due to the lack of central government.

It was also last week, that Al-Jazeera had broadcast the final piece of a 3 year investigation of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing that killed 270 people over Lockerbie, Scotland, which revealed information disproving the long believed fact that Libya – more specifically Al-Gaddafi – was responsible for the crime.  This information was revealed by former Iranian intelligence officer Abolghasem Mesbahi, who later defected from the country, and has now confirmed that it was not Libya who committed the bombing, but Iran.  For decades the only official conviction in the plot was Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was sent to prison in Scotland, and famously released in 2009 under compassionate grounds due to terminal prostate cancer.  He died in 2012, still denouncing his conviction, and his family is appealing the conviction to this day. [RB: There is no current appeal. It has, however, been announced that a group of UK Lockerbie relatives intends to apply to the SCCRC for a further appeal.]

This new information proves incredibly strongly beyond any reasonable doubt that al-Megrahi was indeed innocent, and that Iran, working through the Palestinian Front for The Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), ordered the blowing up of Pan Am 103 in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by the US navy earlier in 1988.  US Naval reports claimed they had mistook the plane for a belligerent F-14 fighter jet.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Mesbahi states, “Iran decided to retaliate as soon as possible. The decision was made by the whole system in Iran and confirmed by Ayatollah Khomeini.  The target of the Iranian decision makers was to copy exactly what’s happened to the Iranian Airbus. Everything exactly same, minimum 290 people dead. This was the target of the Iranian decision makers.”

The Crown Office, the prosecution service for Scotland, had even previously noted that the PFLP-GC was allegedly involved at the original Lockerbie trial. [RB: It was the defence, not the prosecution, that sought to incriminate the PFLP-GC at the Zeist trial. But it is certainly the case that, until the focus shifted in 1990, the evidence amassed by the Lockerbie investigators led them to the conclusion that the PFLP-GC was responsible.] US Defense Intelligence Agency reports at the time also confirmed the leader of the PFLP-GC was paid to carry out the attacks.  So, with high ranking and politically esteemed individuals in both the US and Scotland reaching the conclusion that it was in fact Iran and not Libya who carried out the attacks, why would officials fail to accuse the real perpetrator?

Looking much deeper into the Libyan coup, and the overall dissatisfaction of Gaddafi for decades leading up to it, it becomes clear that the reason the trigger was pulled on Gaddafi was not only his many tyrannical policies, unjust rule, and the supposed responsibility of the Pan Am 103 attacks – those were just surface reasons fueling a more in depth cause.  It was really much simpler… Oil.

16 comments:

  1. Find me a brick wall to bash my head against, NOW, please....

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  2. I remember well the Sky news coverage of the final entry of the rebels into Tripoli. Their reporter sat with rebels in the back of a pickup truck, guns ready for an attack. She laughed, she was enjoying it. All that was missing was Tchaikovski's 1812 victory overture.

    To call it Western media encouragement would be an understatement.

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  3. Dear Rolfe, it is a fine article.

    You are a scientist of nature. Reporters just can't be.

    I know a couple of journalists here, paid 800 GBP/month. 4-5 articles a day is the demand.

    That would mean your book in less than half a month - including the research, without years of background study. How good would it be?

    Market mechanisms of the press. Our democracy runs on it. OMG!

    Let's be happy for any article that tells those few who didn't know it already that there is something seriously wrong with the Lockerbie case.

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  4. SM, that's not really what I meant. I have my doubts about the reliability of Mr. Mesbahi, shall we say, but I'm not criticising the journalist for giving him credence. I'm also very encouraged by the prominence given to doubts about the Lockerbie investigation and conviction by numerous high-profile news outlets.

    I'm just harping on about my usual point again. For almost EIGHTEEN MONTHS I've been trying to interest journalists in the fairly simple proposition that the case Bedford saw can be proved to have been the bomb. I've written a press release, or maybe that's two, I've spoken to various bods on the phone, I spent four hours filming for the Al Jazeera documentary and I wrote a bloody book explaining it in detail.

    Nobody has picked up on it to any significant extent. It goes in one ear and out the other. It's something that doesn't rely on any hearsay from questionable sources, or any assumptions. It is purely evidence based. It shows the original investigation to have been incompetent beyond belief, and it's entirely exculpatory of both Megrahi and Fhimah. And nobody's interested.

    But the minute someone comes forward with a bunch of cloak-and-dagger whispers and hearsay, it's plastered all over every newspaper in creation. It's bonkers.

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  5. It’s not bonkers it's quite simple really, the entire media are under direction from the secret services to obstruct the truth about Lockerbie and this is hardly adequately explained by stupidity!

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  6. "But the minute someone comes forward with a bunch of cloak-and-dagger whispers and hearsay, it's plastered all over every newspaper in creation. It's bonkers."

    I agree. Another nasty eye-opener.

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  7. It’s not bonkers it's quite simple really, the entire media are under direction from the secret services to obstruct the truth about Lockerbie

    Bwahahahaha! Better get your tinfoil hat back on quick Dave, that really would require a sooper-seekrit mind control ray!

    You cannot hope
    to bribe or twist,
    thank God! the
    British journalist.
    But, seeing what
    the man will do
    unbribed, there's
    no occasion to


    - Humbert Wolfe, 1885-1940

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  8. I know a couple of journalists here, paid 800 GBP/month. 4-5 articles a day is the demand.

    That would mean your book in less than half a month - including the research, without years of background study. How good would it be?


    Another fair point. Except. I've done the research. And the background study. I've done my level best to package the explanations in an easily-digested format. I've practically spoon-fed it to a couple of people.

    It's a Woodward and Bernstein story for old rope. And the only person who actually "gets" it is someone writing for the Big Issue in Ireland.

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  9. "You cannot hope..."
    LOL! Excellent!

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  10. Again you assume it would be difficult for the secret services to co-ordinate the mainstream media to promote only the official line.

    It’s easy, they use D notices and everyone falls in line in the public interest!

    Tin hats are not needed, but blindfolds are popular with some!

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  11. OK, let me get this straight. The people who have taken great pains to pretend, falsely, that PA103 was brought down by a bomb, in order to cover up a simple aviation accident, are issuing D notices to prevent journalists reporting - that it was a bomb that brought down the airliner.

    Right....

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  12. 103 was not a simple aviation accident, it was an extraordinary aviation accident with the cockpit detaching from the frame in 3 seconds!

    Also Editors are told not contradict the official ‘bomb’ explanation, beyond saying ‘someone else did it’ - and this also applied to the defence at Zeist.

    And this regulation is self-evident on many issues, including the destruction of Libya that was portrayed by a compliant media as humanitarian intervention!

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  13. 103 was brought down by an IED disguised as a radio-cassette recorder, packed inside a brown hardshell Samsonite suitcase in the bottom front corner of baggage container AVE4041. The documented and photographed physical evidence for that is overwhelming.

    Sorry.

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  14. > 103 was not a simple aviation accident, it was an extraordinary aviation accident with the cockpit detaching from the frame in 3 seconds!

    If you say that is extraordinary, does that mean that there is statistics over how long time it took in other accidents?

    Or is it one of these things you just happen to know?

    And how was it now - did you ever explain why a broken cargo door should do it faster (or slower) than a bomb?

    > Also Editors are told not contradict the official ‘bomb’ explanation

    'Editors are told'
    Love it! Thanks for making my day! :-)

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  15. Editors often have to pursue an editorial line set by their corporate owners who will comply with the establishment line in the interests of their business, including the BBC.

    There are also editors (ML) who consider themselves part of the establishment and know instinctively what they must say and do, without being told.

    To assume that editors and journalists won’t pursue glaring anomalies in the Lockerbie case because they ‘can’t see them’ is beyond naive.

    Thankfully there are some politicians prepared to pursue the case, but even here they are constrained by the cross-party establishment consensus that just wants the matter to go away!

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  16. Ah! Your first two paragraphs in your posting indicates that you actually know how it works:

    That an editor, like any other employee, is hired on a CV that makes it reasonable to assume that they can manage the interest of the employer.

    He will need to spend his time managing. Not being micromanaged being "told" what to do. It did sound like you had that idea.

    You wrote:
    "To assume that editors and journalists won’t pursue glaring anomalies in the Lockerbie case because they ‘can’t see them’ is beyond naive."

    I am happy that you so clearly see that. Editors and journalists have their interests. Like keeping their job and making a profit.

    But beware. What people 'truly can´t see' if it is not in their interest to see it is a well researched subject in psychology.

    Never attribute to a wish for financial gain what can be adequately explained by cognitive dissonance.

    All this said, I'd never have been able to predict what from this case ends on the front pages, and what doesn´t.

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