Alex Salmond refuses to apologise over his remarks praising Putin. Alex Salmond refused to apologise over the premature release of the Lockerbie bomber despite protests from American relatives. And Mr Salmond refused to apologise over the promotion of Bill Walker as an SNP MSP despite the SNP being forewarned of his propensity. Alex Salmond does not “do apologies”.
[The first online comment following the letter reads as follows:]
What are being listed by Neil Sinclair are allegations of mistakes and chiefly allegations/accusations from those who have shown themselves keener to malign than to explain. Mr Putin is every bit as admirable as Mr Obama and has probably merited his presidency more than his US counterpart. The Ukraine is far from a cut-and-dried issue. Western politicians are all toeing a line that tolerates violence and ignores violence as befits an agenda that has little to do with any kind of admirable code of conduct. The same applies to the release of al-Megrahi who on the evidence that convicted him is infinitely more innocent than those who contrived and supplied and employed said evidence. As for apologies over Bill Walker, if any is due there then probably every party leader would be obliged to make numerous apologies.
Hmmm. Salmond was asked his opinion of a number of international politicians, by Alistair Campbell in a wide-ranging interview. Salmond gave a measured and balanced assessment of all of them. In the course of that, while condemning much of Putin's actions, he remarked that, while accepting this, he was an effective politician and he'd given Russia back some sense of national pride.
ReplyDeleteThis was said just after the Sochi Olympics and before the Crimea situation blew up. Exactly what did Salmond say wrong that he's supposed to apologise for? Have those demanding an apology actually read what Salmond said, as opposed to the media spin on it?
In contrast, George Robertson called for Putin to be admitted to NATO, AFTER the Crimea conflict began. (The BBC have been airbrushing that out of the news reports.) Cameron earlier met with Putin and asked him pretty please to intervene in the Scottish referendum debate on the side of the union.
Why aren't we hearing howls of outrage about either of these matters?
Walker is a scumbag of the first order, but he's a manipulative and deceptive scumbag. He didn't have any actual record of wife-beating at the time he was adopted as an SNP candidate. He lied to the selection committee. He was only exposed because someone later came forward and clyped on him and the police investigated on the back of that. You can't reject a prospective candidate purely because of an anonymous "tip-off" - if you did that, anyone with malicious intent could stop anyone they didn't like from being elected.
There is a major push across all the media to monster Salmond and blacken his name. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out why. Useful idiots are quite happy to repeat the smears and the vilification, for the same motives.
And yes, Megrahi's release has been used as part of that smear campaign, with the smearers working on the assumption that Megrahi was actually guilty.
Of course, Salmond seems to be working under the assumption that Megrahi was guilty, too. Funny old world.
Not a propos this posting, I've just spotted that Channel 5 is broadcasting a documentary on Lockerbie at 2000 UK time tonight. Anyone hoping to learn anything new is likely to be disappointed as the blurb on Ch5's website regurgitates the "accepting responsibility" line and, more tediously, explains how the IED suitcase went on three flights before detonating at 31000 feet.
ReplyDeleteI commented on the Channel 5 webpage for the programme Aku that the Samsonite & Toshiba were already at Heathrow before the Frankfurt flight (supposedly carrying the suitcase from Luqa) even landed at Heathrow.
ReplyDeleteYes, I saw your comment, Scott, which I thought was very clear. I'm wondering why Ch5 who never show anything new if they can get old crap from the USA, should be broadcasting a new documentary; and one which apparently pushes a very much discredited version of events.
ReplyDeleteBen Borland, a journalist who should know better, is busy explaining to the viewers how it was that Gaddafi carried out the attack in revenge for the bombing of Benghazi.
ReplyDeleteAnd Megrahi was almost certainly involved.
This is a pure dramatisation of the police and Crown Office fairy-story. I wonder who's behind putting this out now, at this time? Someone with an agenda, and able to pull some very high-ranking strings I think.
Ben Borland is carefully explaining how the suitcase was loaded at Malta and transferred to the feeder flight at Frankfurt.
ReplyDeleteWell well.
And now we're being told the plane was 25 minutes late - just before we're told it pulled away from the gate at 4 minutes past 6. They already said it was scheduled to depart at six. Do these people never think about what they're saying?
ReplyDeleteWell, that just redefined superficial. It was terrible. It had nothing to say.
ReplyDeleteCertainly nothing new to say, as Rolfe says. It does make one wonder why this, why now? Surely no serious journalist can be unaware of the controversial aspects of the case. The film was made by Irish outfit Circle Films, but the question for me is who commissioned this, why, and why do it now?
ReplyDeleteSince we've gone off-topic in this thread anyway, I think everyone who is interested in miscarriages of justice and their effect on the society which perpetrates them needs to watch this BBC web presentation.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_7617/index.html
Oh, Hi Aku, I just saw your post.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts entirely. Where did that come from? Why now? Who's behind this?
Oddly, there was going to be a programme for Channel 4, for the 25th anniversary, and they contacted me about the Heathrow evidence before I had seen the photos of the suitcase. When I got back in touch to let them know I had uncovered physical evidence that proved my hypothesis to be correct, I was told the project wasn't going ahead. C4 had pulled out, no longer interested or something.
But this programme that did get made didn't say anything. It didn't even prosyletise the case for Megrahi's guilt, like that dreadful thing STV showed a few years ago. ("Sent Home to Die", narrated by the ghastly Kaye Adams.) It just went through the basic events of the crash and declared the Malta introduction and Megrahi's "almost certainly" guilt as facts without showing any of the reasoning behind it all. It was absolutely pointless.
Most noteworthy for the spectacle of Ben Borland conspicuously joining the pro-establishment camp and openly declaring his belief that the bomb started from Malta and Megrahi was "almost certainly involved". #shill
I kept expecting to see a "sponsored by Crown Office" at each advert break. The reconstruction of the morning of the 21st December showing a "terrorist" having a wash with the narrator stating "that morning the terrorist cell still hadn't been informed of their target" was laughable. Totally pointless documentary.
ReplyDeleteRolfe - the Icelandic case on BBC website was a fascinating read.
Yeah, that bit was just made up out of whole cloth. If it had happened the way they said it did, someone would have had to fill in that Air Malta tag with the intended route. How close to the last minute would you leave that sort of thing?
ReplyDeleteBut it added a touch of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. These programmes add details to fix it in the viewer's mind that the case is more substantial than it really is. I came across one programme or article that declared with a perfectly straight face that an Air Malta tag showing the route from Malta through Frankfurt to Heathrow was found on the handle of the bomb suitcase.
The programme we're talking about said the crash happened on a Friday, and there was another pointless tyro error I've forgotten, too.
I'd kill to know who commissioned this.
And when the cover-up is so systematic that it includes a ‘pointless’ anniversary film repeating the official line, it’s not a cover-up adequately explained by stupidity!
ReplyDeleteJust noticed it seems to have been made as part of a series. First week looked back at events of 7/7, last week Lockerbie and this coming week Kings Cross. A series of six perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThat might explain the bland, follow the official line, ask no questions format.
ReplyDelete