Monday 14 November 2016

Sturgeon faces uphill battle with Donald Trump over his Lockerbie bomber fury

This is the headline over an article by Siobhan McFadyen published in today’s edition of the Daily Express. It reads in part:]
It was revealed that Ms Sturgeon plans to pen a letter to the billionaire and has not received a phone call despite the fact the Scottish Government was once on amiable terms.
The SNP leader and her predecessor, who called on Mr Trump to be banned from the UK, were once so close he was lobbied over plans to release the Lockerbie bomber.
And a drafted statement was even created that said the billionaire had supported the obtuse plan, a move that backfired extraordinarily, leading to an absolute break down in relations.
Millions of people in Scotland and the United States were revolted when former Justice Secretary Kenny MacKaskill allowed Abdel Basset Al Megrahi to go free following the Pan Am 103 bombing.
A total of 270 men, women and children died when the aircraft which was on route to the United States exploded over Scottish airspace.
And as the Scottish saltire flag flew on the tarmac of the airport in Tripoli the decision infuriated Mr Trump who was later stripped of an honorary Scottish business ambassador title. (...)
Mr [Donald] Trump Jnr said: “Once we refused to support the ridiculous notion of letting an international terrorist out of jail, the entire approach of Alex Salmond’s administration and the entire way he has treated us changed drastically for the worse.”
An e-mail which was sent to the billionaire businessman by Geoff Aberdein, Mr Salmond’s senior adviser, who now works for Aberdeen Asset Management, showed just how off the mark the SNP were.
Mr Trump Jnr said: “As New Yorkers, we are not unfamiliar with terrorists. We had planes fly into the World Trade Centre. And for us to support the release of an international terrorist, we would be run out of New York City, if not America.” (...)
In January Mr Trump reiterated his irritation at Salmond whose deputy through-out his tenure was 46-year-old Sturgeon.
He fumed: "Megrahi and others were laughing out loud at what a stupid man Alex Salmond is. Why would a terrorist that blew up an airliner with so many lives lost be released under any circumstances?
"Alex Salmond is an embarrassment to Scotland.”
[RB: President-elect Trump is the man who compared the development of wind farms in Scotland to the Lockerbie disaster. Some of his other interventions on Lockerbie and Megrahi can be read here. As regards Scots being “revolted” by the release of Megrahi, a public opinion poll commissioned by the Express itself two years after his repatriation and before his death showed a majority in favour.]

9 comments:

  1. Siobhan MacFadyen is a disgrace to journalism.

    In this piece he includes a link "Terrorists involved with the Lockerbie bombing are now fighting with ISIS", thus linking al-Megrahi with ISIS terrorists.

    What he does not say is that that piece, by Ben Borland, includes an interview with Robert Baer in which Baer explains that the Jibril group - not Al Megrahi or Fhimah - carried out the Lockerbie attack. In other words, Baer claims that al-Megrahi was innocent of the Lockerbie attack.

    I invite all who read this item to follow that link and confirm it for themselves.

    Oh how ignorant journalists re-write history! Their words are the soil from which spring warriors to fight the next war whose commencement date is still in the minds of Pentagon planners.

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    1. Siobhan is a, er, maybe lady isn't quite the most appropriate word, but a person of the feminine persuasion, anyway.

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  2. Professor, have you read anything else of Siobhan's outpourings in the Express? Wait, you follow Wings Over Scotland, you probably saw his series of articles about her. He's currently waiting for the Express's lawyers to reply to his solicitor's letter about the defamatory statements she made about him.

    So you know she's utterly demented. As you were.

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  3. "Professor...........So you know she's utterly demented. As you were"

    That's a bit harsh, Morag.

    Bob might have, and only after a couple of sherbets, been a bit loopy but he's never been anywhere near as bonkers as Mad-yin MacFadyen!

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  4. I think the, "As you were." Was a separate statement of thought meaning that she was finished with her position and he could move on to what he was doing before.

    ...although some photos show a questionable, but fun, nature in the good professor.

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  5. A nasty and inaccurate article which sadly shows the level that some newspapers have fallen to in their search for readership and sensation. Sad to see this abysmal level of journalism.

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    1. I should stay away from the collected works of Miss McFadyen, then. This is pretty mild and reasonable by her usual standards.

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    2. She's still at it, too.

      https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/798868364802322432

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