This is the headline over a three-part article by Scottish freelance journalist Stewart Nicol published today on the News With Views website. Part One can be read here, Part Two here and Part Three here.
The article contains a lot of interesting material, some of it not well known. However, it appears to have been written before Abdelbaset Megrahi abandoned his appeal and was returned to Libya and the Crown abandoned its appeal against the "punishment part" of his life sentence, since Part Three contains the following paragraph:
"So those who may have been behind the largest loss of life attack in Europe were certainly not Abdel Baset Al Megrahi of Libya. He became a scapegoat years later and one of the biggest victims as he spent over a decade in jail, his name ever linked with the atrocity. He sought to clear his name but due to a terminal illness and the unreal delaying tactics of the Crown Office under orders of the USA lawyers like [Brian] Murtagh and Dana Biehl the court only got started on the appeal. However five judges still have to rule on that section of the appeal and the Crown Office still have to drop their appeal of a stiffer sentence. That first phase of the appeal could exonerate Megrahi on the identification alone."
A supportive report on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.
It's complete raving bonkers Conspiracy Theory.
ReplyDeleteAnd the writing is appalling.
Does he do this for fun, or is someone paying him to make Lockerbis sceptics as a group look completely demented?
I'm trying to read it anyway, but it's almost unreadable, the writing is so bad. His fact-checking is worse, for example he repeats the old error that Botha took a direct Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to NY, when in fact his original flight missed out Frankfurt completely, allowing him to catch the earlier PA101 from Heathrow.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, Professor Black, the author does know that the appeal was abandoned. End of part 2.
Perhaps it was this coming out at a new appeal which forced the U.S. to pressurize Gaddaffi to force Megrahi who was terminally ill at the time to give up his appeal. The compassionate release did not require him to give up the appeal at all. So Megrahi again is a victim. Yet he seeks to clear his name and a look at his web site is very educational when you read about the new witnesses they have found in Malta and of the poor quality of the identification and that Gauci got millions from the CIA and a 12000 GBP holiday in Scotland escourted by Harry Bell.
It's just sloppy, fragmented, and virtually incomprehensible.
As Rolfe says, Stewart Nicol is giving us Lockerbie "conspiracy theorists" a bad name. Nicol's article has some interesting stuff, but could be written better and he could have done some basic verification. For instance, he said:
ReplyDeletePerhaps the only diplomat who got a warning something was up, was [South Africa's foreign minister] Pik Botha whose BOSS (secret service with close ties to Mossad) entourage changed his booking from Frankfurt via PA 103 to a direct Lufthansa plane, if I remember the conversation right.
No, Mr Nicol you are quite wrong! This is the correct sequence of events, according to a Reuters report of 12 November 1994:
SOUTH AFRICA MINISTER DENIES KNOWING OF LOCKERBIE BOMB
Former South African foreign minister Pik Botha denied on Saturday he had been aware in advance of a bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 killing 270 people.
The minister confirmed through his spokesman that he and his party had been booked on the ill-fated airliner but switched flights after arriving early in London from Johannesburg.
He was travelling with South African officials to negotiate peace in Namibia and Angola.
Botha was reacting to a report in The Scotsman newspaper on Saturday which said a documentary film The Maltese Double Cross alleged Botha, now South Africa's energy minister, and security chiefs were warned of the bomb and did not travel.
"Had he known of the bomb, no force on earth would have stopped him from seeing to it that flight 103, with its deadly cargo, would not have left the airport," Botha's spokesman Roland Carroll told Reuters after consulting the minister. "The minister is flattered by the allegation of near omniscience."
Gerrit Pretorius, at the time Botha's private secretary, said the then foreign minister and 22 South African negotiators, including defence minister Magnus Malan and foreign affairs director Neil van Heerden, had been booked on flight 103. "But we...got to London an hour early and the embassy got us on to an earlier flight. When we got to JFK airport in New York a contemporary of mine said 'Thank God you weren't on 103. It crashed over Lockerbie'", Pretorius told Reuters.
Darroll said that South African diplomats in the United States were convinced at the time that Botha and his team were on flight 103. He said the flight from Johannesburg arrived early in London after a Frankfurt stopover was cut out. "Had we been on 103 the impact on South Africa and the region would have been massive. It happened on the eve of the signing of the tripartite agreements," said Pretorius, referring to pacts which ended South African and Cuban involvement in Angola and which led to Namibian independence (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_talk:REUTERS12NOV94.jpg ).
So Pik Botha wasn't just forewarned: he was in on it from the start (see my latest petition to prime minister Gordon Brown: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/ )!
I agree with you that Botha was almost certainly warned. And I think the whole story is highly suspicious. There were various general warnings floating around that we are aware of (including the Helsinki warning) that were referencing Pan Am transatlantic flights in general. We know a number of US workers in the Moscow embassy avoided these flights because of the warnings - which may or may not have been hoaxes.
ReplyDeleteIf Botha (or his "people") had heard these warnings and changed to Lufthansa as a result, that would have been mildly interesting.
The fact that they switched to PA101 is bloody fascinating.
As is the fact that apparently not all the party could be accommodated on that plane, and those left behind, instead of taking up their existing bookings on PA103, just turned round and went home.
It smells strongly of a specific warning about that particular flight on that particular day. Which suggests a much more specific warning than any we actually know about.
I still don't see where you get from there to "he was in it from the start" though.
It was nearly six years after the event for it to be publicly confirmed by Reuters that Pik Botha and his party (including Defence Minister Magnus Malan and Director of Military Intelligence Gen. C J Van Tonder) were all booked to travel on Pan Am Flight 103 from Heathrow. Rolfe correctly records that not even one member of the South African delegation actually took that flight to New York.
ReplyDeleteUN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was meant to fly Sabena direct from Brussels to New York for the signing of the Namibia Independence (from SA's illegal occupation) Agreement at UN headquarters. Instead, Carlsson was persuaded to stopover in London for a meeting with South African "polished gangsters", and thus became the most prominent of Pan Am Flight 103's victims ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_talk:IDAG(1)12MAR90.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernt_Carlsson#Call_for_urgent_inquiry ).
That's why I said "Pik Botha wasn't just forewarned: he was in on it from the start."
That's a complete non sequitur. It's quite conceivable that, knwing there was a chance PA103 was a terrorist target, Botha's faction both routed him away from the plane, and routed Carlsson towards it. If the warning had been a false alarm, well, no harm done. Worth a try, though.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't prove complicity at all.
The proof of complicity will be demonstrated by a United Nations Inquiry into the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing (see http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/ ).
ReplyDeleteRolfe -you are absolutely right about this and the standard of Mr Nichol's articles (which I also found to be horrendously libellous!) but you are never going to convince Patrick Haseldine.
ReplyDeleteI am a skeptic when it comes to Patrick Haseldine´s theory. However, the disembarkation of Pik Botha and co. and the embarkation of Bernt Carlsson are very interesting and possibly very important – even crucial – aspects of the Lockerbie affair. And they need to be scrutinized. Of course that is a task that has to be untertaken by the UN since Bernt Carlsson served the UN when he died.
ReplyDeleteBut before the great UN wheel begins to spin there is a smaller one that could be started: The South African. If there was any warning not to use Pan Am 103, then there must be traces of that in the files the BOSS left behind. At least there should be a search there. What is needed is a parliamentarian request in Cape Town - or a leak to the media.
Btw Mr. Botha may not have been warned personally. A change from one flight to another is not for a minister to decide. That is done by the staff, including the security personal. It is an option not to tell the minister.
Patrick said:
ReplyDeleteThe proof of complicity will be demonstrated by a United Nations Inquiry into the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing (see http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/ ).
Ah, you have nothing but argument by blatant assertion, I see. Thought so.
My "argument" proceeds from the known facts about Pik Botha's delegation and Bernt Carlsson in relation to Pan Am Flight 103. As Adam said, the task of scrutinizing those facts falls to the United Nations - a view shared by former MEP Michael McGowan, who wrote in the Yorkshire Post on 2 September 2009:
ReplyDelete"I am also personally angry at the death of Bernt Carlsson, who I was with shortly before he checked in on to Flight Pan Am 103. As President of the Development Committee of the European Parliament, I had invited Bernt Carlsson, the Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, to call in at Brussels in December 1988.
"He was on his way back to the United States from Namibia and agreed to address members of the Development Committee, which he did. In Brussels, he spoke about his hopes for an independent Namibia and the end of apartheid in South Africa to a packed meeting of MEPs.
"And afterwards he confirmed his acceptance to visit Leeds the following year to give the 1989 Peace Lecture in honour of Olof Palme, the former Swedish Prime Minister, who was murdered in Stockholm on February 26, 1986.
"He said how much he was looking forward to coming to Leeds to pay tribute to his fellow Swede with whom he had worked closely as international secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Sweden, and also as a special adviser to Palme.
"Bernt Carlsson did not make that visit to Leeds in 1989. He was a passenger on Pan Am Flight 103 and he died when the plane was blown up over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.
"He was a giant of diplomacy, gentle, quiet, but a tough negotiator. His death, like that of his friend and fellow Swede, Prime Minister Palme, who was murdered in the street in Stockholm returning with his wife from a night at the cinema, was the result of a terrorist act and remains a mystery.
"A call by the British Government for an independent inquiry led by the United Nations to find out the truth about Pan Am flight 103 is urgently required. We owe it to the families of the victims of Lockerbie and the international community to identify those responsible.
"That Bernt Carlsson was on that plane should be an extra incentive for the UN to take action in view of the fact that this impressive diplomat was dealing with some of the most sensitive and violent situations being perpetrated by the brutal apartheid regime in both South Africa and Namibia, besides his work in the Middle East.
"The best tribute to the lives and families of the 270 victims of Lockerbie, including Bernt Carlsson, and the most positive action for the international community to take against terrorism, is to launch an independent inquiry into this gross act of mass murder. Nothing less will suffice ( http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/opinion/Michael-McGowan-The-best-tribute.5612963.jp )."
Just for good measure, I should add that the apartheid regime has been accused of the unsolved murder of Sweden's prime minister, Olof Palme, which Michael McGowan's article referred to.
So, no evidence at all that Botha was "in it from the start".
ReplyDeleteNone that he personally (as opposed to his secret service people) was in it at all come to that.
Pik Botha "in it from the start"
ReplyDeletePik Botha began his career in the South African foreign service in 1953, serving in Sweden and West Germany. From 1963 to 1966, he served on the team representing South Africa at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in the matter of Ethiopia and Liberia v. South Africa, over the South African occupation of South-West Africa (Namibia).
In 1966, Botha was appointed law adviser at the South African Department of Foreign Affairs. In that capacity, he served on the delegation representing South Africa at the United Nations from 1966 to 1974. At this time, he was appointed South Africa's ambassador to the United Nations, but a month after he presented his credentials, South Africa was suspended from membership.
Pik Botha then went on to serve as the apartheid regime's Foreign Minister from 1977 to 1994.
Adam suggested: "If there was any warning not to use Pan Am 103, then there must be traces of that in the files the BOSS left behind. At least there should be a search there. What is needed is a parliamentarian request in Cape Town - or a leak to the media."
Since BOSS was replaced in 1980 by the National Intelligence Service, it is the NIS files that will need to be searched; and probably also those of the State Security Council, which was under the personal control of the late President P W Botha. How many of these records still exist is however another matter. As The Guardian of 6 August 2007 reported:
"Last week, Mr de Klerk said that although he was a member of the State Security Council it was not briefed 'on clandestine operations involving murders, assassinations or the like - all of which were evidently carried out strictly on a need to know basis.'
"But suspicion that the politicians knew more than they were prepared to admit was heightened when Mr de Klerk, in his last months as president, ordered the wholesale shredding and incineration of tons of documents, microfilm and computer tapes that dealt with matters such as the chain of command in covert operations (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/06/southafrica.topstories3 )."
Therefore, barring a leak to the media or an admission by someone in the know, it seems that only a United Nations inquiry is capable of uncovering evidence to prove that UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was the apartheid regime's target on Pan Am Flight 103.
If you suspect that the apartheid regime had received a highly credible warning that PA103 was to be the target of a terrorist bombing, and thus manipulated Carlsson on to that plane (as well as making sure that Botha didn't catch it), I'd say there could be a reasonable case to be made.
ReplyDeleteIf you suspect that the apartheid regime planned and executed the bombing of the plane their boss was booked on in order to target someone who was booked on an entirely different plane, thus necessitating a complex and attention-attracting sequence of flight changes to achieve their goal, I think your theory requires some work.
The South Africa theory does not exclude the possibility that other countries or agencies might have helped plan and execute the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, but the apartheid regime's target was UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson.
ReplyDeleteThe "complex and attention-attracting sequence of flight changes" by the South Africans only came to light thanks to the Reuters report of 12 November 1994. Bernt Carlsson's flight change was revealed in a series of articles by Jan-Olof Bengtsson in the Swedish newspaper iDag in March 1990. To the best of my knowledge, those articles have never appeared in an English language newspaper.
The Scottish police investigation seems to have been unaware of the flight changes. DC John Crawford in his book The Lockerbie Incident : A Detective's Tale boasts that he personally took the decision not to investigate the role of apartheid South Africa in the Lockerbie bombing. This is an extract from pages 88/89 of the book:
"We even went as far as consulting a very helpful lady librarian in Newcastle who contacted us with information she had on Bernt Carlsson. She provided much of the background on the political moves made by Carlsson on behalf of the United Nations. He had survived a previous attack on an aircraft he had been travelling on in Africa. It is unlikely that he was a target as the political scene in Southern Africa was moving inexorably towards its present state. No matter what happened to Carlsson after he had completed his mission in Namibia the political changes were already well in place and his demise would not have altered anything. This would have made a nonsense of any alleged assassination attempt on him as it would not have achieved anything. I discounted the theory as being almost totally beyond the realms of feasibility.
"We eventually produced a report on all fifteen [the 'first fifteen' of the interline passengers] to the SIO [Stuart Henderson], each person had their own story and as many antecedents as we could gather. The other teams had also finished their profiles of their group of interline passengers. None of them had found anything which could categorically put any of the interline passengers into any frame as a target, dupe or anything else other than a victim of crime." ( http://books.google.com/books?id=Nh9_p8RjikQC&pg=PP1&dq=Lockerbie+Incident:+A+Detective%27s+Tale#v=onepage&q=&f=false )
Perhaps now is the time for Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to turn the table on DC Crawford and DCS Henderson (the two former Scottish detectives who publicly criticised his decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in August 2009) and get them to explain why they failed properly to investigate the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Still no actual evidence I see, and not even an attempt to explain why any conspirator would choose to target a flight his own boss was booked on - but the intended victim wasn't.
ReplyDeleteOnce Bernt Carlsson's booking on Pan Am Flight 103 had been confirmed, the 23-strong South African party, including two senior members of the apartheid regime (Pik Botha and Magnus Malan), cancelled their own booking on the flight.
ReplyDeleteOther countries or agencies might have helped plan and execute the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, but the regime's prime target was the UN Commissioner for Namibia.
A United Nations Inquiry into the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing will produce the 'actual evidence'. ( http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/ )
Still no evidence, then?
ReplyDeleteI reckon it was the IRA, on about the same amount of evidence.
My seven comments above contain a wealth of circumstantial evidence leading to the conclusion that apartheid South Africa targeted UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, on Pan Am Flight 103.
ReplyDeleteDirect evidence, if still available after 21 years, and the burden of proof on the apartheid regime's involvement can be established by a United Nations Inquiry into the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.( http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/ )
The arc of history is long but it bends towards justice (Martin Luther King Jr).
Your seven comments above contain speculation, surmise and baseless assumptions.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the publication by The Guardian of my letter pointing the "finger of suspicion" for the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, at apartheid South Africa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PatrickHaseldine3B.jpg).
ReplyDeleteAt the time, that public accusation by me was based on little more than an informed hunch. In the intervening years, many supporting facts have come to light and are summarised in my comments above.
A detailed inquiry by the United Nations into Bernt Carlsson's murder will be able to determine whether those facts fit the crime of Lockerbie, and thereby whether the apartheid regime has carried out a "crime against humanity" by sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_against_humanity#Apartheid).
Long quotes from Scottish police officers about why they don't think Carlsson was a target, and simply noting that you think there was a motive to target him, do not evidence make.
ReplyDeleteOn 7 December 1989, The Guardian published this letter:
ReplyDeleteFinger of suspicion
Exactly one year ago, you published my letter suggesting that Mrs Thatcher might have a blind spot as far as South African terrorism is concerned. Fourteen days after publication, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky upon Lockerbie. Of the 270 victims, the most prominent person was the Swede Mr Bernt Carlsson – UN Commissioner for Namibia – whose obituary appeared on page 29 of your December 23, 1988 edition.
I cannot be the only puzzled observer of this tragedy to wonder why police attention did not immediately focus on a South African connection. The question to be put (probably to Mrs Thatcher) is: given the South African proclivity to using the diplomatic bag for conveying explosives and the likelihood that the bomb was loaded aboard the aircraft at Heathrow (vide David Pallister, The Guardian, November 9, 1989) why has it taken so long for the finger of suspicion to point towards South Africa?
Were police inquiries into Lockerbie subject to any political guidance or imperatives?
P.J.Haseldine
(Address supplied)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PatrickHaseldine3B.jpg)
Patrick Haseldine wrote "at that time, that public accusation was based on little more than an informed hunch". I do not think there is anything more to it than a hunch and his "evidence" is dreadfully thin.
ReplyDeleteHowever at least the "evidence" he quotes is real. He didn't create it, invent it or just make it up. That is my objection to the "drug conspiracy theory". (Rolfe may care to put the words "Interview Deirdre McNamer in a search engine and read the "comment"!)
Might I suggest this thread be continued at Dr Swire's lengthy comment on this thread "De Swire -PA103 what really happened of the 7th Dec.2009?
Indeed, a move to that thread seems appropriate.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem to me that Patrick has any evidence at all, beyond the coincidence of the flight switches. And these, indeed, argue against his thesis. Planning to bomb a plane that your target isn't booked on but your boss is, and then switching the bookings, seems perverse. Being poised to act, but able to move against a particular plane at the last moment after coincidental changes of plans is also unlikely, and negates the changes of plans as being evidence of anything. And note that the break-in at Heathrow occurred before the flights were changed.
Patrick has no evidence showing any suspicion of South African personnel being in a position to sabotage that flight. He just seems to "know" they did it because he thought the regime was up to no good, and then Bernt Carlsson was killed.
If the flight alterations point to anything, they point to the SA authorities having received a warning that some other agency was targeting PA103 in particular. In that case, of course you'd do something to make sure your boss and his party catch a different flight (like missing out a scheduled stopover), and you might decide to see if you could engineer it so that your opposition caught the flight. And if nothing blew up after all, no harm done.
Even that is just supposition and speculation, but at least it is in accord with the facts as we seem to know them. Patrick seems to have no evidence at all that the SA regime actively did anything to bring down PA103.
>>Planning to bomb a plane that your target isn't booked on but your boss is, and then switching the bookings, seems perverse.<<
ReplyDeleteIn the apartheid South Africa context, the term "boss" is best replaced by government minister (even though the Bureau of State Security (BOSS) was replaced in 1980 by the National Intelligence Service).
However, don't forget that those changes to the flight bookings include Bernt Carlsson's!
How is it that the South Africans avoided taking Pan Am Flight 103, yet were instrumental in ensuring that the UN Commissioner for Namibia took the doomed flight?
If only Mrs Thatcher had put Scotland Yard in charge of the Lockerbie investigation (instead of DC John Crawford and DCS Stuart Henderson) we would know the answer to that question.
How is it that the South Africans avoided taking Pan Am Flight 103, yet were instrumental in ensuring that the UN Commissioner for Namibia took the doomed flight?
ReplyDeleteFor about the twentieth time, maybe because a little bird told them something might very well be going to happen to that plane? A reliable enough tweet for them to decide to route Botha on a different flight, just in case? And then maybe, just on the off-chance, to manoeuvre Carlsson on to the flight? Just on the off-chance? You never know?
And if PA103 had arrived safely, well, shucks, but nobody would have been any the wiser. Somebody drew a bow at a venture, a long shot maybe, and it came off.
Maybe.
But at least that makes sense. Smuggling a bomb on a plane your target isn't booked to travel on, and which your own Great White Chief is booked on, does NOT make a blind bit of sense.
Agree
ReplyDeleteSmuggling a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 where your target, UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, is booked on makes eminent sense if you happen to be apartheid South Africa.
Agree
Smuggling a bomb on Pan Am Flight 101, which the Great White chief (Pik Botha) transferred to, makes NOT a blind bit of sense if you happen to be apartheid South Africa.
Wow, we agree!
My own view, for what little it is worth, is that Pan m 103 was downed for purely domestic US reasons, as HW Bush did not want a Carter-style crisis with Iran during his bid to become President.
ReplyDeleteThat provided the backdrop to the bringing down of the Maid.
Officially neutral of the SA question the US right would have tended to align with existing the SA regime, so warning off Botha from the Pan Am flight would be good policy. Similarly, disobliging the UN (no friend of the US) by killing the administrator in waiting of Namibia, would be a finesse to the operation.
One is probably CIA inspired (the Botha bit), the other SD, the Carlsson bit.
The fascinating bit is that not all Botha's team could rebook on 101, for it was Christmas and gives a hint that there was a very specific warning to US government employees as to the inadvisability of flying 103 - explicit as to airline, route and flight. It confirms for example the 101 flight was full.
Outing that one would prove almost all of our fears.
I think Charles is right: the Lockerbie bombing "is probably CIA inspired (the Botha bit), the other SD, the Carlsson bit." (However, I'm not sure what SD means).
ReplyDeleteThe apartheid regime would not have acted alone in sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103, and I'm sure the CIA and MI6 were heavily involved.
Did anyone see last week's Channel 4 series "The Queen", where Mrs Thatcher was in spendid isolation in holding out in 1986 against Her Majesty (and the whole Commonwealth) in refusing to impose economic sanctions against the apartheid regime?
Twenty years ago, opposition to what apartheid South Africa was doing was a defining issue, from the Head of State to the man in the street!
At the time of the Lockerbie bombing George HW Bush was President elect.
ReplyDeleteI thought the foiling of the "Autumn Leaves" plot on Wednesday 26th October 1988 (six days before the Presidential Election of Tuesday 1st November 1988) was what avoided a "Carter style crisis with Iran during his bid to become President".
That is a clue to understanding Lockerbie. The plane crash happened at a time when it could no damage to Bush's electoral chances, for he had been elected.
ReplyDeleteI fail to see why Herbstlaust which as you know provided one fiction of 'the device that got away' should have anything to do with it.
A possible theory is that some Iranians backed a PFLP GC style deal to down numerous American aircraft, but that plot was betrayed when the US and Iran agreed a "one and one only" deal.
You fail to see why Herbslaust (Herbslaub?) should have anything to do with it? As you continue it had everything to do with it.
ReplyDeleteWe disagree whether there was an overt or tacit agreement, a written contract signed in blood or a nod and a wink but we both suspect there was some agreement.
I believe there was a deal.
ReplyDeleteHave a look at what Ludwig writes about the small village of Glion.
Well sure, I take anything written by Professor de Braeckeleer very seriously. I have written an article "The Elephant in the Room" at http://e-zee con.blogspot.com which deals with what is known about this issue, what is in the public domain.
ReplyDeleteI am sure there was a deal -they didn't have to write it down - it was elementary International Relations theory.(see Eric Spanier's primer "Games Nations Play")
The destruction of several planes in the days before a Presidential Election, "Herbslaub" was not a proximate or measured response (to the "Vincennes Incident") - the destruction of a single aircraft in the dog days of a lame duck Presidency may have been a situation in which to "draw a line in the sand", blame somebody else and move on. (Which is essentially what happened.)
I am interested in the extent to which acceptence became collusion and even management.
I do not disagree with your underlying concept simply your imaginative extrapolation of events and factual inaccuracy i.e.Bush wanted to avoid a crisis "during his bid to become President".
Is it possible you could accept this without making a meal of it?
>>Charles said: I believe there was a deal.
ReplyDeleteHave a look at what Ludwig writes about the small village of Glion.<<
I'd like to have a look. Where can I find what Ludwig writes about the small village of Glion?
PH: I think Charles is referring to the article US, Iran Hold Secret Talks in Geneva Sept 6th 1988
ReplyDelete(published on ohmynews 07-09-2008) which refers to Glyon.
My friend Ludwig refers to this as being about secret hostage negotiations. There is no mention of any deal over "Lockerbie" or any similar atrocity hence the title of my article on the subject "The Elephant in the Room". I suspect there was some discussion of "The Vincennes Incident" if these meetings occurred. Charles has extrapolated a detailed agreement without any evidence.
p.s.I was interested in Qinitek. Wasn't the non-executive Chairman a paid lobbyist for the Uzbek Government? Where was she in 1988?
I have no idea where Pauline Neville-Jones was in 1988.
ReplyDeleteAnd your insinuation that the non-executive chairman of QinetiQ between 2002 and 2005 was a paid lobbyist for the Uzbek Government is quite frankly just too ridiculous for words. We do have laws of defamation in this country you know!
Plus, the D-Notice committee will be failing in their duty if they don't slap an immediate gagging order on you!
I think one of Stuart's problems is he is more intrigued by a fact discovered by him or reported to him than in developing a theory.
ReplyDeleteOne of the problems I've had in talking to him, in several long phone calls, is that he isn't quite certain what he believes and hence (a) he wants to put every single fact into play and (b) the conspiracies are so deep and essentially opaque that he thinks it is entirely impossible for them ever to be understood.
My approach is somewhat different. Coming up with my thesis was quite simple, and then it was a cse of negotiating that developing thesis with the minefield of facts.
One problem with this approach is that it leaves gaps in the theory.
My only defence is say - take a look at the Theory of Evolution as written by Darwin in the mid C19. There was a massive hole in it. Darwin had no credible mechanism for heretitability, which was one of the essences his theory required. Getting there required Mendelian genetics, population genetics and understanding of the structure and function of DNA, and I think it's reasonable to say that was not fimaaly bolted together until the 1960s.
In my little Lockerbie problem, we have issus such as the device that expeloded in AVE4041 PA imitated a PFLP GC device, was a stick on and not a Toshiba cassette in a suitcase, that the suitcase was planted after the crash and I have to assume it was possible to locate Mr McKee's suitcase using radio transponder technology.
But essentially all the facts serve the theory and it does not become typical bad conspiracy theory where we go around assuming everyone is in some way wicked and has something to hide and every doubt about every fact is truly substantive.
Poor old Stuart can't write, can't form a logically testable hypothesis and appears unable to report facts correctly (actually a very hard thing to do).
So I have to classify him as a useful idiot. Sorry Stuart.