[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Gordon Brown’s silence on the decision to release Abdel-baset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was “a screw up”, a cabinet colleague allegedly said.
The alleged view is reported in The End Of The Party by political journalist Andrew Rawnsley, who has already incurred the wrath of Downing Street over allegations the Prime Minister mistreated staff at No 10, claims vehemently denied by Mr Brown. (...)
Mr Rawnsley writes: “Gordon Brown said nothing at all. He carried on with his holiday in the Lake District and Fife as if nothing unusual was happening.”
The book states key aides were abroad on holiday. “‘We were caught cold. The system failed him. We all failed him,’ said one senior official, who reportedly added: ‘We had no idea about the furtive discussions between the Foreign Office and the Libyans.’”
Mr Rawnsley writes about the unsustainability of Mr Brown’s position, saying the PM was “frozen by fear” that if he expressed an opinion about Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds, he would infuriate either the US, Libya, the Holyrood Government, the victims’ families, the Scottish Labour Party or the oil companies.
If the PM has been 'silent on the decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi', Gordon Brown has also kept absolutely mum about investigating the murder of Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie disaster (see commentary).
ReplyDeleteMy own feeling is that this is so far down the line that all it shows there is still an active campaign to keep the lie in place, rather similar to the Turin Shroud truth deniers who say that the tests that show it is C13 are invalid because of contamination or whatever, and the mysterious "Christological" process that burnt the image of Christ in it, is still true!
ReplyDeleteIn the end we have to outsitzkeig them on this one.
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ReplyDeleteCongratulatons, Charles! Although you were overhauled by the holocaust denier at the last minute, the finish was a tie. You are joint winner of the January Stundies!
ReplyDeleteHere's the announcement
I thought another comment you made that month was even better - the bit about Popper declaring that the proposer of the hypothesis doesn't have to provide any evidence in support, and can claim victory if nobody else can be bothered bringing forward such evidence. But the chosen howler obviously struck the public mood.
You'll see in the same post that you have also made the fimal cut for the February award. You're just running mid-field this time, even though your entry is again extremely strong, but then there is some serious lunacy to contend with.
All the best! You have my vote!
Mr Rolfe's parody of what the hypothetico-deuctive system is is pathetic. The point is Rolfe as I keep pointing out is that a fact can only be used to knock down a standing hypothesis. If that fact does not, and the hypotheis stills stands it has succeeeded that test of proof. You of course have a PhD and know better.
ReplyDeleteNow here's a little fact. In the IH tests it may be inferred that the IED was not in a suitcase. The detailed and clever Mr Logic himself has winked out the following statement:
"In fact, extensive explosives tests were carried out in the United States in 1989, some time before the fragment PT35 was extracted by the forensic experts, as part of the Lockerbie investigation. The purpose of these tests was:
to to estimate the amount and location of the explosives used on PA103;
to to establish the extent of damage to the improvised explosive device ( IED ), the adjacent suitcases and their contents; and
to to ascertain what parts of the IED and its contents it was possible to recover and identify." COPFS original posting
The fact that it says damage to the IED and adjacent suitcases says clearly that for those tests, the IED was not in a suitcase, and also to work out what damage the IED sufferred.
Two consequences result from this protocol being adopted. As late as April 1989, the CIA were trying to swing the line of wahat I call a stick on. My belief is that MI5 forbade that. That we are not told that the tests recovered any parts of the IED suggests that nothing was recovered. Therefore the chip and board evidence has been faked.
The writer of the COPFS report is not as gret a writer of opaque civil-service-ese as Protheroe, after all he is only an American, but he tries hard. I have tried rewriting his words to improve the opacity - make it less clear to see the sense. Replace the word adjacent by surronding and the tricks virtually done.
I don't think this one's really winner material, Charles.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it says damage to the IED and adjacent suitcases says clearly that for those tests, the IED was not in a suitcase, and also to work out what damage the IED sufferred.
You see, your place in the February finals was for your creative interpretation of the AAIB report's statement about there being only one bomb on the plane. While the above is good, it's much too similar.
I'll nominate it if you like, but I doubt if it'll progress very far.
I think it is quite possible that Mr Rolfe is part of a disinformation exercise. Slimvirgin has been outed as MI5, and one of the traditional tactics is simply to say a position is absurd, without explaining why.
ReplyDeleteMr Rolfe has not even read my take on the AAIB correctly. It says there was not more than one IED on the aircraft, (not more than one explosive device) that detonated.
But perhaps his masters wish to persuade us that the last sentence of Appenix F on the AAIB report on page F-4 does not exist. I can assure him it does in the copy I downloaded.
Mr Protheroe it is said wrote that sntence and it really can't be unsaid.
That, quite frankly, is hilarous.
ReplyDeleteWhat Rolfe? You haven't denied it.
ReplyDeleteAnd would you believe me if I did?
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