Friday 7 March 2014

Aljazeera premiere at Holyrood

[A message from Justice for Megrahi’s secretary, Robert Forrester, to JFM’s members and supporters:]

You are invited to the world premiere of the third in the series of the late lamented Chris Jeans's works on the Lockerbie/Zeist saga. This particular film ought to have been aired around the end of last year to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy, however, due to unexpected circumstances it was not broadcast at the time.

It will be shown in Committee Room 1 of the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday 11th March 2014 at 1pm precisely. A Q&A session will follow with the Executive Producer, Dairmuid Jeffreys. 

Dr Morag Kerr, who appears prominently in the documentary - Secretary Depute of Justice for Megrahi and author of Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies (http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=2499) - may also be available following the showing.

If you wish to attend this premiere, please RSVP to: Mary.Shanley@scottish.parliament.uk

It is important that you do so ASAP since seating may become constrained.

2 comments:

  1. Having stayed up to watch the first part of BBC2's brilliant 39 days I caught the start of "CIA Declassified" on the History Channel 12. This was about the CIA's efforts in the mid-1980's to effect regime change in Libya. (I take the view that the primary objective of the 1991 Indictment from the American perspective was regime change.) The programme of course featured Robert Baer. I look forward to watching the show in full at 8 pm on Saturday. I hope the Al-Jazeera show in an improvement on the first two.

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  2. I watched this at 8 pm last evening. It was really good. Talking heads included former CIA "counterterrorism" chief Dewey Claridge (an Iran-Contra player) Bob Woodward and a couple of journalists one of whom made the important point that the crimes the Americans accused Gaddafi of were largely true. It was essentially about the CIA's 30 year campaign to bring about regime change in Libya through failed assassination attempts, sponsoring rebels (with a ten year interregnum 2001-2011 when Gaddafi was an ally in the "War on Terror".

    It started with the "stray dogs" campaign and the La Belle Disco bombing, went on to the bombing of Tripoli and Banghazi then the CIA's attempts to recruit a rebel army from Libyans taken prisoner by the Chadians, the leader of whom was rolled out twenty years later during the Benghazi revolt.

    There was a lot missing (the imput of the NSC and Cannistraro's crackpot schemes of harassment) the Rome and Vienna Airport attacks, the UTA bombing and of course the wider context of the USA's own terrorist war on "Nicarwagwa".

    The programme documented Gaddafi's crimes and the CIA's attempt to restrain or overthrow him. Lockerbie was mentioned but only in the former category. The programme makers did not see it, as I see it, as an operation to put Gaddafi back in his box or to effect the overthrow of the regime.

    This programme was of course a mix of history and propaganda ("history is the propaganda of the victors" - V.I.Lenin) but I think it gave a real insight into half the Lockerbie case - the creation of the "Libyan solution." In respect of who actually did it the show followed the official line. I hope the Al-Jazeera documentary will contribute something worthwhile the this half of the story but I doubt it will.
    The programme documented

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