It's no great surprise to learn that US support for "freedom and democracy" in Libya carries a price tag - namely that the Libyan rebels basically kidnap a man, hand him over to US forces, and allow him to be bundled off to America without any extradition process to be "tried" for a crime that he has already been convicted of and punished for in Scotland. (Indeed, technically that punishment is still ongoing, because Megrahi remains on licence, and to the best of my knowledge has obeyed all the conditions of his compassionate release.) It's also no surprise to discover that American "respect" for Scots Law as the proper jurisdiction to deal with the Lockerbie case was conditional on getting the outcome they wanted, and that they feel perfectly at liberty to win themselves a second bite of the cherry by blackmail and brute force. And it's certainly no surprise to see the fingerprints of the clueless, clownish Senators Menendez, Lautenberg and co all over this latest development. Their wild demands for Megrahi to be snatched from Libya to face American "justice" would have remained utterly impossible had it not been for the thousand-to-one chance of the Arab Spring happening when it did, so how they must be purring with pleasure at the luck of it all - not the Libyan people's luck at finally having a chance to control their own destiny, but the senators' luck at having a bargaining position to cynically exploit for petty electoral advantage.
There is, of course, a glorious irony here - if US politicians feel able to unilaterally overrule the Scottish legal process and decide that Megrahi has not been punished enough, that means they know he has something to be punished for. And yet if they regard the outcome as the Scottish legal process as illegitimate in some way, then they should of course be reverting to the status quo ante, namely that Megrahi is a man who is innocent in the eyes of the law, who has an astonishingly thin circumstantial case against him, and who therefore may or may not be found guilty of the charge against him by a US court. So in what sense do they already "know" he's guilty? Why, because a Scottish court has told them so. What remarkably selective respect the US authorities have for the rule of law.
The "Law" and her slapper sister "Political Opportunism" tarted twins minded and pimped by the door-man muscle of the troops of the military-industrial establishment and their peeping-tom and tabby cat auxiliaries amongst the spook and their paid Judas communities.
ReplyDeleteSuspect the poor bugger is a dead man "walking" should their imperialist hit-men get their paws on him (psychopaths, for the most part focussed by their "handlers" irrespective of whose flag they do combat under, on simplistically rendered targets; and with an ancient legacy across cultures and hegemonies - the "Ninja" and ""Assassins" amongst others).
Democracy, forgive me, my arse. More a bare-knuckle fight for representation (pace Connelly's death by firing squad, and MacLean's crushing).
In such an historical context, Alex Salmond's high-wire manoeuvres seem entirely to the point and sensible (suspect Gandhi and Mandela may have thought/might think so, too. (As well as Joe Slovo)).
I wonder what Cameron's take on this is. After all he is sending UK troops and spending UK money (that he is having to borrow), to assist the Americans in all their works in Libya, he must surely have an opinion,.... mustn't he?
ReplyDeleteOf course I know that this is not the part of prime ministering that he does very well (thinking) and I accept that his opinion isn't worth diddly, given his status as junior partner competing with Nicholas for Mr Obama's favour, but he really ought to have some sort of an opinion.
Tris, in the Mail report, there was a line about UK special forces having no direct role in the potential capture of Megrahi, which I presume is supposed to indicate tacit support from the government.
ReplyDeleteIf true, yet another triumph for the "respect agenda".