US authorities framed al-Megrahi for the destruction of Pan Am 103

[Hallo Alfie]

No offence Rolf, you are a very good poster (even if we occasionally disagree).
But no-one cares.
If they had hanged the wrong man and proven him innocent that would have been something. But all we see is a guy that got away with mass homicide and is living it up at home.

 

[geni]

By normal standards I've seen widely cited in JREF discussions, this defies the usual definition of a "real conspiracy." These are almost always exposed, except maybe in Russia or something where the state runs the media. And that's not the case in the UK or US.

So... anyone want to champion that obvious point?

I suspect the faitly slow speed at which things moved helped. By the time guy came to trial the wider public appear have had only limited interest so much of the media stuck to the straightforward approach of reporting rehashed press releases mixed with speculation that a not proven verdic would be returned. Pre trial things were probably kept quiet by people assuming the CIA knew more than it admitted (and this still may be keeping some players from taking an interest).

 

[Caustic Logic]

I suspect the faitly slow speed at which things moved helped. By the time guy came to trial the wider public appear have had only limited interest so much of the media stuck to the straightforward approach of reporting rehashed press releases mixed with speculation that a not proven verdic would be returned. Pre trial things were probably kept quiet by people assuming the CIA knew more than it admitted (and this still may be keeping some players from taking an interest).

A few typos but I got it. So the slow build-up helped sneak the thing through - not too much shadiness at once to tip people off? Or like the frog in heating water?

While we might find reasons this was able to buck the trend, I was atleast as much being a little smart-ass about that prevailing ethos - it could be called the Watergate effect. If there's no Woodward and Bernstein moment where everyone learns and accepts the truth, then there's no conspiracy. Of course we've had Paul Foot (and Lester Coleman for that matter), just their findings haven't been accepted as true.

I guess we could say if there was a way to sneak through a coverup-frameup of this scale, the prospects of other large conspiracies existing in secret could be higher than most think.

 

[GlennB]

No offence Rolf, you are a very good poster (even if we occasionally disagree).
But no-one cares.
If they had hanged the wrong man and proven him innocent that would have been something. But all we see is a guy that got away with mass homicide and is living it up at home.

Do you mean that in the sense of "All the public perceives ...." ?

 

[Caustic Logic]

No offence Rolf, you are a very good poster (even if we occasionally disagree).
But no-one cares.
If they had hanged the wrong man and proven him innocent that would have been something. But all we see is a guy that got away with mass homicide and is living it up at home.

Thanks for mentioning this mindset. "No one cares" clearly isn't correct, but perhaps "very few people" would be. Or rather, they don't care the wrong man was imprisoned and hated (not hanged, and not legally "proven" innocent). Most people are too busy caring very much that, as you put it, "a guy that got away with mass homicide and is living it up at home." People love clear-cut villains and black-and-white reasons to get angry. Real-world complexity, like that guy perhaps being innocent, really rains on those parades, so they do try not to hear it.

Rolfe, I appreciate your fine-tuning of this as different kinds of conspiracy theories but it's just too noodly for me at the moment. It's partly the forum and how I'm so not needed here, relative to audiences closer to home. I am still following, more or less. Awesome letter to the Herald.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Do you mean that in the sense of "All the public perceives ...." ?

Pretty much, and what CL said too: I may have been a tad black and white - unintended.

 

[Buncrana]

I appreciate that indeed it appears that not many seem to care, but what gnaws me is, why? Why does the unimaginable manner of the 270 deaths that happened over and in Lockerbie not matter? Why indeed did the deaths of those 290 over the persian gulf not matter? Why does it not matter that two Libyan's were indicted, resulting in severe economic sanctions being placed upon a whole nation causing tens of thousands of deaths through shortages of medical supplies that we take for granted, and then doesn't really matter that the whole indictment and conviction was based on, at best, threadbare assumptions, and more likely skewed evidence and witnesses? What have we become when these matters are of no consequence?

 

[Caustic Logic]

I appreciate that indeed it appears that not many seem to care, but what gnaws me is, why? Why does the unimaginable manner of the 270 deaths that happened over and in Lockerbie not matter? Why indeed did the deaths of those 290 over the persian gulf not matter? Why does it not matter that two Libyan's were indicted, resulting in severe economic sanctions being placed upon a whole nation causing tens of thousands of deaths through shortages of medical supplies that we take for granted, and then doesn't really matter that the whole indictment and conviction was based on, at best, threadbare assumptions, and more likely skewed evidence and witnesses? What have we become when these matters are of no consequence?

Oh, they care, in this mechanized way. They get mad that those people were murdered, and point their anger right where they think it belongs without swerve. That kind of anger is not compatible with re-thinking things. Relativism is soft. Justice should be hard. (how the point of anger was first secured is of no import).

And at the end, I've yet to see anyone acknowledge a real weakness in the case and also profess to not care. It's the caring and something else, I suspect, that makes them unable to grasp or consider that possibility.

"It simply must be true, for the heavy price on Libya to have been just, and we ARE just."

Their brains go fuzzy when the questions come up, and they remain effectively unaware. So... they have the old anger-certainty thing, and a lack of care about those fuzzy, probably weak "questions" that one guy mentioned.

"Tony Gauci and Mr. Giaka paid millions? So what? There were fifty other witnesses who saw it all and weren't paid, it was proven..."

It's a scale of cognitive dissonance worthy of a good study, or comparison to Orwell's writings, or maybe Stalin's USSR. #1 is that the victims' families (here) are ironclad behind the government story. People follow the families, apparently not realizing that they too can and surely would be led.

 

[Rolfe]

No offence Rolf, you are a very good poster (even if we occasionally disagree).
But no-one cares.
If they had hanged the wrong man and proven him innocent that would have been something. But all we see is a guy that got away with mass homicide and is living it up at home.

Maybe Caustic Logic has understood this in a way I find difficult.

I take it you'e saying "we" meaning people in America? In this forum, we have a lot of people with a lot of time to spend debunking conspiracy theories that are frankly lunatic. Space beams and dustification and huge skyscrapers invisibly wired for demolition and "morphed" telephone calls and so on. Oddly, though, almost no one in the forum seems to care to debate this one.

Nobody in America cares that the man currently being turned into an international hate figure on his deathbed, was actually innocent. This is quite shocking, actually. I have to say that a lot of people in Scotland care - there are letters to the newspapers about it quite regularly, and a sizeable proportion of the population is aware that "he didn't do it" even if they couldn't explain in detail the reasoning.

Caustic Logic suggests that it's all about justifying the way Libya was treated during the 1990s. He can't be innocent, because otherwise we're guilty of atrocious behaviour.

I don't buy it. I don't imagine most people in America are even aware what was done to Libya in the 1990s on account of this. And even if they are, I suspect there would be a lot of justification to the effect that the country deserved it anyway even if Lockerbie wasn't one of its crimes.

I think that was a lot of the reason for bringing in the conviction in the first place - the judges can't have been unaware of the ramifications, and that if they brought a not guilty verdict then it would imply a huge wrong had been done to a whole country. So they decided to do a huge wrong to one man instead.

I don't think the population of America is even aware of the evidence, or the obvious fact that this was a frame-up. What I find surprising is that in this forum, when the subject is brought up, it is ignored.

Not debunked, not challenged, not argued with, and certainly not agreed with. Just ignored. Odd.

Rolfe.

 

[GlennB]

"It simply must be true, for the heavy price on Libya to have been just, and we ARE just."
....
It's a scale of cognitive dissonance worthy of a good study, or comparison to Orwell's writings, or maybe Stalin's USSR.

He can't be innocent, because otherwise we're guilty of atrocious behaviour.

All of which reminds of Lord Lane's attitude at the Birmingham Six appeal, which was (essentially) that if the defendants were innocent then the police were guilty of fabricating evidence, and we can't accept that our protectors could be so evil, therefore the Six must be guilty.

"Cognitive dissonance" is a pretty fair description of the attitude, but in the case of USA the sheer lack of any public debate suggests this dissonance is happening at the level of the news media and that the truth about Lockerbie isn't even being presented to the public.

 

[Saggy]

I don't think the population of America is even aware of the evidence, or the obvious fact that this was a frame-up.

The population of the US is not aware of most things.

However, it's not unknown. Alexander Cockburn did a write up on it recently, he writes on counterpunch.com which is a pretty well read left political blog. But I can't see why it would generate much excitement. There was after all a conspiracy to fabricate evidence of WMD in Iraq that was used to justify an invasion and occupation of the country which took place in broad daylight so to speak and had infinitely greater consequence. There is the finance conspiracy to de-industrialize and bankrupt the US (ref. Hudson). There is the conspiracy to turn the US into a third world country racially (ref. MacDonald). There is the current conspiracy to attack Iran that even has a house resolution, #1553, attached to it. So, the Lockerbie prosecution conspiracy pales by comparison to these conspiracy which are having dramatic effects on everyday life.

 

[Rolfe]

Considering that it's likely Iran was the guilty party in Lockerbie (commissioned and paid for it rather than hands-on), I'm mildly surprised nobody has seen the potential though.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

However, it's not unknown. Alexander Cockburn did a write up on it recently, he writes on counterpunch.com which is a pretty well read left political blog. But I can't see why it would generate much excitement.

Screaming vindictive hate against an innocent man is just something that can go on being done "without generating much excitement"?

I appreciate your points about other conspiracies, though I'm not familiar with some of what you mention. However, the extraordinarily high profile of this case over recent weeks makes the "don't care" attitude quite astonishing. People do know we were lied to about the WMD, and we know there was a conspiracy to do that. We're quite narked about it. But what can you do, right now? It's water under the bridge.

This one's different. I find it quite inexplicable that people demonising a man dying of cancer could take note that he didn't commit the crime they're demonising him for, and then get right back to spewing hate about the "Lockerbie bomber".

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

You know, this could be an awesome thread, pulling on the strengths of our previous threads. This is pretty much the core assertion of it all, the master conspiracy theory, that U.S. authorities framed al Megrahi. I feel plenty of parties in the UK went right along, and a few folks (Feraday and I think Harry Bell especially, aside from the top few) took leading positions in the fabrication of a new storyline. But clearly it was an American-led operation, and no surprise Americans - both in an out of government - have the hardest time grasping that concept as even a distant possibility.

I know going excessively CT with planted evidence is a turn-off to many, but darn it, the threads here have borne the notion out repeatedly, and so it deserves to be said (with links to where it's explained if people think that's crazy.) Strategically,of course.

And so we (the forum, by collective action) have established (just the first few):
Problems with the Libyan timer fragment - discrepancies in its host fragment's paperwork, and its own: Numbered out-of-order, the page numbering of the exam notes suggest back-dating. The fragment itself is reasonably unlikely to be possible, given the proximity to the accepted explosion magnitude. We've found many or all of the claims forwarded by the board's makers, MEBO, to be spurious. There's no sign of substitution mid-stream - the same fragment entered the evidence chain once only, by act of terror or by fraud. Other assorted points I don't recall at the moment.

Actually, that's all I should do for now. Would anyone else care to summarize some of the other threads? People who still actually believe the stoory the government elites and corporate media seem to believe without swerve? Can anyone so inclined skim the threads to gather and compile and polish the best counter-arguments? Or find the counter-info ANYWHERE else and bring it here? Sorry to be a little obnoxious- just shaking the tree again to see if any counter-fruit is ready to fall this time.

Threads:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85523
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155657
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158909
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163182
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165404
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165824
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170711
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=178176
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176962
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179319

 

[Caustic Logic]

All of which reminds of Lord Lane's attitude at the Birmingham Six appeal, which was (essentially) that if the defendants were innocent then the police were guilty of fabricating evidence, and we can't accept that our protectors could be so evil, therefore the Six must be guilty.

"Cognitive dissonance" is a pretty fair description of the attitude, but in the case of USA the sheer lack of any public debate suggests this dissonance is happening at the level of the news media and that the truth about Lockerbie isn't even being presented to the public.

Exactly. However it's controlled, the debate and the public mind is just locked in a certain mode, and it happens from the top. It puts the lie to the vaunted claims of such a free and open and just society. And I realize I'm about to go off a little, so here's a grain of salt. But the United States claims these amazing virtues in Nebraskan abundance as the reason that of COURSE we can exert special leadership of the world, invade, nuke, sanction, harrass, deceive, assassinate, overthrow nations and world leaders until they bend over and take it like we say.

Or, as the case may be, until they kick us in the balls so hard we erase that tape in embarrassment. And then film a new tape to start the cycle over again, wherever it's most expedient. Libya in this case.

 

[Rolfe]

I've posted some speculation about planted evidence and cover-ups on Robert Black's blog, which I might try to tidy up and post here. I see this as two parallel narratives of the case, and I'm unsure which to favour. Here.

On the one hand we have the relatively non-CT version, where the investigation stalled badly after it got to Malta, probably because the bomb was never anywhere near Malta and the investigators had been duped by the Maltese-bought clothes. Then a couple of coincidental facts came along reinforcing the idea of an apparently supernatural spiriting of the bomb on board KM180, and Megrahi, who had the misfortune to be one of these coincidences, was duly fitted up. All by people who were only to happy to concentrate on Malta rather than Heathrow, for rather obvious reasons.

And then we have the other version. The one where we note that the provenance of the crucial piece of evidence which points away from the PFLP-CG and towards Libya (the timer fragment) appears to be a fabrication placed in the chain of evidence in September 1989 but with a restrospective provenance manufactured to trace it right back to a particular field in Roxburghshire in mid-January. And that the one piece of evidence which identifies the model of the radio-cassette player (also linked to Libya) simply could not have survived that explosion unless it had been thoroughly coated in asbestos, and itself seems to have been introduced into the chain of evidence in May 1989.

The version where we note that all the Frankfurt baggage records disappeared from under the noses of the German police within days of the incident, with no explanations or recriminations, and no sign of any frantic search to turn up any little bit of printout or back-up tape or floppy. Where the German police repeatedly rebuffed Scottish requests for any such baggage records, saying they didn't exist or had been destroyed, and relations between the two police forces were abysmal. The version where the Frankfurt airport security people were conspicuous by their absence, and nobody at all was asking any questions or giving instructions to preserve evidence. The version where Mrs. Erac's souvenir printout emerges from a black hole of incompetence or worse, eight months later, bearing exactly the evidence needed to support a Malta introduction of the bomb.

And we wonder what the hell was going on there.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Note, I'm not saying that the non-CT simple frame-up and the Big Conspiracy theory are alternatives. Whichever way you slice it, the simple frame-up happened.

My point is that it's possible that's all there is to it. We could, in the end, be completely satisfied there was nothing else reprehensible going on bar a bunch of monumental incompetence, and drop it. Megrahi is still innocent.

On the other hand, underlying all that, there may be a genuine conspiracy to distort and divert the investigation. In my opinion this has more to do with diverting attention away from the PFLP-GC and Frankfurt, than with implicating Libya in general or Megrahi in particular.

The current raving cover-up may be no more than a cover-up of the simple frame-up, as investigators and justice systems go into overdrive to prevent scrutiny of the fact they colluded in a show trial that railroaded an innocent man. On the other hand, whatever it was that was being covered up in the first place may still be the driving force preventing us getting answers today.

This bit, I find intriguing. If any debunkers were interested.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

This is a bit like how I formulated a "smart" approach to 9/11 yeeeaaars back. The MIHOP stuff, maybe, but either way LIHOP had to be part of an inside job, so we should focus on that.

Now, as I finally decided, that was more a standard conspiracy theory, in which the actual implementation is highly unlikely and the conspiracy theorists are on the outside, making stuff up and the official info wound up making way more sense all in all. This situation really seems to be that on its head - the CTists making things up are inside the walls of power, and the rationalists are outside, branded CTists.

I'm agreed the hardcore of it is that Megrahi is almost certainly innocent of the crime AND, the moral flip-side, someone ELSE did this atrocity and got away with it. That's the most important point however you get there, but you do need to get there.

I sometimes enjoy making the contextless but informed-sounding prophetic statement of innocence to baffle and frighten the natives here. But when it comes to explaining how this conclusion can be reached, it's a judgment call. First for me lately, the quashed appeal and questions why. If necessary, a reminder of the fallibility of verdicts, then the failings. Gauci usually comes first, then Giaka. We've got millions for misinformation right there, which is just improper even if it's not part of a master plan. I usually mention planted evidence in a qualified sense like "it seems all too likely, considering the physical details, ..." and might suggest an image search for PK/689 or link to that Newsnight episode from January.

It's a multi-front attack. Sincee I don't have a media echo chamber, got to use all strengths in the windows I get.

And still no counter-fruit here, huh? The debunkers here must be too "rational" to engage in this, like my new buddy Kaddafi Delenda Est. (see comments)

 

[Rolfe]

Oh dear. I feel dirty now.

I'm glad I'm not American, to be honest. Even the comments on the Hootsmon are light years better than that.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I was thinking about this one and the Xanta challenge. Xanta is a mad homoeopath who occasionally trolls the JREF forums under varions hosiery guises. Her favourite challenge is, would you agree to watch your loved ones being horribly tortured to death if it were proved that homoeopathic remedies worked?

The answer to that, in context, is piss off troll. But it's an interesting thought experiment to see how convinced one is of a particular argument. I have to say I'm close on this one, that is on whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was involved in a plot to smuggle the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 on to KM180 at Luqa. I can't see it as a rational possibility any way you slice it. Even if this was really a Libyan exercise, and Gadaffi's revenge for those US bombing raids, that wasn't how it was done.

Rolfe.