Kopji, I admit I was trying to be a little provocative with the title of this thread, but the point of the exercise is not "stirring up Ugly Americans". I'm interested in the truth of what happened. If that sounds too much like "twoofer" for you, then that's not my problem. And Caustic Logic is American.
This was linked from a similar topic thread in another forum started by Caustic Logic in which he specifically asserted the purpose of his thread was to troll, continuing some previous effort from a year ago. I provided something of an index there. IMHO I think that your motivations are more honest, but Caustic Logic is just trolling - and trolling about an event that resulted in the deaths of many innocents; in particular, 35 college students were killed. There is an implied argument that perhaps the American families are happier now with their millions than their children.
Originally Posted by Kopji
I think a case that has not been made very well is WHAT US government would gain from framing someone for the bombing... to protect Iran? Ok then. That's a real good start at something sounding like nonsense. And 10 years later? This is a slooooow conspiracy.
Er, could we just step back here a minute? I've presented detailed evidence that the CIA and the US Department of Justice actually did conspire to procure fabricated evidence against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, and to induce another witness to slant his evidence to be more favourable to the prosecution case, by paying out millions of pounds to these witnesses.
I understand evidence generally defined as facts that help us arrive at the truth or falseness of something. I've read your links and find most of them factual, but not evidential. Several links repeat arguments that were rejected at the original trial. At least one of the links is self referental, linking to someone named rolfe and caustic logic on another blog making links to what we would call hearsay accusations. I may be jumping to a conclusion and they are different posters with the same names.
There seems to be an equation of an American 'information reward' program with bribery. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that except it is wrong to assume that the program intends more than it represents - offering an award for information leading to the conviction... etc. Or are you saying that ALL reward programs are defacto a bribery? This would be consistent with your arguments, but information reward programs are commonly used in the US. I'm not a lawyer and also don't know if the practice is common elsewhere.
If a hypothetical case is being presented, talking about suspicion only, then yes, it might be reasonable to counter this by questioning whether there was any motive for such an action. However, I have not presented a hypothetical case. I have presented the evidence that it was actually done.
If I have CCTV pictures clearly showing someone shoplifting, it's hardly an argument to state that this person has plenty of money and would surely have no need to steal.
Ah, yes we agree - closer the problem maybe. The CCTV picture is evidence, but does not make a case by itself. The video 'fact' would need to be combined with other evidence to make a case. I'm saying that you have a fact, but not a case of wrongdoing. Just because someone accepts money for information, or otherwise acts in their own self interest (witness protection in Australia?) does not mean the information was made up for financial gain. This seems to be at least partly, what you argue.
Originally Posted by Kopji
So to recap, as I follow the story so far... poor innocent Scotland, never suspecting that the US was secretly pulling all the puppet strings of their court system by way of the Netherlands and an entire entourage of Europeans under our control. OUTRAGE!
(That general strawman summary does seem fit for the CT forums, but I'm only a beginner Evil Minion).
Er, no. Ever heard of the "special relationship"? No "poor innocent" anything. Scottish police were nominally running an investigation that was being controlled by the FBI, Scottish prosecutors were formally bringing forward a case but relying entirely on what the US DoJ was telling them their witnesses would say at the trial. They weren't duped and it wasn't especially secret.
I think they (the Scottish prosecutors) must have got a bit of a shock in June of 2000 when they saw the unredacted cables that revealed Giaka to have invented his story for money.
However, what they did after that was entirely their own responsibility. They should have shared that information with the defence - that's the law - and trying to continue with that witness after that would have been a bit pointless. However, the Lord Advocate chose to tell blatant lies to the court to conceal what the prosecution now knew from the defence, in order to protect the credibility of that lying, bribed, corrupt witness.
It would have been nice if Colin Boyd's reaction to seeing the unredacted cables had been "outrage", but sadly, it wasn't.
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Ok that's a part I'm still confused about. I have not really seen any evidence of the FBI
controlling anything. If anything, they are known as documentation freaks. I read the released cables, aren't those part of the case documents? I'll go review but it does not sound like the US is culpable of anything.
Also,
if they were, where was the outrage about the US getting involved back then? This whole thing seems to have started because some US politicians stuck their nose into to UK politics. Granted US politicians are a special kind of stupid.
The FBI controlling something using a facade of Scottish judges seems like a much bigger deal. Even in the US we would say 'in for a penny in for a pound'.
Originally Posted by Kopji View Post
If nothing else, the US has shown little need to place blame on individuals for terrorism - we bombed Libya and could just as easily have done it to Iran. Finding one person to blame, frankly does not sound like worth this kind of effort.
Far more likely that we'd leave it all to an international court, and if they screwed up or looked completely inept - that's gravy for the goose. We don't like international courts anyway and it would let us feel smugly superior.
And so what if Iran had Libya do it for them? I think you alluded a bit to this, and good credit to you if so - it is much better conspiracy - this new revelation is timed just as things heat up with Iran, and we could develop it into a justification for military action against Iran like we did with Iraq. Scotland comes in handy one more time.
A little more on this later.
But to the topic. If we were going to frame someone, why do in such a messy trial format? Even Libya specified criteria for the trial:
What self respecting Evil Empire would allow Libya to dictate the terms of the trial we were trying to fix? But could this be expected at an International Court following Scottish rules? Yeah this sounds entirely plausable.
Are you any sort of an expert on Middle Eastern affairs?
I can tell you that enormous volumes of stuff has been written on this, and especially on the relevance of the Gulf War blowing up in 1990-91, and the ongoing Beirut hostage situation.
I am not an expert, I shall have to rely on you to make your case or I shall probaly remain skeptical of our superpowers.
However, quantity is not quality. Briefly -
1: We don't like Iran enough to cover up their state sponsored terrorism.
2: We don't use their oil, Europe and China do. This would make our actions rather altruistic.
The sequence of events relating to the 1991 indictments, the refusal of extradition, the sanctions imposed on Libya as a result which led to great hardship in the country, and the subsequent negotiations to try to break this deadlock and bring the suspects to trial without letting the USA get its hands on them, are well documented.
It really is a bit tedious trying to explain what did happen, to someone who just says, well, that sounds a bit implausible to me.
Just because you read something somewhere and repeat it, does not mean it was true. Just because you say something does not mean it is true. As an American I hear this ALL the time, in addition to being accused of somehow being personally culpable for it, like your local bishop equating me with wife beaters in Saudia Arabia. I might take that kind of talk from Quakers, but not a bishop from a country with a religious history like Scotland thank you.
Yes, makes things seem more tedious.
The part that sounds implausible is that the FBI or CIA would jeopardize the entire US government in order to frame two innocent people from Libya, when Iran was really the guilty one.
1: Our military history has shown no such need for individual accountability for terrorism.
2: The prosecution of the crime seems very sloppy, the sort of thing that comes from people who want something swept under the rug, not someone who wants justice. Scotland put us on the scales and finds the US guilty, but all I see is a nation (that would be Scotland) unwilling to accept its own culpability in a trial that I would agree seems absurdly flawed. I doubt a conviction could have been made in the US, maybe that's why we used European courts.
Originally Posted by Kopji View Post
As far as I can tell, all of the latest Iran conspiracy stuff is coming from an ex CIA agent named Robert Baer. The wiki article is facinating, apparently he was pulled out of Iraq for attempting to assinate Saddam. Nice guy. Seems a little loopy to me but what do I know?
Oh, good thing that he added that last part for the record. I would hate to find out he was a troofer. Would make this too easy. Still, sounds like an ex CIA employee with an axe to grind and more books to sell - (we must grow them like weeds).
Robert Baer hardly figures at all in Lockerbie discussions. I have difficulty remembering his name sometimes. He's a bit on the fringe, to put it politely. It's interesting you've turned up his stuff, because as I say, it mostly doesn't rate a mention.
Had to do with the proposal of the Iran link. CT's that make terrorism out to be an "inside job" on the part of the US rely on a universe that is substantially different that it appears. Not denying we've studied it, just that we found it a stupid idea.
Originally Posted by Kopji View Post
I'd have to agree that CT is a graveyard and things deserve to rot here. I'm a little curious where you are hearing all this from. Not that I deny someone is talking about it somewhere. But I've been looking through the papers and it IS a dead issue here. It is not even last page news. Everything looks larger on the internet, but it would be useful for some names and sources in the US so I can look up what other foolish things they are saying.
Well, that's nice. For about the past couple of months, the four US senators who are trying to get our senior politicians and First Minister to come and stand in front of their petty little committee like naughty schoolboys being summoned to the headmaster's study, have been major news. Almost every evening as I've been writing on the forum about this, a new item has come on TV detailing the senators' latest ignorant, insulting and unreasonable demands. We've had Menendez showing his ignorance and arrogance on live TV. It's been front page headlines at least once a week.
We're having to put up with our opposition politicians telling us almost every day how the talk in the USA is of nothing else, how Scotland's name is a hissing and a by-word in America because of this, and urging our own government to go and prostrate itself in abject submission to your grandstanding vote-hungry senators in atonement.
If this has all been very much exaggerated for domestic political purposes (to make our government look bad) then I wouldn't be entirely surprised. However, the alleged US outrage has been a huge issue here.
Rolfe.
I guess this could be easily me 'not paying enough attention', but it is certainly not a major news item here. There was a little bit a few weeks ago - politicians looking in to BP Oil to try and do something mean to them etc. Seemed more of a kneejerk politician thing in an election year. I tend to disregard most bloggers, so there may be a lot more there.
I have difficulty accepting that if the US was so intimately involved in influencing the original case - why there would be so much concern by Scotland politicians now. The cow not only left the barn, it has wandered for years.
From my admittedly US perspective it is more likely two things:
1: The US was not as influential as is being claimed, and so most of the conspiracy theory does not hold up although parts are interesting.
2: Scotland is embarrassed by recent attention and so is trying to shift blame somewhere else. I'm not sure this is a bad strategy, after looking at the case, and I were on the Panel of Judges - I might choose something like that myself.
The crime does seem very convoluted. The chance of the bomb's discovery between Malta and the explosion seems rather high. Also high is that luggage might just as likely be diverted, grounded, or lost. It occurred to me that something they may want to remain secret would be other similar attempts that failed. This operation looks unlikely to succeed when viewed as a single event, but what if it was the only successful episode of several failed attempts? I can see them wanting to keep that kind of evidence secret. Just speculation though.
Sorry for not engaging in the thread more quickly. When I agree with you or decide I'm wrong I'll say so, but my silence more likely means I'm working in my garden, or - this week - repainting a room my silly daughter painted several years ago dark blue walls with bright yellow ceiling. That is just wrong - and it is taking several coats of primer.
Looking at the facts you've posted I think we might agree on several things, but definitely not on others.
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random readings
The SCCRC states that at some time after the appeal the two witnesses were each paid sums of money under the "Rewards for Justice" programme adminstered by the U.S. Department of Justice [SCCRC Reference at 23.19]
- can't find this one, but the program type is common
The evidence regarding the bribery of the Gaucis is available here (go to page 90 of the pdf, page no. 149 of the document.)
-This is part of the actual court transcript, how is that being hidden?
Guardian article summarising the bribery evidence
- Caustic Logic's compilation of the bribery evidence (self referential)
