Rolfe
Adult human female
Take that to the CT forum. Which is where we don't want this thread to end up, thank you.
Rolfe.
Rolfe.
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Scottish Parliament e-Petition 417
- Thread starter Rolfe
- Start date
Rolfe
Adult human female
Could I point out that the two activities are not mutually exclusive? And there's this petition we were talking about several pages back, submitted under a process where the government has to at least pretend to listen....
Hmmmmm, to coin a phrase. You kept going on about this so much in other threads, I was getting embarrassed that I didn't actually know what you'd achieved.
You didn't investigate the crime and issue the indictments - the various law enforcement authorities did that.
You didn't travel to Libya and have a personal audience with Gafaffi to urge him to allow the suspects to be brought to trial, did you? Oh wait, it was Jim Swire who did that.
You didn't devise and arrange the trial at Zeist, and persuade Libya to agree - Robert Black and Nelson Mandela did that.
You didn't arrange for the guilty verdict at Zeist, I'm fairly sure, though I suppose it might be one explanation for that perverse pronouncement.
You didn't even force the US to prohibit US companies from doing business in Libya, as far as I can see, though that was what I thought you were talking about at first.
So I googled the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the one you said you'd got changed with all your lobbying. And I discovered that what all that letter-writing was about, was to change US law so that you would be able to sue Libya for millions in compensation. After you'd already received millions in compensation from a civil damages action against Pan Am.
Fine, you were absolutely entitled to do that. Good luck to you. But don't pretend this was some pure-hearted campaign for justice.
It helps me understand. Even seeing how your arguments have changed over these past weeks has helped me understand. Quite a lot, I'm afraid.
Rolfe.
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Likewise, darling. Sad. I thought you said heated debate was part of all of this. Yet I continue to get badgered and accused of "embarrasing" you. I've been honest here. You? What's wrong or embarrassing about being honest.
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Oh, derail, gee, I don't know what that means. Please excuse my ugly, stupid American, lack of comprehension. Does this mean derail?:
Yes, things have changed. But not for the better, and certainly not for the Scots. How ironic that you talk about sticking to the topic when you seem to be using the Lockerbie case as a pawn for your arguments about the current (pathetic) state of Scottish government. Sad, sad, and embarassing, indeed.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
Do I have to explain "analogy" again?
The derail I was referring to was your insistence on dragging in nonsense about oil deals, into a thread about a petition to set up a public enquiry into THE KAMP VAN ZEIST TRIAL. On the grounds, you know, that it was a stitch-up. A travesty of justice. A show trial. A kangaroo court. And so on.
And by the way, I wasn't accusing you of embarrassing me at all. I was merely commenting that I felt embarrassed by my ignorance of the nature of your great achievement, that you'd been telling us you fought so hard for. So I googled it.
Rolfe.
The derail I was referring to was your insistence on dragging in nonsense about oil deals, into a thread about a petition to set up a public enquiry into THE KAMP VAN ZEIST TRIAL. On the grounds, you know, that it was a stitch-up. A travesty of justice. A show trial. A kangaroo court. And so on.
And by the way, I wasn't accusing you of embarrassing me at all. I was merely commenting that I felt embarrassed by my ignorance of the nature of your great achievement, that you'd been telling us you fought so hard for. So I googled it.
Rolfe.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
Sorry, come again? What does that have to do with the part of my post you quoted?
Do you have any idea what my position in respect of the Scottish government actually is? Aside, that is, from my remarking that I intend to campaign for them to be re-elected next year, as I said....
I'm baffled (as well as hacked off) by the current behaviour over the Lockerbie issue. Because I would expect that from any of the other parties, I just didn't expect it from my own party. But that doesn't change my party loyalty in the slightest, or my conviction that the one thing that can help Scotland is more SNP government, and then some.
Rolfe.
Bunntamas
As I've said before, I've largely kept out of this thread but have followed it as an interested observer. So please take this the way it's meant, rather than getting upset.
Very often, the world just doesn't work the way we'd like it to. In the idealised world, wrongful convinctions never happen; the evidence wins out in the end, and the truth wins through. In reality, this is not always the case. We all know of many, many wrongful convinctions on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK we've usually sent them to gaol for many years, and in the USA you sometimes find you've managed to execute them.
The question, by any objective measure, is not whether Megrahi was convincted. That's undeniable. But it's not a guarantee that he actually did it. Let me remind you that, despite significant stalling by the authorities, he had been given the right to appeal the conviction. This means that there was sufficient doubt to merit a re-examination. In other words, legally it's not as clear cut.
I would hope that, as an intelligent person, you would have looked at the evidence and recent discussion here and would thus agree that much of it is unreliable - some of it deeply so. Our Maltese shopkeeper, the break-in at Heathrow, and the like are far from the smoking gun that some might wish them to be.
Now a successful appeal would have been problematic for both our Governments; the Scottish because of such a high profile mistake, and yours because of what (on a fair reading) seems to be blatant interference with a witness. I am not suggesting that Megrahi's illness was manufactured (far from it), but I would imagine there were some very relieved people in power when the implications became clear.
The medical papers will, no doubt, become clearer in due course. It appears that at least 3 doctors were involved and they all agreed that the rate of deterioration would mean a fatal conclusion sooner rather than later. We have yet to see any compelling contrary evidence, barring some drive-by comments from not disintered people in the US. That he is alive is not, in itself, as conclusive as you might think because every probability curve has a long tail.
Against this, I have to ask: why the insults? Why the attitude? Why the attacks on Rolfe and others? Can't you stand back, as objectively as you can (notwithstanding circumstances), and see the very real chance that this is all a house of cards? Is your faith in the criminal justice system of either country really so total?
If you can't, then I really don't see why you're participating here. Stop putting yourself through something that is clearly so difficult for you emmotionally. Let the internet go, and get back to your life. If you want to fight on, then look at more concrete and productive ways than a talkaround forum. But in that case, please stand back and look at the real evidence, which may be very different from what you expect it to be.
As I've said before, I've largely kept out of this thread but have followed it as an interested observer. So please take this the way it's meant, rather than getting upset.
Very often, the world just doesn't work the way we'd like it to. In the idealised world, wrongful convinctions never happen; the evidence wins out in the end, and the truth wins through. In reality, this is not always the case. We all know of many, many wrongful convinctions on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK we've usually sent them to gaol for many years, and in the USA you sometimes find you've managed to execute them.
The question, by any objective measure, is not whether Megrahi was convincted. That's undeniable. But it's not a guarantee that he actually did it. Let me remind you that, despite significant stalling by the authorities, he had been given the right to appeal the conviction. This means that there was sufficient doubt to merit a re-examination. In other words, legally it's not as clear cut.
I would hope that, as an intelligent person, you would have looked at the evidence and recent discussion here and would thus agree that much of it is unreliable - some of it deeply so. Our Maltese shopkeeper, the break-in at Heathrow, and the like are far from the smoking gun that some might wish them to be.
Now a successful appeal would have been problematic for both our Governments; the Scottish because of such a high profile mistake, and yours because of what (on a fair reading) seems to be blatant interference with a witness. I am not suggesting that Megrahi's illness was manufactured (far from it), but I would imagine there were some very relieved people in power when the implications became clear.
The medical papers will, no doubt, become clearer in due course. It appears that at least 3 doctors were involved and they all agreed that the rate of deterioration would mean a fatal conclusion sooner rather than later. We have yet to see any compelling contrary evidence, barring some drive-by comments from not disintered people in the US. That he is alive is not, in itself, as conclusive as you might think because every probability curve has a long tail.
Against this, I have to ask: why the insults? Why the attitude? Why the attacks on Rolfe and others? Can't you stand back, as objectively as you can (notwithstanding circumstances), and see the very real chance that this is all a house of cards? Is your faith in the criminal justice system of either country really so total?
If you can't, then I really don't see why you're participating here. Stop putting yourself through something that is clearly so difficult for you emmotionally. Let the internet go, and get back to your life. If you want to fight on, then look at more concrete and productive ways than a talkaround forum. But in that case, please stand back and look at the real evidence, which may be very different from what you expect it to be.
funk de fino
Dreaming of unicorns
EXACTLY!!! Though, I don't think he's a patsy.
Then you have not looked at the evidence.
funk de fino
Dreaming of unicorns
And after all that you ended up with a bunch of morons making up nonsense stories. I hope it was worth it.
funk de fino
Dreaming of unicorns
Not true.
It was an estimate. HELLO???
Complete poppycock.
CT section is that away!!
Rolfe
Adult human female
I've started several replies here, and deleted them. I simply don't know what to say that won't enrage Bunntamas even more. But I've still got quite a number of PMs and emails from a really nice person who's in there somewhere and I just don't know how to get her back. (Aside from declaring I'm certain Megrahi bombed that plane, which is probably too high a price.)
Early in the discussion I remarked, injudiciously, that I believed Bunntamas was simply parroting the words and opinions of certain prominent people in the US Lockerbie families group, especially Frank Duggan and Brian Flynn. Bunntamas said, very reasonably, that she was her own person and would make up her own mind. That was when the person I was glad to discuss things with came to the fore.
It seems to me that we're reading the original material again. Preposterous constructions being put on cherry-picked sentences, and all the rest of it. I don't think the real Bunntamas is like that. I hope the person I had the PM and email correspondence with comes back. I would like to hear Bunntamas's own thoughts.
Rolfe.
Early in the discussion I remarked, injudiciously, that I believed Bunntamas was simply parroting the words and opinions of certain prominent people in the US Lockerbie families group, especially Frank Duggan and Brian Flynn. Bunntamas said, very reasonably, that she was her own person and would make up her own mind. That was when the person I was glad to discuss things with came to the fore.
It seems to me that we're reading the original material again. Preposterous constructions being put on cherry-picked sentences, and all the rest of it. I don't think the real Bunntamas is like that. I hope the person I had the PM and email correspondence with comes back. I would like to hear Bunntamas's own thoughts.
Rolfe.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
This is the bizarre thing about much of this discussion. Bunntamas was at Zeist. And yet she can't explain how the evidence accepted by the court actually shows Megrahi to be guilty.
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Well, not exactly. Bunntamas's group's efforts weren't aimed at achieving a trial, or justice, or anything like that. They were aimed at getting the US law changed to allow them to sue the state of Libya for compensation in the US courts.
So what they actually ended up with was about $6 million apiece, and a weasel-worded letter from Gadaffi not actually admitting to having had anything to do with Lockerbie.
A result, I suppose.
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
This is the sad part. The situation has been explained to Bunntamas several times, that no doctor who was paid by Libya had any influence over the decision for example, and that there's nothing in Scotland/Westminster politics that could possibly allow for "whoring for an oil deal". Considering that Scotland has had all responsibility for oil revenues taken out of her hands so that the UK parliament can pocket all the revenues from Scotland's oil, the whole thing is ludicrous.
She seems to understand this, then comes back and repeats the same rubbish.
Have you read the letter she linked to, FDF? Even the sentence Bunntamas quotes doesn't support her assertion. It's clearly MacAskill making reference to a suggestion from Straw that Libya should be given some wiggle-room to make the exclusion of Megrahi from the PTA more palatable.
It was written in 2007, before cancer and all that it entailed. The entire thrust of the letter is MacAskill trying to get Megrahi excluded from the PTA. This was at the time when Westminster gave the impression it was prepared to do that, but as we know Straw went back on his word and said Megrahi had to be included. Salmond was livid at the time, and wasn't that the cause of Kirsty Wark's meltdown on Newsnight that she had to apologise for?
I can't help wondering who Bunntamas is quoting when she picks out that sentence and misinterprets it so spectacularly. Because I have to say, it's absolutely Frank Duggan's style.
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
By the way, the Scottish Parliament's petition site has been down for nearly 24 hours now. Signatures stood at just over 1,440 before the IT hiccup.
This will bring out the CTers for sure. However, never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Rolfe.
This will bring out the CTers for sure. However, never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Rolfe.
Beginning To End
Following is a comment I made when I first joined JREF.
Re: nasty comments,
The insinuation that the families sued Libya only for the money is so astounding in its ignorance, that it doesn’t deserve the dignity of a reply. At least not from me.
So, per my quote above, I’m outta here. I have better things to do with my time.
Hope you all find some other meaningful purpose in your lives, other than this case and wondering what I'm thinking about it, and when you may next blast my comments in this forum, because you've beaten this horse to death and have nothing else about which to comment.
Best of luck to you in finding someone else to play nice with you in your nasty little tit-for-tat sandbox, your silly petition signed multiple times by the same person / people to make it appear that there are a lot more signatures than there really are, that petition which you've acknowledged will most likely go nowhere, thanks to your screwed up government. You know (or maybe you don't) that the bigger picture / issue is your screwed up government. But it appears your cowardice prevents you from standing up and doing anything about it, beyond bitching about the Lockerbie case on the internet.
So blather on. Good luck overturning that guilty verdict. And good luck with that government of yours. Hope you never have to suffer the consequenses of a murdering terrorist walking Scot free.
~ B.
Following is a comment I made when I first joined JREF.
I recognize I haven’t always been nice in my comments here. Yes, I've even been yellow tagged. However, the same can be said about replies to my comments (some of which I'm quite surprised weren't also yellow tagged, but maybe if you're "in" with the Mods, they give you a pass on a lot of things) when I have tried to converse with you in a non-combative manner.
Re: nasty comments,
The insinuation that the families sued Libya only for the money is so astounding in its ignorance, that it doesn’t deserve the dignity of a reply. At least not from me.
So, per my quote above, I’m outta here. I have better things to do with my time.
Hope you all find some other meaningful purpose in your lives, other than this case and wondering what I'm thinking about it, and when you may next blast my comments in this forum, because you've beaten this horse to death and have nothing else about which to comment.
Best of luck to you in finding someone else to play nice with you in your nasty little tit-for-tat sandbox, your silly petition signed multiple times by the same person / people to make it appear that there are a lot more signatures than there really are, that petition which you've acknowledged will most likely go nowhere, thanks to your screwed up government. You know (or maybe you don't) that the bigger picture / issue is your screwed up government. But it appears your cowardice prevents you from standing up and doing anything about it, beyond bitching about the Lockerbie case on the internet.
So blather on. Good luck overturning that guilty verdict. And good luck with that government of yours. Hope you never have to suffer the consequenses of a murdering terrorist walking Scot free.
~ B.
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Slayhamlet
Master Poster
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2007
- Messages
- 2,423
You may disagree about whether seeking compensation from the alleged perpetrators constitutes an aim towards justice, but nothing Rolfe said in the post you quoted is a violation of forum rules or in the least bit uncivil. I also rather doubt she intended to imply that your group is solely interested in procuring money for the victims. I suspect this interpretation is more indicative of your difference in perspective as concerns the guilt or innocence of Megrahi than anything else.
Buncarra (on the off-chance you come back)
"O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as ithers see us"
I can quite understand why you find it so hard to look at these issues but, as a long-time lurker here, I have to say that your indignation is more than a little misplaced.
What Rolfe and others have done, over a number of threads, is point to a number of very clear problems with the case against Megrahi. I have yet to see an effective rebuttal presented and I think that you too recognise these flaws. On a fair reading we have to accept that the appeal was likely to be sustained.
You can argue that due process should have been followed and that's a very valid point, but it completely overlooks the realpolitik of government. For all their protestations the USG does not want their bribery of Megrahi to become public, likewise the Scottish Government does not want its criminal justic system to have made such a massive mistake.
To keep shouting "guilty verdict" in the face of the contrary evidence is not, with respect, a particularly effective response whether in bold or otherwise. The cases of (say) Jesse Tafero, Wayne Felker, Cameron Willingham and Kirk Bloodsworth are all very clear evidence that your own justice system has returned wrongful verdicts and our own country is no different, barring the fact that we won't have executed them.
Now you can take this advice in the spirit which is intended, or you can march off again. It doesn't really make a difference to me and if you're not willing to look at this as objectively as you can, notwithstanding family circumstances, then I don't think this is the place for you. But shouting the odds and making ad-hom attacks at other posters is out of order and you owe some people some apologies.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
If you think a post breaches the rules, you report it. The mods can't be everywhere. I only reported one of your posts, once, with a request to fix some quote tags that were wrongly attributed. It was no wish on my part that the post was then yellow-carded, and in fact it hadn't occurred to me when I made the report that this might happen.
Bunntamas, that's the third time I've made reference to what your letter-writing campaign was actually about, since I figured it out. The first time, I merely observed that your objective appeared to be to get Gadaffi to admit responsibility for the atrocity. You didn't reply to that post.
You are the one who chose to harp on and on and on and on about all the letters you wrote and the congressmen you lobbied and you fought and you fought and didn't give up until you got the law changed. In contrast to your belief that the e-Petition and other initiatives to try to press the case for Megrahi's conviction being looked at again are weak and ineffective.
So finally, I thought I'd better find out what law you'd got changed, and what that had accomplished, because so far as I knew all the pushing to get the suspects to trial had been done by Jim Swire, whom you despise so much. And I found it was a campaign to allow you to sue Libya, as a sovereign nation, for billions of dollars - and to get Gadaffi to admit reponsibility as well, although that part was less successful.
I was a bit disappointed, I have to say.
This cuts two ways. I've tried my level best to be civil and polite and address the issues, but you haven't made it very easy with your constant personalising of the debate.
My greatest hope for our conversations was that I would gain an understanding of how it was possible to interpret the evidence in this case as being consistent with the view that Megrahi was guilty. Again, I have been bitterly disappointed.
How do you know that? I can see no evidence of multiple signings at all. And really, is just under 1,500 different signatures in 13 days from quite a number of different countries all that unlikely?
Bunntamas, when you started debating with us on Robert Black's blog, you seemed to be taking the view that we were all being paid by Libya to voice our opinions, or something like that. I and others have tried to assure you all along that our primary and indeed only concern is justice, and concern that the Scottish criminal justice system was responsible for a huge miscarriage of justice at Zeist.
You can't seem to accept that, so now you've constructed a fantasy that we're doing this because we've got some sort of gripe with the Scottish government. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm a very strong supporter of the Scottish government, and indeed the handling of the Megrahi affair is the only issue I'm at real odds with them about - as regards their continual assertion that they have no reason to doubt the verdict, not about the compassionate release, which I would have supported even if Megrahi had been guilty by the way.
I'm very much afraid that we have all had to suffer the consequences of that happening, multiple times.
Whoever carried out the Lockerbie bombing walked free, because they were never caught.
A large number of murdering Irish terrorists walked free as part of a peace process strongly supported by the US government. Some of them had only been in jail for a few years. They were responsible for some horrific attacks. None of them was dying, or even ill. But the relatives of the people they killed with their Semtex bombs, supplied by Libya, just had to suck it up and take it, because that was what the politicians had decided was the best way forward.
Would you like to talk to Colin Parry about your point of view?
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Bunntamas, you've said before that you were "outta here", so I never know if you mean it or not. So maybe you're still reading?
When we were discussing the evidence, we were getting on fine. I sent you the pdf of the entire court transcripts. You said you were impressed with the work we'd done on the flight paths. You posted some interesting stuff, and seemed genuinely to be trying to be constructive. You scanned the Frankfurt coder's worksheet. I truly enjoyed these exchanges.
But you stopped engaging with that part of the debate. When you returned, it was only to jeer and mock and disparage the e-Petition. Indeed, as regards some of the misconceptions I thought we'd straightened you out on, you then reverted to your original assertions.
I draw my own conclusions from that, and these are that you've been in touch with others in your "Megrahi is a murdering terrorist" group, and had all your original prejudices reinstalled and reinforced. You've also been turned away from considering the evidence, and back towards this fantasy-construct of the Scottish government having some ulterior motive for granting the compassionate release (other than the obvious motive of burying the appeal, that is!). In particular, someone else pointed you at that cherry-picked sentence in the letter where Kenny MacAskill was trying to persuade Jack Straw to exclude Megrahi from the PTA, and misrepresented its meaning to you.
When I previously accused you of "channelling Frank Duggan", you indignantly replied that you'd do your own thinking thank-you-very-much. I wish you'd remember that, and start doing it again.
Rolfe.
When we were discussing the evidence, we were getting on fine. I sent you the pdf of the entire court transcripts. You said you were impressed with the work we'd done on the flight paths. You posted some interesting stuff, and seemed genuinely to be trying to be constructive. You scanned the Frankfurt coder's worksheet. I truly enjoyed these exchanges.
But you stopped engaging with that part of the debate. When you returned, it was only to jeer and mock and disparage the e-Petition. Indeed, as regards some of the misconceptions I thought we'd straightened you out on, you then reverted to your original assertions.
I draw my own conclusions from that, and these are that you've been in touch with others in your "Megrahi is a murdering terrorist" group, and had all your original prejudices reinstalled and reinforced. You've also been turned away from considering the evidence, and back towards this fantasy-construct of the Scottish government having some ulterior motive for granting the compassionate release (other than the obvious motive of burying the appeal, that is!). In particular, someone else pointed you at that cherry-picked sentence in the letter where Kenny MacAskill was trying to persuade Jack Straw to exclude Megrahi from the PTA, and misrepresented its meaning to you.
When I previously accused you of "channelling Frank Duggan", you indignantly replied that you'd do your own thinking thank-you-very-much. I wish you'd remember that, and start doing it again.
Rolfe.