Lockerbie bomber freed

[donkey]

There you go true to form as usual The usual ignorant remarks, hillbilly. redneck, idiot and so on. Always a sure sign that someone has lost a discussion.

 

 

I'm sorry that when you said Americans should boycott Scotland, I jumped to the conclucion it was an ignorant, redneck type thing to say.

 

I asked you one time what you truly believed in but you avoided answering that question. You'll never change

 

I believe the question was more along the lines of 'Are you some kind of Commie or Anarchist?'

 

I generally don't have fixed beliefs which can be summed up in soundbites.

 

One thing I believe is that the world of politics is a complex place, where the unwary are manipulated by the unscrupulous, whose real motives remain hidden behind a smokescreen of patriotism and fake moral stances. This is very much in evidence in the Megrahi case.

[Kingmaker2]

I'm quoting from CNN, BBC world news sources and opinion polls. Obviously these news sources have obtained their information from somewhere and from that my statement that many are outraged still stands. There may have been many who have expressed this by calling their Congressmen or MPs or responded to confidential opinion polls not wishing their identities to be known and not wanting to appear in person before the media

 

I was never disputing that many of the families were outraged.

 

But that doesn't mean their outrage may well be misplaced.

 

If the truth ever does come out and indeed the witnesses were telling the truth about large CIA offers of money being bribed wouldn't the families be even more outraged by the CIA than the releasing of Megrahi?

[Kingmaker2]

Khadaffi at the time was known to be an active supporter of terrorisism. Long before Iran, Syria or Al Qaeda entered the fold.

 

Somewhere around 1987 or 88 a bomb exploded in a Berlin night club killing around a dozen U.S servicemen. This attack was traced to Libyan terrorists and Ronald Reagan launched a retaliatory strike against Khaddaifi's family compound killing one of his relatives, a small child I believe. This did something to curb Khadaffi's active support of terrorism but the PAn AM bombing may very well have been carried out with his knowledge and blessing as revenge.

 

Yes but that doesn't mean Gadafii or Libya was behind Lockerbie.

 

It doesn't rule them out, but you also have to consider other countries.

Iran swore revenge on the US when one of their airliners was shot down killing 300, by a USS Vincennes just a year earlier.

[Harleyman]

I was never disputing that many of the families were outraged.

 

But that doesn't mean their outrage may well be misplaced.

 

If the truth ever does come out and indeed the witnesses were telling the truth about large CIA offers of money being bribed wouldn't the families be even more outraged by the CIA than the releasing of Megrahi?

 

The truth will never be known. It's too long ago and the trail has gone cold

[Kingmaker2]

The truth will never be known. It's too long ago and the trail has gone cold

 

The truth about Lockerbie may never be known, but I feel the truth about the conviction of Al-Megrahi still has legs.

 

In time, perhaps too late for Megrahi himself, evidence may well clear his name.

[Harleyman]

Yes but that doesn't mean Gadafii or Libya was behind Lockerbie.

 

It doesn't rule them out, but you also have to consider other countries.

Iran swore revenge on the US when one of their airliners was shot down killing 300, by a USS Vincennes just a year earlier.

 

So why wasn't an Iranian connection ever established? I know the CIA and M.I.6 may have their shortcomings but surely any possible Iranian part in it must have been investigated by said agencies. I assume since no Iranians were mentioned that no connection was established

[Kingmaker2]

So why wasn't an Iranian connection ever established? I know the CIA and M.I.6 may have their shortcomings but surely any possible Iranian part in it must have been investigated by said agencies. I assume since no Iranians were mentioned that no connection was established

 

I can't answer that for sure but there are those that think the CIA "picked" Libya for a number of reasons, the witnesses claims that they were offered huge bribes by the CIA to implicate Libya and Megrahi seem to back up these thoughts, one of these witneses apparently had told of CIA involvement in a sworn affidavit .

 

Here's a Newsweek's article's take on the situation:

 

"But there were numerous other entities—both states and freelance terror groups—with the motive and means to attack the United States. The most likely suspect, in the opinion of many experts, was Iran, which had not accepted American apologies for accidentally shooting down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf the previous summer, with the loss of 290 lives. Iran, through its ally Syria, supported a par-ticularly bloodthirsty terror group known by its initials, PFLP-GC (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command), which was known to be building bombs with barometric triggers, the kind you would use to blow up an airplane. West German police had rounded up a PFLP-GC cell just a few months earlier and seized several of the devices, which were hidden, like the one that blew up Pan Am 103, in Toshiba boomboxes. So it was certainly plausible that the Iranians had directed the group to attack an American airplane, and many people, especially in Britain, still believe it.

 

To put it simply, they didn't trust the evidence against Megrahi because it fit too conveniently with American foreign-policy aims in the early 1990s. The United States wasn't looking to pick a fight with Iran, a well-armed nation of 70 million and the enemy of America's least-favorite Arab ruler, Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Nor was it looking for excuses to quarrel with Syria, which had positioned itself as the key to Arab-Israeli peace. But Libya, isolated in North Africa, with a population of 5 million and a ruler most of the world regarded as crazy any-way, was a perfectly safe choice for pariah. The piece of circuit board that helped finger Megrahi was known to be among batch of timers sold to Libyan intelligence. The match was made by an FBI investigator using data supplied by the CIA. For some people, that was evidence enough—not to convict Megrahi, but to exonerate him."

 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/212937

[Harleyman]

I can't answer that for sure but there are those that think the CIA "picked" Libya for a number of reasons, the witnesses claims that they were offered huge bribes by the CIA to implicate Libya and Megrahi seem to back up these thoughts, one of these witneses apparently had told of CIA involvement in a sworn affidavit .

 

Here's a Newsweek's article's take on the situation:

 

"But there were numerous other entities—both states and freelance terror groups—with the motive and means to attack the United States. The most likely suspect, in the opinion of many experts, was Iran, which had not accepted American apologies for accidentally shooting down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf the previous summer, with the loss of 290 lives. Iran, through its ally Syria, supported a par-ticularly bloodthirsty terror group known by its initials, PFLP-GC (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command), which was known to be building bombs with barometric triggers, the kind you would use to blow up an airplane. West German police had rounded up a PFLP-GC cell just a few months earlier and seized several of the devices, which were hidden, like the one that blew up Pan Am 103, in Toshiba boomboxes. So it was certainly plausible that the Iranians had directed the group to attack an American airplane, and many people, especially in Britain, still believe it.

 

To put it simply, they didn't trust the evidence against Megrahi because it fit too conveniently with American foreign-policy aims in the early 1990s. The United States wasn't looking to pick a fight with Iran, a well-armed nation of 70 million and the enemy of America's least-favorite Arab ruler, Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Nor was it looking for excuses to quarrel with Syria, which had positioned itself as the key to Arab-Israeli peace. But Libya, isolated in North Africa, with a population of 5 million and a ruler most of the world regarded as crazy any-way, was a perfectly safe choice for pariah. The piece of circuit board that helped finger Megrahi was known to be among batch of timers sold to Libyan intelligence. The match was made by an FBI investigator using data supplied by the CIA. For some people, that was evidence enough—not to convict Megrahi, but to exonerate him."

 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/212937

 

Saddam at that time was in fact something of a favourite ally of the U.S. I think the U.S regarded Iran as far more of an enemy due to the Shah being kicked out and the taking of the American hostages from the embassy in Tehran even if the hostages had been release several years before.

 

I dont think the U.S would have balked at picking a fight with Iran as you say.

Iran was still suffering from the effects of it's war with Iraq at that time and in no position to offer any serious opposition in a war with the U.S, a war in which Iraq would gladly have sided with the U.S

 

Seems logical therefore that the U.S would have picked Iran as the bogeyan rather than Libya

[hard2miss]

Just like the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq fighting for your oil.

 

It was Their Oil.

 

you make out like we went to war to get something back

[hard2miss]

Well that's the opinion of two individuals who lost family. What about the opinions of the rest of the families who lost loved ones? How many would that be? Some 270 or more?

 

If it was one of my family that was killed I would want to know THE truth and wouldnt accept what they wanted me to beleve just to satisfy some blood lust.

 

I am sure that it will all come out one day and a lot of people are going to be pretey angry at their own Governments over this.