Where British Tradition once mandated subjects to genuflect before their royals, Britain is now busy instructing itself on how to properly render homage by prostrating themselves nose to ground before their new potentates, the oil barons of Araby.
There he was, Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi who had been found guilty of the murderous Lockerbie air disaster that took the lives of 270 people, stepping off his specially chartered Libyan aircraft to a cheering crowd upon his arrival at the airport in Tripoli. Eichmann being received by a cheering crowd in Germany would have been the same, not in dimension, but certainly in principle.
Al-Megrahi's release was being trumpeted by Mr. Kenneth MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary, as an act of compassion for a man said to be diagnosed with prostrate cancer and having but three months to live. It was a decision met with outrage by family members of the victims, and a general outcry of disgust throughout much of the world ranging from President Obama to FBI Director Robert Mueller, "makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988".
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that the act of releasing al-Megrahi had been the the decision of the Scottish Secretary alone. But was it?? Or as commented in the Financial Times, politicians are now prepared to go to extra lengths to maintain good relations with his country -- the richest in North Africa and an important supplier of energy to Europe. Even more pointedly according to Lord Trefgarne, Mr. al-Megrahi's release had opened the way for Britain's leading oil companies to pursue multibillion dollar oil contracts with Libya which had demanded Mr. al-Megrahi's return in talks with British officials and business executives.
Scandalous? Perhaps. But then again maybe not if this has become Britain's new norm. Kowtowing to moneyed Middle Eastern/North African oil interests may not be new but it does assume a singular level of malice when it is dealt with in such a brazen manner trashing tradition and principles of law, in the lust for lucre or responding to outright intimidation and blackmail.
Just a year ago the United Kingdom's Highest court provided details on how the Saudis had pressured Prime Minister Tony Blair to close down a politically inflammatory bribery investigation implicating the Saudi Ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar (often referred to as Bandar Bush given his close ties to the Bush family), in effect "buying" the British government by getting Britain's Serious Fraud Office to drop a probe into the $2 billion commissions and multimillion dollar transfers through the now defunct Riggs Bank in Washington. Funds allegedly paid out to Prince Bandar as part of the British Aerospace System's (BAE's) $85 billion 'Yamamah' arms deal to sell British warplanes to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis didn't simply threaten to substitute French jets for British jets if the probe wasn't brought to an end, but also threatened to cut off cooperation on terrorism operations, in effect blackmailing the British government given its concerns that if the Saudis followed through on their threats it could lead to another 7/7, British shorthand for the murderous July 7, 2005 terrorist attack on London subways killing 52 and injuring 700.
A Newsweek article quoted Ali Al Ahmed, director of the Washington-based think tank, the Gulf Institute. "Terrorism is being used to blackmail the West. You watch it is only a matter of time before they do this in the U.S."
The U.S. Justice Department is meant to be investigating allegations that BAE has paid millions of dollars in bribes to Prince Bandar and other Saudi officials in possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Yet little has been forthcoming to date. And no wonder when such as Louis Freeh can retire as the head of the FBI and be retained by none other than Prince Bandar to represent him in connection with the Justice Department probe, while William Bradford Reynolds the chief of the Justice Department's civil rights division during the Reagan administration is representing Prince Bandar in ancillary lawsuits. It further raises the question how can government gainfully serve and be objective if there are such potentially conflicted relationships as those between the need for fair and objective governance and the personal career tracks, access and ambition of those representing the electorate in positions of public authority.
But getting back to Libya. Along with the U.K. Libya has had a running battle with Switzerland. It seems Switzerland had the effrontery to arrest Hannibal Qaddafi (Col. Muammar el-Qaddfi's son) for beating service staff with a belt and hangar while in a Geneva hotel. In retaliation Libya cut off all of its oil shipments to Switzerland and withdrew $5 billion from Swiss Bank accounts, awaiting an apology.
Libya's UK triumph was not in isolation. The FT reported that hours before Mr. Megrahi's plane landed in Tripoli the President of Switzerland Hans-Rudolf Merz was in the Libyan capital apologizing publicly for Hannibal Qaddafi's arrest in Geneva. President Merz would subsequently defend his public and humiliating apology as the only way of getting exit visas from Libya for two Swiss citizens being held there.
Colonel Qaddafi, in this triumphal moment was moved to proclaim:
And I say to my friend Brown, the prime minister of Britain; the Queen of Britain, Elizabeth; Prince Andrew, who all contributed to encouraging the Scottish government to make this historic and courageous decision, despite the obstacles.
May one make a suggestion. When visiting your new friend, in greeting remember body must be prostrate on the floor with arms flung forward and with nose and forehead touching the ground.
Good, excellent, you've finally got it!
I really had to laugh at this statement. The "world" in this person's idea consists entirely of American officials. Actually, most of the "world" is delighted that a serious miscarriage of justice has been corrected, and that someone wrongly convicted of a crime has been released. Only the warmongers in the UK and the US are disgusted.
Does sum up the parochial U.S. outlook on what goes to make up the plant doesn't it?
Come on Mr Learsy, you KNOW how ludicrous that is.
You do at least admit it's Bandar Bush and not Bandar Blair
Is British Politics and the UK Government soaked in Oil particularly from Saudi Arabia and now Libya ?
No question about it.
Is the US in any position to complain about this ?
I'm afraid not as I'm sure you well know.
Saudi Arabia is America’s top customer. Since 1990, the U.S. government, through the Pentagon’s arms export program, has arranged for the delivery of more than $39.6 billion in foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia, and an additional $394 million worth of arms were delivered to the Saudi regime through the State Department’s direct commercial sales program during that same period.
And you must be aware of ExxonMobils current and promisingly lucrative drilling operations in Libya.
And in a word, Iraq.
Still it's always good to highlight such corruption, even if it's only one side of it.
When you are outraged about your navy shooting down an iranian jet liner killing all aboard then perhaps you may have earned the right to critisise the scottish goverment.
You get the picture yet Scotland is not an outpost of the usa,what our goverment decides has has got bugger all to do with usa or england or bleedin timbuctu for that matter
When someone is clueless to the geography of a country, I have a right to correct them.
There are way too many people that associate England as being Britain. When you are talking about a situation in Scotland and then come away with comments about the English trying to weasel their way into the laps of anyone with money, you are completely ignorant. Great Britain = Scotland, England, and Wales. The United Kingdom = Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Prime Minister is Scottish, therefore anyone that uses the term England to speak for the United Kingdom doesn't have a clue.
If Huffington post want to censor this, then I'm completely insulted.
Fantastic, very happy about that and a good days work by the Scottish government there.
The Financial Times article doesn't state or imply that the UK government had anything to do with the decision to release al-Megrahi . If you know anything about the devolved governments, which I assume you do, you will know there is no way the SNP, who aren't just rivals to Labour but hated enemies, would be influenced by Westminster.
Providing the quote from Qaddafi is laughable. You believe that Queen Elizabeth was instrumental in the release of al-Megrahi..... because a man known for his blustering exaggeration states it!
Could there be a simpler job that fooling them?
Newsflash for Mr. Learsy: the "world" does not range from the US president to US bureaucrats.
Perhaps if the Mr. Learsy knew more about the "world" he would be familiar with other penal systems besides the scandalous and unusually cruel US penal system; he would be aware that it is standard practice in most countries to release even the worse prisoners into medical care when they are dying; that most countries engage in prisoner exchanges so that the national returns to their home country.
He might even be aware that the UK recently released an infamous UK criminal, Ronald Biggs, because he was dying.
This is not evidence of pandering to oil interests or terrorists; it is only evidence that in the "world" the US Penal system is regarded as barbaric, and other first world countries operate their penal systems to a different standard of humanity than the US does.
It does not follow that the effort to provide his release was also politically and economically motivated. In the natural course of justice in Scotland, if he was any other prisoner, he would have been released.
It is people who opposed his release that lobbied for an exception.
The BAE-Saudi affair was scandalous, but this is a different situation.
But it's also disappointing to see prominent US officials trying to interfere in the Scottish Judicial system. It says a lot that the families of the British victims were happy that he was released whereas the same decision provoked fury the other side of the Atlantic.