Oh my, remember the parades and demonstrations against the eeeeeviiiillllle Bush-Blair era and its “cowboy” and “muscular” way of confronting terrorists and terrorist regimes? Regardless of how many thousands of civilians were murdered by Islamist terrorists from 9/11 to 7/7, the charge was they were just an excuse.
But, ah, the Obama/Brown era! Hope and Change and Diplomacy so “they” will like us again! How’s that working out?
The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards. [...]
In a letter leaked by a Whitehall source, he [Jack Straw] wrote: “I had previously accepted the importance of the al-Megrahi issue to Scotland and said I would try to get an exclusion for him on the face of the agreement. I have not been able to secure an explicit exclusion.
“The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.”
Within six weeks of the government climbdown, Libya had ratified the BP deal. The prisoner transfer agreement was finalised in May this year, leading to Libya formally applying for Megrahi to be transferred to its custody.
Saif Gadaffi, the colonel’s son, has insisted that negotiation over the release of Megrahi was linked with the BP oil deal: “The fight to get the [transfer] agreement lasted a long time and was very political, but I want to make clear that we didn’t mention Mr Megrahi.
“At all times we talked about the [prisoner transfer agreement]. It was obvious we were talking about him. We all knew that was what we were talking about. [...]
His account is confirmed by other sources. Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Libya and a board member of the Libyan British Business Council, said: “Nobody doubted Libya wanted BP and BP was confident its commitment would go through. But the timing of the final authority to spend real money was dependent on politics.”
Hattip to Jules Crittenden who points out that under Bush-Blair we didn’t ever get “Blood for Oil”:
But in a new, gentler time, apparently it’s possible to swap mass murderers for oil. Think of the possibilities.
Indeed. It should also be noted that the “compassionate release” cover story is falling apart
It emerged that the prognosis that Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi had a life expectancy of only three months or less was supported by an unnamed doctor who had no expertise in terminal prostate cancer.
Comment by serr8d on 8/30 @ 10:12 am #
Hmmmph. They should’ve inserted a nice tracking monitor into al-Megrahi, and followed up forthwith, after he was settled into some new digs, with an extry-large hunter-seeker ‘probe’. A probe that would asplode and give release to al-Megrahi, so he could migrate to that promised land of many virgins; that release he so richly deserves.
Comment by Silver Whistle on 8/30 @ 10:26 am #
The SNP (party of the minority government in Scotland) could adequately be described as socialists with a “wee Jock” air; statists with chips on their shoulders and a Mel Gibsonesque anti-English prejudice. It comes as absolutely no surprise that Kenny McAskill was being “economical with the truth” when he declared al Megrahi had less than 3 months to live. Any book running on him being alive this time next year? Compassionate my arse.
Trackback by Joust The Facts on 8/30 @ 10:37 am #
Traded, For A Few Barrels Of Oil…
There have been some bad trades in history. Babe Ruth traded for financing for No No Nanette, Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson, Curt Schilling for Mike Boddicker, John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander, Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcliff Slocumb,……
Comment by Bubba on 8/30 @ 10:51 am #
I think a better overlay for the graphic would be the British flag and not the BP symbol as it was the British government that made the deal. BP, while not totally innocent in this case, was recipient of the deal and is only doing what the British government is allowing them to do.
Comment by Snowcone on 8/30 @ 11:28 am #
“we didn’t ever get ‘Blood for Oil’”
Um, wrong.
Iraq is now America’s 7th largest oil supplier:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
Comment by Pablo on 8/30 @ 11:43 am #
Did you hear a whooshing sound just now, Snowcone?
Comment by Rusty on 8/30 @ 11:58 am #
#5
Brainfreeze!!!!
Comment by Abe Froman on 8/30 @ 12:13 pm #
Now now, snowcone is right. Remember Saddam couldn’t sell much of his oil because of the eeeeevil US-inspired (naturally) sanctions that the left said weren’t working and were killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children. Now they can sell their oil on the market, so according to leftlogic we went from blood for no oil to blood for oil. Just lobotomize yourself and it makes perfect sense.
Comment by Darleen on 8/30 @ 12:30 pm #
#5
good lord, the stoooopid from the previous thread leaked over here!
Comment by Wm T Sherman on 8/30 @ 1:51 pm #
Wait – are you all saying that if we buy oil from Iraq on the open market, as much or as little as they choose to sell us, at OPEC cartel-set prices, and there are six other sources that sell us more oil than Iraq does; then we *aren’t* taking away their oil in an imperialistic fashion?
I don’t get it. What are you trying to say? Break it down for me here.
Comment by Wm T Sherman on 8/30 @ 2:04 pm #
And if you people take the time go to Snocone’s link, you can see the U.S. imports about 300,000 barrels of petroleum a day from Iraq. Out of a total of about 10 million barrels imported per day, that’s like, about 3% of our imports. Further, since total petroleum consumption in the U.S. is about 20 million barrels per day, it’s about 1.5% of our total consumption. Wake up and smell the ammonia, people. Our economy is living off the oil that we suck out of Iraq like a vampire.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 8/30 @ 2:11 pm #
Blood for oil writ large.
Despicable.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 8/30 @ 2:14 pm #
Comment by Snowcone on 8/30 @ 11:28 am #
Teh Stoopid™ is strong in this one, Obi-wan.
Comment by Wm T Sherman on 8/30 @ 2:49 pm #
The Iraq War was not about oil per se. Neither is the trouble with Iran. Instead, it’s about the agressive trouble that dysfunctional states can pay for with easy oil money that just squirts out of the ground. No matter how badly they screw up the rest of their countries, the easy cash just keeps rolling in.
This Libyan deal, on the other hand, is about oil per se.
Comment by donald on 8/30 @ 2:59 pm #
Wouldn’t it be funny if Gordon Brown got a yeast infection and his vagina rotted off?
Comment by Sans on 8/30 @ 3:10 pm #
“Oh my, remember the parades and demonstrations against the eeeeeviiiillllle Bush-Blair era and its “cowboy” and “muscular” way of confronting terrorists and terrorist regimes?”
I remember 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report being censored for the next 60 years. Maybe you thought that was protecting some Saudi sand contracts.
Comment by Rick on 8/30 @ 3:40 pm #
Or Sand-y Berger, maybe.
Cordially…
Comment by Sans on 8/30 @ 3:48 pm #
Is “Sandy Berger” some kind of codename for the Saudis, which both CIA officers and the Saudis themselves have uniformly confirmed the censored material concerns?
Then maybe not.
Comment by JD on 8/30 @ 4:04 pm #
The Leftist trolls have been out in force recently. I love how they do not even make an effort to defend the policies in question, they just scream Booooooosh, or whatever the meme of the day is.
Comment by sdferr on 8/30 @ 4:12 pm #
Sand contracts? I figure the secret is an agreement requiring post-Bush presidents to bow deeply before Saudi royalty, don’t you?
Comment by B Moe on 8/30 @ 4:51 pm #
Is that supposed to be a coherent post?
Comment by newrouter on 8/30 @ 5:01 pm #
dissing the keeper of mecca and medina. i think we have an islamophobe here
Comment by SBP on 8/30 @ 5:06 pm #
Sans what?
Sans culottes?
Sans serif?
La Belle Dame sans Merci? (or, in your case, L’Homme Disgracieux sans Intelligence)
Sansabelt?
Sans cerveau?
Sansford and Son?
Small Angle Neutron Scattering? (actually, I suspect your skull would make a wizard neutron reflector)
Comment by newrouter on 8/30 @ 6:02 pm #
you guys on the left is “pounding sand fun”?
Comment by McGehee on 8/30 @ 7:47 pm #
My first thought was “relevance,” followed by “intelligence.” But I think B Moe is right — it’s “coherence.”
Comment by SBP on 8/30 @ 7:50 pm #
I wonder if they make Sansabelt hats to fit his fat head?
Comment by TmjUtah on 8/30 @ 7:52 pm #
There won’t always be an England.
Comment by Ric Locke on 8/30 @ 8:13 pm #
No, guys, it isn’t incoherent, just oblique. You have to keep up with Leftoid twoooooferisms to decode it, and most of us don’t bother.
It is an article of faith among LTs — part of the catechism, in fact — that the attacks on the WTC were done by Saudis at the instigation of the Saudi Government, in order to induce us to eliminate another oil supplier (Iraq, Iran, whoever, depending on which LT you ask) and thereby increase the price of oil and their profits. It therefore follows that the reason those items were classified is to protect Bush & Co’s payoffs for following through on that from public view.
The inherent contradictions would explode any rational person’s cerebellum. Don’t try to push it on them, though. It’s like suggesting gay marriage to a conservative imam. You can’t get past a closely held faith.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Nathan Arizona on 8/30 @ 9:33 pm #
Hang Bush and Cheney for War Crimes.
But tickle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed until he gives up helpful info. You’re a sick, stupid fuck.
Comment by B Moe on 8/30 @ 9:38 pm #
John needs to stop thinking so much and start listening to better people. That’s what I think.
Comment by B Moe on 8/30 @ 9:40 pm #
And hanging would definitely qualify as torture. That is why we don’t do it any more.
Comment by john on 8/30 @ 9:53 pm #
I admire McCain for what he endured in Vietnam and in staying there when he could have gone home but all this melodrama over waterboarding a few terrorists is absurd. They do not have the rights of soldiers, nor do they have the rights criminal defendants. Watching Lawrence of Arabia last week I couldn’t get over the irony of Lawrence and the Arab irregulars killing their own wounded for the stated reason that if the Turks picked them up they were not bound by the Geneva Conventions with non-uniformed soldiers and would torture them mercilessly to obtain information. In light of current events it was just eery.
Comment by Mark A. Flacy on 8/30 @ 11:02 pm #
Well, thank heaven for that! I’d hate to have forced al Qaeda to have to lie about that to gain recruits.
Comment by JeffS on 8/31 @ 12:19 am #
And hanging would definitely qualify as torture. That is why we don’t do it any more.
It was declared cruel and unusual punishment because it didn’t always kill the prisoner the first go around, thanks to incompetent hang men. Then one schlep deliberately ballooned to 400 pounds on a prison diet, and then appealed his pending execution on the cruel & unusual punishment because the rope might pinch his head off, thanks to his massive extra weight. At the time, I viewed that as a feature, not a bug. But the judges thought otherwise.
But thanks to the death penalty opponents, we now have lethal injection. It’s more humane, after all.
But, hey, lefties might reinstate that fine old custom of using a rope, just so they can dance whilst Bush and Cheney dance. As noted earlier, a lot of them are sick, stupid fucks.
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 4:54 am #
When I grow up I want to be like Dick Cheney:
One of the many Highlights of the interview:
WALLACE: One specific question about Holder, the Obama administration — you put out the statement saying that you were upset that President Obama allowed the attorney general to bring these cases. A top Obama official says, hey, maybe in the Bush White House they told the attorney general what to do, but Eric Holder makes independent decisions.
CHENEY: Well, I think if you look at the Constitution, the president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the land. The attorney general’s a statutory officer. He’s a member of the cabinet.
The president’s the one who bears this responsibility. And for him to say, gee, I didn’t have anything to do with it, especially after he sat in the Oval Office and said this wouldn’t happen, then Holder decides he’s going to do it. So now he’s backed off and is claiming he’s not responsible.
I just, I think he’s trying to duck the responsibility for what’s going on here. And I think it’s wrong.
Read it all when you have an extra 10 minutes.
Comment by Sans on 8/31 @ 5:29 am #
Comment by Ric Locke on 8/30 @ 8:13 pm
“No, guys, it isn’t incoherent, just oblique. You have to keep up with Leftoid twoooooferisms to decode it, and most of us don’t bother. It is an article of faith among LTs — part of the catechism, in fact — that the attacks on the WTC were done by Saudis at the instigation of the Saudi Government, in order to induce us to eliminate another oil supplier”
Sorry, no.
What I said was they blacked out 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report about the Saudis to protect a relationship. That relationship consists of oil. You’re a insane kook if you don’t know that.
You’ve got an article here about the UK handing back a terrorist to protect a relationship that consists of oil.
Apparently I didn’t provide enough information for any of the great minds here to make the connection. Wow.
Comment by SDN on 8/31 @ 6:13 am #
And Theas, the reason it harms our “image” in the world is that terrorists and dictators know they have Copperhead Fifth Columnists like you to carry their water for them.
I simply find it fascinating that the historical record shows that taming fanatics (Nazis / Japanese willing to kill themselves for their God Emperor) so they don’t launch “insurgencies” is better accomplished by blowing their entire country to Hell.
Comment by donald on 8/31 @ 6:30 am #
Unfortuately for John McCain, he’s a war hero AND a cheap, shallow, political hack.
It’s also unfortunate for this country.
Comment by Mark A. Flacy on 8/31 @ 7:52 am #
Well-known stuff isn’t redacted from official reports. You’re an insane kook if you don’t know that.
Comment by JeffS on 8/31 @ 7:56 am #
“I like Dick Cheney’s view on how the president is the boss.”
Well, it’s good to see you’re coming around to our point of view.
Next step: Getting Obama to realize that the President is the boss.
Comment by Eben on 8/31 @ 8:53 am #
Apparently it takes a great mind to equate blacking out lines in a hack of a report to letting a convicted terrorist go free.
Comment by BJTexs on 8/31 @ 9:00 am #
Eben: Please refer in your Alinsky primer to the section entitled “How to Tell Big Lies by Inflating Moral Equivalency and Diagnosing Insanity Through Ideological Impurity.”
It was a chapter that worked great for the USSR when they were compassionately sentencing dissidents to “Mental Institutions” that just happened to all be located in Siberia. Ya see, Siberia was where all of the best psychotherapists were practicing.
I hope I’ve cleared this up for you.
Comment by Kyle Kiernan on 8/31 @ 9:34 am #
You want Blood for Oil?
The gold plated standard in this field is:
CAFE Standards.
Killing and maiming the innocent for oil for 40 years.
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 10:29 am #
“It was a chapter that worked great for the USSR when they were compassionately sentencing dissidents to “Mental Institutions””
And as luck would have it Gerald Walpin: IS available to comment
Comment by Old Texas Turkey on 8/31 @ 10:30 am #
Well for the careerist CIA lefties that made it unofficialy policy to leak secrets to the NY Times, and undermine a sitting president in a time of war, I hope the Holder witch hunt drags a few of those spineless fucks into the net.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer set of guys or gals.
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 10:31 am #
Sorry,
Here is the link old school style: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,527200,00.html
Comment by McGehee on 8/31 @ 10:32 am #
Do you really believe that would happen? I don’t.
Comment by Matt on 8/31 @ 10:59 am #
Mark beat me too it but seriously, how do you know what’s in the report if its classified ? Or was redacted ? Its simple things that trip up the conspiracy theorists.
Also, I’m confused as to how I should make a connection between Scotland making a deal for 1 terrorist and the US making a deal for oil (the deal which apparently does not benefit us).
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 11:20 am #
The BDA report is in for Mt. Hopium:
Excellent target work Outlaws.
Comment by just bob on 8/31 @ 11:36 am #
“Take it from someone who was tortured.”
The torture of McCain has hurt all Americans,He rode that coattail to the senate.
Comment by Ric Locke on 8/31 @ 11:56 am #
So, you know what’s in the redacted section of the report? Does the Secret Service know that you know?
Bullshit. Simple minds require simple “explanations”, so you’ve concocted one and will stick to it. If you aren’t aware that there’s a lot more to the relationship between us and the Saudis than oil, you are indeed simple minded. (This is not to say that oil isn’t important. It is.)
Ric’s Rule #1: It ain’t that simple. One of the corollaries of Rule #1 is, If it fits on a bumper sticker it’s probably a lie, and even if it isn’t a lie it’s useless for any rational policy guidance. There’s a reason “sophomoric” is a named concept.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by happyfeet on 8/31 @ 12:06 pm #
If it fits on a bumper sticker it’s probably a lie.
That would make a good bumper sticker I think.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/31 @ 12:08 pm #
justbob has a very good point there also. It would be a good thing for America if Meghan’s daddy would emulate Ted Kennedy more I think.
Comment by Ric Locke on 8/31 @ 12:13 pm #
Which is one of the reasons it ain’t that simple.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/31 @ 3:15 pm #
The French System – Oil contracts for near about anything.
Comment by Rusty on 9/1 @ 8:14 pm #
#29
I know you. Aren’t you normally a giant paper mache’ head?
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