Via Robert Black, it seems the new governors of Libya have proved that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was involved in the Lockerbie bombing. Well, I assume they have. After all, the report in the Herald claims they’ve “scotched the theory the only man convicted of the atrocity was the victim of a miscarriage of justice”. And the headline in the Scottish Sun blares “Gaddafi guilty of Lockerbie bombing”. So, I might as well admit that…
Oh, hang on. When I read further it becomes obvious that the advisers who’ve “admitted” to Libyan guilt – a misplaced term as, being opponents of Gaddafi, they’ve got nothing to “admit” – don’t offer a proof. In fact, they don’t provide us with an evidential sausage. We’re merely told that…
Shamis [an adviser to the interim government] said Libya’s payment of £1billion compensation to victims’ families in 2008 confirmed Gaddafi’s guilt.
When did vague interpretations of people’s motives become final, clinching proofs? When he gets to Megrahi things are even odder…
Mr Shamis added that Megrahi was involved in the bombing even if “he was only a small player”. He said: “Megrahi is an employee of Libyan security, there is no doubt about it – of external security. And if he was told to do something he would have done it.”
He did it because he would have done it if somebody else had done it. Thanks, Mr Shamis!
These guys have had months to pore over the documents Gaddafi and his cronies left behind, as well as to interrogate old employees of the regime, and this is all the evidence they’ve managed to compile? Vague conjecture any sod could have dreamed up in a moment? As I’ve said on many an occasion, and will say until the facts have been revealed, Gaddafi could have been the architect and Megrahi the executioner of the crime. Yet the evidence for these claims has yet to be produced. And it’s eerie how people continually ignore this, even as the facts they’re reporting demonstrate it.
The disinterest is quite bizarre. Even if we accept the charge against Megrahi – for the sake of argument – we don’t know how he did it or who he did it with. Even if they’re right about the guilty party, then, they’ve shown no willingness to (a) investigate serious breaches of security and (b) find and prosecute men who are complicit in the deaths of hundreds of people. Are these not important things? Hell, even if it’s just to enlighten historians you’d think they could show a semblance of curiosity.
Ah well. Anybody heard from Moussa Koussa? No? Nor me. Wonder what he’s up to nowadays.
January 24, 2012 at 3:52 pm
“To scotch a theory” means to quash it, to maim it. But the new regime haven’t quashed the theory: they’ve tried to, but it is an open question whether they have succeeded in disproving the theory.
This relates to something that has been discussed in the USA recently: journalists getting into the habit of taking the word of powerful people (in business and government), accepting assertions as facts and accepting weak arguments. See here Glenn Greenwald journalists mindlessly amplifying statements without examining whether they’re true. We have the same thing here, most notably the repitition by journalists of the most bizarre statements of politicians about Iraq.
I wonder of the editor of the Herald has ever heard of Many Rice-Davies.
January 24, 2012 at 4:07 pm
OK, here is the link to Greenwald’s article on journalists midnlessly amplifying statements without examining whether they’re true.
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/arthur_brisbane_and_selective_stenography/singleton/
January 25, 2012 at 12:52 am
Good point!
Of course, journalists should inspect the fact claims of politicians. They’re there to give the readers enough facts that they can draw reasonable conclusions and, obviously, one can’t do that from the polemic of politicos.
On the other hand, they’re often rubbish at substantiating and interrogating claims their own commentators have make, so I’m not too optimistic about their effectiveness in analysing other peoples’.