Trading a Terrorist for Oil. Did Barack Obama Know in Advance?
The Left used to have a chant: “No war for oil.” But now that Britain has let a terrorist who killed 243 passengers go free, because to do so meant access to a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal for British Petroleum (BP), we have not heard a word. This is especially the case for the British Left, who, for some time now, has been anti-Israel to the hilt and excessively silent about the crimes committed by Arab nations.
The facts are clear, as the London Times reported. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government, after discussions between Libya and BP, made the decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber who brought down Pam Am 103 in 1988. Among the passengers who died were 180 Americans.
Until now, it was thought that Scotland made the deal alone to free al-Megrahi. But investigative reporting found firm evidence that, as Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, put it, “the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking.”
It was a decision, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said, that was in the British national interest. Britain agreed that the terrorist could go free. Six weeks later, Libya ratified the BP deal that the government wanted concluded. So much for “compassionate grounds,” the so-called official reason that led to Al-Megrhai’s freedom.
One other issue has to be raised. After al-Megrahi was freed and given a hero’s welcome when his plane landed in Libya, the Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton protested. But this was after he gained his freedom. So the question must be stated: Would Britain have allowed this deal to be undertaken without informing President Obama in advance?
After all, scores of Americans were murdered by his action. The families have suffered for close to twenty years. A moving account of one family’s trauma appeared in an op-ed yesterday written by Robert P. George. As George writes: “What did American officials know about the decision to free Megrahi and when did they know it? What, if anything, did our government do to try to prevent it? Remember, 180 of Megrahi’s victims were our fellow citizens. President Obama had a right to be informed in advance of what Scotland was planning to do and a duty to do everything in his power diplomatically to prevent this outrage.”
Did Barack Obama phone Gordon Brown and object strenuously before the release? Did he really not know of Britain’s plans until after it was too late? Frankly, this is rather hard to believe. If almost 200 British subjects were killed on American soil in a terrorist attack, and the perpetrator was freed in a commercial deal by the U.S. government, it is hard to imagine that any administration would not first have informed the British government of what was going to take place.
So the question remains: What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?
“So the question remains: What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?”
This is actually a secondary question. There is a far more important one: does Barack Obama even care? I personally don’t think he gives a damn. Obama perceives the United States and the rest of the Western World as oppressors of the dark skinned citizens of the Third World. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is a victim of imperialism. He blew up the plane because of his overwhelming frustrations. The poor guy therefore deserves to be cut a little slack.
The current CIA investigations by Eric Holder are another example of Obama’s indifference to our nation’s well being. He flat out doesn’t give a crap. Our elected national leader is truly a self-hating American. In back of his mind, he constantly wants punish us for our alleged past misdeeds. Obama wants to stick it to us good and hard—especially if we are white males.
Perhaps this is a case of the chickens coming home to roost. Could it be that the Brits who have been roundly dissed by the new administration, including an absurd ‘gift’ to the queen, have just concluded that the special relationship is no more or less than the Obama’s act as if it is?
Wrong narrative. Afghanistan was about a Chevron pipeline that was never built. Iraq was about oil and Haliburton. And we have to work Exxon and the Carlyle group in there somewhere. But this isn’t about Big Oil. It’s about justice, and mercy, and rainbows and unicorns.
How dare you? Obama gave up a big job in the corporate world to be a poor community organizer. Whatever he knew, it was for peace and justice, and polar bears.
It’s not Big Oil when we do it. Socialist oil has no carbon footprint, just like Soviet nuke plants aren’t radioactive.
If Obama were really upset about what happened, he’d cancel Qaddaffi’s upcoming visit to the U.S., and put every kind of legal, and economic, pressure he could, on Libya.
He’s not doing much of anything. So, yeah, either he knew about this beforehand, or he just doesn’t care, because Al-Megrahi is just a poor, frustrated third-world oppressed person of color. Or some such BS.
It’s nothing to do with America. Why should any other country have to run by it’s political and legal issue’s with the U.S.
No matter who is the President.
This hypocrisy is getting a bit much.I will explain why there is a muted response from the British people over his release.The special relationship that isn’t so special.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_IRA_arms_importation
That campaign of terror, waged against British citizens
for more than 30 years, was bankrolled by donations from the USA — and in those 30 years the U.S would not extradite wanted terrorists to face charges here, despite our repeated requests.
Both federal and local US courts refused extradition requests almost as policy, while the funding of the IRA continued without interruption and was still raking in the money even after 9/11, when the Americans suddenly decided that they ought to start proscribing certain terrorist groups. The IRA was not, for some time, one of the groups so proscribed.
The U.S gave visa’s to known I.R.A members to fund raise against our governments wishes.
Resulting in this,
http://www.reason.com/news/show/30003.html
Gerry Adams was given the keys to New York by Rudy Giuliani.
He has even had a street named after him.
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/giuliani-gave-award-to-terror-chief
Bars in Boston had drinks called ‘kill a brit’ and ‘carbomb’(The I.R.A invented the road side bomb that is killing our soldiers and yours).Money for ‘the cause’.Killing Irish and British civilians.
Weapons sent included semtex and surface to air missiles,we didn’t intercept them all.
These were used to bomb places like Harrods on Christmas Eve.
Shopping centres the day before mothers day killing children shopping for their gifts and card’s.
On remembrance sunday they blew up a church service killing old soldiers with their medals on.
U.S money was sent to help the families of killed or imprisoned ‘comrades’ and to keep their graves nice and tidy.
The IRA nearly killed Prime Minister Thatcher and her cabinet with a bomb in 1984, and it assassinated prominent British politicians and members of the royal family.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/12/newsid_2531000/2531583.stm
It is actually the 30yr anniversary of the killing of Lord Mountbatten.The I.R.A did what they called ‘a spectactular’(sounds familiar).
Two high targets on the same day,with the soldiers they timed the second bomb to go off as the emergency services arrived.
Rep. Peter King–for years, the congressman was alinged with “one of the most violent terrorist groups in recent European history”–the IRA.
The politician once called the IRA “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland,” he was banned from the BBC by British censors for his pro-IRA views, and he refused to denounce the IRA when one of its mortar bombs killed nine Northern Irish police officers.
But Mr. King is now one of America’s most outspoken foes of terrorism.
He forged links with leaders of the IRA and Sinn Fein in Ireland, and in America he hooked up with Irish Northern Aid, known as Noraid, a New York based group that the American, British, and Irish governments often accused of funneling guns and money to the IRA.
He spoke regularly at Noraid protests and became close to the group’s publicity director, the Bronx lawyer Martin Galvin, a figure reviled by the British.
Much of the conventional weaponry and a great deal of the money necessary for IRA violence came from Irish-American sympathizers. Mr. King’s advocacy of the IRA’s cause encouraged that flow and earned him the deep-seated hostility of the British and Irish governments
During his visits to Ireland, Mr. King would often stay with well-known leaders of the IRA, and he socialized in IRA drinking haunts.
At one of such clubs, the Felons, membership was limited to IRA veterans who had served time in jail.
Mr. King would almost certainly have been red-flagged by British intelligence as a result, but the experience gave him plenty of material for the three novels he subsequently wrote featuring the I.R.A
Nobody deserves terrorism.
Who knew, indeed. Blood must be on the hands of this new administration. The sense of outrage is but a whisper from those in power. Protecting the interests and rights of all Americans apparently only works half way. We are witnessing a terrible, corrupt, inept administration that had promised better. My children’s generation derserves better. I am a proud American and I want no more!
Great Pee Wee
I am sure Obama will blame this snafu on one of his czars.
Oriana Fallaci’s “The Force of Reason” gives a great background on the deal that European leaders made with the Gulf sheiks back in the 1970′s. If the Arabs gave Europe oil at a low rate, they would open their doors to immigration. Basically, they sold their soul, and their people, to the devil.
I have to ask myself if Obama’s loud protestations after the fact were just an act for the voters (read rubes) to cover up his knowledge and approval of this shameful release. I also have to ask myself, since we know now “compassionate grounds” was a lie, is al-Megrahi really terminal? Or will he live out the next twenty or thirty years as a Hero of Libya, possibly plotting more atrocities?
Great, now I can’t buy gas at BP or Citgo – this is getting to be a real pain in the ass.
This hypocrisy is getting a bit much.I will explain why there is a muted response from the British people over his release.The special relationship that isn’t so special.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_IRA_arms_importation
That campaign of terror, waged against British citizens
for more than 30 years, was bankrolled by donations from the USA — and in those 30 years the U.S would not extradite wanted terrorists to face charges here, despite our repeated requests.
Both federal and local US courts refused extradition requests almost as policy, while the funding of the IRA continued without interruption and was still raking in the money even after 9/11, when the Americans suddenly decided that they ought to start proscribing certain terrorist groups. The IRA was not, for some time, one of the groups so proscribed.
The U.S gave visa’s to known I.R.A members to fund raise against our governments wishes.
Resulting in this,
http://www.reason.com/news/show/30003.html
Gerry Adams was given the keys to New York by Rudy Giuliani.
He has even had a street named after him.
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/giuliani-gave-award-to-terror-chief
Bars in Boston had drinks called ‘kill a brit’ and ‘carbomb’(The I.R.A invented the road side bomb that is killing our soldiers and yours).Money for ‘the cause’.Killing Irish and British civilians.
Weapons sent included semtex and surface to air missiles,we didn’t intercept them all.
These were used to bomb places like Harrods on Christmas Eve.
Shopping centres the day before mothers day killing children shopping for their gifts and card’s.
On remembrance sunday they blew up a church service killing old soldiers with their medals on.
U.S money was sent to help the families of killed or imprisoned ‘comrades’ and to keep their graves nice and tidy.
The IRA nearly killed Prime Minister Thatcher and her cabinet with a bomb in 1984, and it assassinated prominent British politicians and members of the royal family.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/12/newsid_2531000/2531583.stm
It is actually the 30yr anniversary of the killing of Lord Mountbatten.The I.R.A did what they called ‘a spectactular’(sounds familiar).
Two high targets on the same day,with the soldiers they timed the second bomb to go off as the emergency services arrived.
Rep. Peter King–for years, the congressman was alinged with “one of the most violent terrorist groups in recent European history”–the IRA
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/member-87856-attention-politicians.html
The politician once called the IRA “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland,” he was banned from the BBC by British censors for his pro-IRA views, and he refused to denounce the IRA when one of its mortar bombs killed nine Northern Irish police officers. But Mr. King is now one of America’s most outspoken foes of terrorism.
He forged links with leaders of the IRA and Sinn Fein in Ireland, and in America he hooked up with Irish Northern Aid, known as Noraid, a New York based group that the American, British, and Irish governments often accused of funneling guns and money to the IRA.
He spoke regularly at Noraid protests and became close to the group’s publicity director, the Bronx lawyer Martin Galvin, a figure reviled by the British.
Much of the conventional weaponry and a great deal of the money necessary for IRA violence came from Irish-American sympathizers. Mr. King’s advocacy of the IRA’s cause encouraged that flow and earned him the deep-seated hostility of the British and Irish governments
During his visits to Ireland, Mr. King would often stay with well-known leaders of the IRA, and he socialized in IRA drinking haunts.
At one of such clubs, the Felons, membership was limited to IRA veterans who had served time in jail.
Mr. King would almost certainly have been red-flagged by British intelligence as a result, but the experience gave him plenty of material for the three novels he subsequently wrote featuring the I.R.A
Nobody deserves terrorism. We supported you following 9/11.
Of course Obama knew.
Of course, our greates ally, Great Britian asked for our sign off on this.
Of course, it was all about access to oil resources.
Of course, when will we be asked to make a similar move to secure future oil resources, instead of just drilling here?
Does Libya even care about having this murderer released or is their only goal to make the West look weak and stupid?
This story can’t possibly be true. Now that the United States is not using EIT it has regained its standing in the world. The UK would never do something like this. It would damage the Obama “weak is strong” narrative.
Obama? What did Cheney know?
But isn’t that the way with liberals? The more violent and destructive the criminal, the more mercy they’re shown. How many Americans were on that flight? 180 including crew, many were students.
If Obama knew, letting the guy go shows he doesn’t care.
My unshakeable belief regarding this odious “Lockerbie release” scandal is that Brown and the Scot dude are the fall guys, who simply acted the way a higher up wanted them to do – i.e. Obama, in the behalf of Lybia demanded the release of that criminal, and they (Brown & Cie) quickly @ humbly obliged.
Now, they’re under fire and deserve this – yet it is Obama who is behind his sputtering machination.
My, by the way, and since now there is so much (and warranted) talk about the Molotov-Ribentropp/ Stalin-Hitler minuet of 70 years ago, let’s remember how, just a few moths ago Obama went over the head of Europeans/ Eastern Europeans with a confidential letter to Medvedeev, selling them all (was this last spring?) – and how wonderfully the propositions in that letter have come to reality last week, with Obama trading the Eastern Europe countries’ liberty for some phantasmagoric act of Russia muzzling Iran!
Whether this is just ineptitude or sedition I don’t know – probably both, since they are Obama’s known trademark.
And I’ll close my remark by quoting an extraordinary wise man’s anticipation (reverend Wright): “The chickens will come home to roost!”
Hallelujah!
hmmm, betting Barry cut a deal with the Brits: you permit parking those Gitmo detainees on Bermuda & we won’t squawk about the Lockerbie perp for oil. You just know it’s some pay-to-play swapperooni for sure.
President Obama has gone out of his way to humiliate the British Govt.: third class treatment during Brown’s state visit, gift of CDs that do not work, I Pod to the Queen with Obama’s speeches, Chinese terrorists to Bahamas without consultation. These are gratuitously insulting acts and PM Brown is a vindictive person who will almost certainly be voted out in the next election – and so has nothing to lose in responding in kind-albeit with greater sophistication than his American cousins have shown.
It would not surprise me that the USA was not consulted in this shamefull enterprise – or if it was, the objections were ignored.
So much for “smart diplomacy.” Institutional stupidity and incompetence would be closer to the mark….so lets give them health care to “improve.”
Tony Blair was probably the liason for this job,as seen meeting in published pictures with said Gadaffi.
A shame on the UK. Ever believe in the higher moral calling whilst meeting the practical needs of a nation? Is it always to be so morally diluted choices. I hope none of them attend this ego bashing 40 year anniversary celebration, the rumours of some of UK’s high society figures partying with that regime is dispairing. And the ordinary people of Libya, they have no choice – but we did.
There is yet another possible scenario.
Obama is (rightly) perceived to be such a limp wristed buffoon in the progressive, anti-semetic environment that is Europe, that it never occured to them to consult him. Why bother? It’s not like the guy would actually do anything.
Well, he might send Shrillary to visit in her orange pants suit. Lord knows that would moderate my behavior…
Like the present pretender to the “presidency,” none of the Euro-peon Neo-Soviet’s sorry subjects, those of its squalidly-fasciSSocialist offshore satellite state included, has ever or will ever miss an opportunity to do the dirt to America and to Americans.
And in this instance, true to form, none of them did!
Brian Richard Allen
Lost Angels – Califobambicated 90028
And the Far Abroad
Ooops! The British government released confidential documents concerning the Lockerbie release. It seems Obama opposed it, firmly. Sorry Ron, but keep checking under your bed; a commie is bound to turn up sooner or later.
Ron Radosh asks the question: “What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?”
David Thomson insists upon a more important question: “Does Barack Obama even care?” and answers, “I personally don’t think he gives a damn.” And, “He flat out doesn’t give a crap. Our elected national leader is truly a self-hating American. In back of his mind, he constantly wants to punish us for our alleged past misdeeds. Obama wants to stick it to us good and hard . . .”
Sure sounds to me like Obama does give a damn, and a whole load of crap, too.
He’s not indifferent to our nation’s well-being. He’s out to do us harm. He’s not a “self-hating American” either. He loves himself. It’s America he hates. And he’s not an American! Not so? OK, let’s agree to disagree on that until we all get a good look at his records.
I hope we can agree on this much, though. If Obama is American, he’s close to treason. If he’s not an American, he’s not the president, and that ain’t the least of it . . .
Do you have a link to back up that assertion bibio?Or is this sophism on your part?
18, Alceste,
wasn’t a Bush’s decision that suddenly Kadhafi was washed of all his sins not quite a long time ago ?
so, who ever is in the “house” manages to absolve or to condamn foreign leaders at conveniences
I also recall you that Bush could see Putin’s soul in his “deep” blue eyes LMAO
So if you only trust politicians words to visualise how the world is driven, you sure get the erroned basis
ya must look behind the curtains, the objective truths ain’t what they are presented to the public, even the medias are complices of the official narration
May-be some historians will make the point on this play in a few years, or décades
just sayin
Even if obama did care, which I doubt, he couldn’t stop the Brits/Scots from releasing that pos. . . how about a good SEAL or Ranger team to take care of business?
IRA? Aren’t we supposed to stay on topic?
Did the Obama administration know? Of course they did, as far back as June. From (of all places) the far left rag, the Boston Globe:
“WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder warned his Scottish counterpart in June that the man convicted of blowing US-bound Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky could get a hero’s welcome if allowed to return to Libya, according to the head of a group representing the families of victims.”
See for yourself, here is the link:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/08/29/us_warned_of_heros_welcome_for_pan_am_103_bomber/
Wow, Bush (the stupid, ignorant rube that the left despised) sure has a long arm. Now HE”S responsible for the terrorists release.
Face it comrades, your shill doesn’t have either the competence nor the courage to lead. He does however have an agenda which includes taking everything you have, as quickly as possible. If we are not careful this country will be in the throes of a civil war that will finish the Demon-crats job.
Vote them all out then charge this administration with fraud, abuse and treason. Every last one.
mags, quit posturing.
This wasn’t about British indignation about the IRA, or justice, or “compassionate release” or any of that; it was all about oil, pure and simple. Please, enough with the excuses already. The British, Scots and Obama didn’t sign onto this because they wanted to teach us a lesson about the badness of supporting the IRA; they did for oil. For the Oil. For nothing else, but oil. The rest is just BS.
Assisting any terrorists for oil, “compassion”, because you think their cause is nifty, is wrong. The release of the Lockerbie bomber is just going to pave the way for more terrorists: Islamic, IRA, whatever, being coddled and their miserable lives spared.
P.S. Thanks for the support after 9/11; too bad it didn’t last long enough to prevent this happening. Also, too bad it hasn’t led to your doing anything about the Islamists in your own country calling “Death to America!” and “Death to the West!” Not to mention Red Ken Livingstone’s oil deals. Can’t blame that one on the IRA.
And I’ll agree that nobody deserves terrorism—except you, apparently, think we do, because some Americans supported the IRA, so that somehow makes the release of the Lockerbie bomber fine and dandy, and the murder of the Americans on that plane perfectly A-OK, because it punishes us—even though the whole thing was about nothing else but getting cushy oil contracts. Heck, I’m sure Blair, and the others, would be only too happy to free IRA terrorists, if they thought somebody would give them a lot of oil in exchange.
Speaking of hypocrisy. . . http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/124158/Lockerbie-bomber-was-freed-in-oil-deal-says-our-ex-envoy
And some more. . . http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6817850.ece
I don’t think Obama knew because his wife said that the only thing her husband knows is what he doesn’t know.
So as Donald Rumsfeld so wittingly noted:
There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.
Obama knows unknowns but he doesn’t know knowns and he perhaps doesn’t know he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
I don’t know. Prove it.
Well, let’s face it…they let him go free through some secret favor or something…this is politics not Disneyland. “Compassion”, please!!! Give us smart folks a big break!!!
Of course he knew, look at everything he has had his hands in up to this point. He is a coward. If we do not get him out very soon, and his rejects from hell, The damage will be so great, we will not see our america, like we new it, in our life time. God bless our wonderful America, and ourselves.
I read comments like the one from David Thomson, and I wonder…have those Americans who refuse to acknowledge our own contribution to hostility from third world countries ever stepped foot into the outside world? Have they never seen first-hand how our actions abroad have fed anti-american sentiments? And to acknowledge that yes we have contributed to some pretty bad feelings abroad with our self-serving foreign policy is tantamount to being self-hating?
I take my hat off to President Obama for his willingness to be honest about our part in the tensions that exist between many third-worlders and ourselves.
Of course he knew, look at everything he has had his hands in up to this point. He is a coward. If we do not get him out very soon, and his rejects from hell, The damage will be so great, we will not see our america, like we new it, in our life time. God bless our wonderful America, and ourselves.