I'm fascinated by the way in which the Obama administration is playing up to the "Nation on the March--Scotland puts two fingers up to USA" narrative. They have been seeming to seek to outdo each other in expressing various levels of rage and disgust addressed solely at the Scottish administration, as if they really thought that Alex Salmond, MacAskill and the others really were solely responsible for the release of Megrahi and his repatriation to LIbya.
As I've demonstrated irrefutably in my previous post, the repatriation of Megrahi could not possibly have taken place without the express consent of the UK government. That's because it's explicitly required as a provision of the Treaty which enabled the transfer of prisoners between the UK and Libya, a Treaty signed by Gordon Brown's UK government in November 2008 and ratified by Gordon Brown's UK government in May 2009. There was at that time only one Libyan prisoner in any jail in the UK. Now that Megrahi has returned to Libya, there are none
I've been discussing this point on several heated blog posts centred on the supposed ways in which Salmond, MaAskill and Co exercised their supposed power of transfer. One of the most excited posters (he has a book about to come out) pointed out that the preamble of the Treaty stated that the Scottish government is responsible for the transfer of prisoners in Scotland.
Alas. A preamble in a Treaty has no force whatsoever. Only the specific provisions in the Treaty itself have legal force. A preamble is a political gloss, a statement of intent. And in the world of Treaty-making, it is usually put there to satisfy the political needs of the constituency or constituencies. It is more or less the political equivalent of stating" We believe in Motherhood and Apple Pie.
Whatever the preamble said, the relevant provision required the express agreement of the UK government, and thus Gordon Brown to agree the return of Megrahi.
The Obama administration are not of course either fools or naives. That Obama himself should be unaware of the real powers of a provincial administration and the requirements of Treaties when he's the former editor of the Harvard Law Review and a law professor at the University of Chicago streches credibility beyond belief. Hillary Clinton is equally a woman with a stellar record at Harvard Law School, besides having spent many years as a Senate Legislator.
So why have they not condemned and deplored Gordon Brown's central and decisive role part in a transfer Treaty that only applied to Megrahi? Why have they overlooked the key clause in the Treaty which shows the UK had to agree to the transfer. After all, even if we care to accept the ludicrous notion that the Salmond administration could decided to release Megrahi against the wishes of the UK government, Brown had the power under the Treaty to refuse to agree to Megrahi being repatriated. He could have, for example, insisted that Megrahi was transferred to a UK hospital where he would be kept in secure conditions equivalent to jailing, as was done in the case of such notorious prisoners as Ian Brady, Myra Hindley and the Yorkshire Ripper.
Why has the Obama administration not fulminated against Brown's failure to do this?
Why have they been venting their fury at the dancing monkeys on the organ of Mr Gordon "Macavity" Brown, who's so very conveninently away on his longest holiday ever, and remaining silent about the organ grinder who presided over the made-to-measure for Megrahi Treaty, ratified it and agreed to the transfer provided for in it?
Is this some mysterious form of conspiracy designed to protect Brown? Some unknown quid pro quo involving a chunk of the oil and gas contracts just signed with British companies? I very much doubt it, though such things are not unknown.
But look at the politics of Obama's image, and his administration's image. His carefully constructed halo as the defender of the oppressed. And of course the Head of State of the largest group of the bereaved families and loved ones of the terorist\s victims, the great majority of whom are known to have been bitter opponents of Megrahi's release. The leader of the nation that suffered the murderous attacks of the terrorists crashing planes who killed more than ten times the toll of Lockerbie has been seen to demand justice for victims of terrorism without actually directing his wrath at either the true enabler. Gordon Brown, or the original man who ordered Megrahi to do his disgusting, murderous work.
Sometimes politics is the discourse designed to divert from certain unpalatable and incompatible-with-your-USP self-branding.
In this case Obama sustains his crown as the eloquent-in-righteous anger leader of his people, the proclaimer of the delivery of justice. He diverts attention conveniently not just from a major ally in the current Afghan conflict, but from the fact that he has also studiously refrained from even the tiniest reflection on the fact that Megrahi was the terrorist hit man, but Gaddafi, who sent him, with or without the involvement of other pariah states, has never paid for his role as the instigator, financier and begetter of this horrendous crime. The worst he's got out of all this is a public deploring of the hero's welcome he carefully prepared for Megrahi. That's been called "disgusting". But then how can that be squared with the matching total silence on Gaddafi's role in ordering and setting up the crime in the first place?
Crocodiles everywhere may well be envious of the weeping abilities of Obama and his fellow administration senior media superstars over this tragic and disgusting business.
As for Salmond, MacAskill and the Scottish nationalists, perhaps one could think of what it's like to be a quiet little blogger who's used to around a hundred hits a day. Suddenly, they get an Instalanche and the hit rates go up to 5,000 a day. Then the rest of the internet takes them on, and suddlenly the hits are in the millions. Yes, that's just a tiny glimpse of what it's like to be mice on the political stage who the greatest power in the world chooses to express apparently impotent rage at doings for which you did not actually exercise the real decisions, anyway.
Wonderful.
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Jason
Posted by: Jason | August 25, 2009 at 12:20 AM
Well, what do they want from us...sympathy? He caused so many people to die...well, we'll give him our "sorries" but not for what he did.
Posted by: jreed | August 31, 2009 at 09:26 PM