Cowards colluding with terrorists

Bickers

As usual Rod, you've cut through the political bull***t that the Government and many in the media spout.

I guess this is the price we pay when we sacrifice our moral principles for profit. Your comments on the US are bang on; please continue to focus on the appalling extradition treaty Blair brokered with the US, in which he failed in his first duty to protect British Citizens from foreign powers - shameful.

Ray

If my memory serves me correctly, didn't New Labour used to talk about something called an 'ethical foreign policy'?

A. MacAulay

Obama, Clinton etc. are posturing for the benefit of the "peanut crunching crowd" after being subjected to a barrage of vile, dissembling invective over their health care reform from the non-bipartisan Republicans. Now they are making themselves look tough at the expense of their best friends, little Britain and even littler Scotland. We should feel honoured, or at least morally uplifted at helping the US's huddled masses to normal health care. Yes, noble silence is called for here.

It may be Tony Blair's sole claim to posterior honour that he seems to have ignored the simple advice of God to join the American attack on Iraq because this was the right thing to do and worth lying for, but he also made a deal with G.W. Bush over Ireland. Hence the symbolic value of their Belfast meeting.

Lastly releasing al Megrahi on compassionate grounds was the right thing to do......on compassionate grounds. In the end only the SNP and Justice Sec. MacAskill will appear to have any integrity whatsoever.

Ricky

A well argued article as always, Rod. The praise heaped on that dreadful fraud Edward Kennedy - the Noraid King - by Barak & Brown echoes the Left's sentimental and romantic attachment to violence as a political asset.

Behind all of this is the dark force that is President Elect Blair - wheeling and dealing in his usual pernicious and two-faced manner.

Like Mandelson, Blair clearly began his career selling apples in the Garden of Eden. Those 1997 Demon Eyes adverts seem quite revelatory and pertinent now, don't they?

Bruce, UK

And WPC Fletcher.

David

Bravo. Probably the best Liddle article I've read over the past few years.

Pedro

The deal must be older than this. To be fair Gordon Brown is probably just doing what he has to do to finish something that was started by his and Obama's predecessors. The idea that some Libyan security goon was responsible is absurd. The finger was pointing at Gaddafi and for some reason this was too much to deal with. Or maybe his sudden conversion to co-existence with the west had something to do with it. Unfortunately 9/11 raised the stakes.

David Short

Great stuff. Liddle is one of the reasons it's still worth reading the Spectator, despite its general vulgarisation by the present ownership and management.

I still won't buy the hard copy, though, and have not done so except on one occasion since the chief vulgariser was appointed, and will not do so until he is booted out.

Father Wiliam

While two men argue the third rejoices - so a Roman proverb says.

The Gaddaffis are in the happy position of getting a two-for-one.

A deal that favours them has set of their enemies against each other.

All this - arising from the unique blend of Brown, Blair and Mandelson deviousness, corruption and incompetence - casts Britain as an international banana state joke, sliding around on our own banana skins.

Yvonne

Alien lizard-like creatures may be pushing it, however the International Socialists are likely to be behind a lot of power grabbing and world government via the UN.
Keep an open mind to see them at their AGW = CO2 pollutant = Population Control best.

Minnie Ovens

Extremely well written and very readable as usual although I am still rather perplexed as to whether Syria or Iran were mixed up in this.
The point that it is probably best to be pragmatic and deal with them not fight them because the alternative is far worse is, and I am grudging in this, true.
As a proponent of Iraqi war upon humanitarian grounds, I realised that I had got it all wrong, having seen a superb military campaign on CNN and NBC, when the US troops looked on at the Baghdad Museum being ransacked, stating that there were "more important tasks" than stopping this travesty.
So long, Gertrude, and you thought it was bad in 1920!
I'm a much more saddened and slightly less foolish person now.
Well maybe.

GaryO

Whenever one finds oneself in a moral bind as to whom to blame: terrorists or their victims (that's easy you might say, but believe me, it is Baldrick like excruciatingly difficult choice for the liberal left to discern between the two), its always a safe bet to blame the US. Lets face it, with so much hypocrisy, two faced foreign (and trade) policy and an ambigiuous relationaship with the muslim world, not to mention with its finger in almost every invasion, coup or propping up of a despotic regime going, there is always something one can find in the US to blame for our predicament!

Fantastic read! Rod Liddle should get a pay rise.

Dean

Has the Captain of the USS Vincennes been released from prison yet?

Herbert Thornton

So what is new about this? British politicians have, in effect, been colluding with terrorists for rather a long time.

The most conspicuous evidence of this is the country's foolish immigration policies. They have welcomed into Britain both those who instigate religious terrorism and, in huge numbers, those who are most easily persuaded to put it into practice.

This evil is compounded by false notions of "Human Rights" and by the perversity of the main political parties, all adamantly determined - whether by reason of cowardice or ideology - to do nothing about it.

Chip

MacAulay,
As one of those 'peanut crunchers' you so charmingly refer to, I would only point out that whatever legitimacy the IRA enjoys on these shores has been thanks in no small part to smug, supercilious pr*cks like you who display such contempt for those of us of lesser moral virtue.

N

If it looks like a horse, sounds like a horse, and has a saddle on it's back, it's probably a horse.
Thank you Rod Liddle for calling a spade, a spade, or in this case a d-bag dictator worthy of severe punishment, a d-bag dictator worthy of severe punishment.

As a US citizen, all i can do is apology to those who have been harmed by my country's two-faced workings. FYI, it makes me sick every day too.

Chip Sviokla

Let's clear something up about which there appears to be a tremendous amount of confusion in the UK. During the peak of US "sympathy" with the IRA, probably about 20-30 years ago, we are talking about maybe half of Irish Americans had sympathy at all for the IRA. As disgusting as that is; let's have some persepctive- that's less than 10% of the American population.

Dwight Vandryver

The Megrahi case will be a seven days' wonder - next week it will be off the radar. International politics are neither moral nor immoral, but amoral. Alliances, pacts and treaties are simply short term agreements of convenience, there to be broken if circumstances change.
Winning hearts and minds is likely to be less of a priority in the next 50 years as the competition for the Earth's scarcer resources hots up. The West does not seem to have woken up to the fact that behind the scenes, China is quietly securing contracts for oil, gas, and minerals from any country regardless of that country's political complexion.
When Blair visited Gaddafi in 2007 and the BP oil deal was signed, it was probably one of the few things he got right. If, as part of the quid pro quo, the Lockerbie terrorist had to be released, it was a small price to pay for an essential of modern living that we all enjoy.
Cowardly, or looking after the UK's future interests? The UK is no better or worse than other countries in this regard: moral indignation is irrelevant.

logdon

"Minnie Ovens
August 27th, 2009 12:35pm

So long, Gertrude, and you thought it was bad in 1920!"

Nice allusion.*

And a tribute to real, unwitting female emancipationists who, rather than the futility of chaining themselves to railings, or throwing themselves under race horses, actually contributed to society on their own terms.

In Islam the epoch before Mohammed's revelations is defined as an era of darkness and idolatry. The pre-Islamic period of Arabia , or the jahiliyya, and a time of ignorance prior to the ‘enlightenment’ of Islam.

Thus the scant regard for the priceless artefacts, art and buildings created during that golden era of human development.

The Bamiyan Buddahs serve as an example as to how these absolutist barbarians are so obsessed with their own faith, and yes, jealous of the miraculous accomplishments of anything which went before.

Although many tombs and half buried ruins had been ransacked for the material wealth or just plain masonry contained within, fortunately we have the likes of Gertrude Bell, Howard Carter and the others to thank for the preservation of what was left.

That much of this stuff now resides in British museums irks the Johnnie come lately ME culturalists who, belatedly now cry for a return.

Has anyone seen Saddam’s so called restoring, with his name imprinted in every tenth brick?

I, for one know where these treasures are safer. Sod ‘em.

*http://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/

Suki

"It is the least worse option"?

You must be joking. What a sloppy conclusion.

Stuff his oil and his token extraditions.

If Mrs Thatcher can say: "Up yours, Delores" why can't we have a political leader that says: "Taxi for Gaddafi"?

A. MacAulay

Hello Chip, if you don't like being one of the "peanut crunching crowd", (quote Sylvia Plath) then stop being one. There is nothing conservative about telling a lie, and I merely wished to point out that the Republican smear campaign against Obama's health care reform has caused a reaction within the Democratic administration and they now seek to show their American testosterone to best effect. A side effect will also be the public revelation of the utterly disgraceful and unconstitutional behaviour of the last, and dismally bankrupt on all fronts, Republican gov. G.W Bush etc. will now be dragged out of or through the sewer, depending on your stand point.

MacAulay is an interesting name, just as at home in the Glens of Antrim as in West Scotland. You know nothing about me and even less as to my nationality but assume I am supercilious and morally effete. I make no assumptions about morals or virtue but try to maintain my own. Do you then try the same.

James currin

Mr. Liddle here exhibits the same traits as do his liberal bedfellows over here—that of blaming critics because they are "hypocritical". Thus any conservative criticism of unrestricted immigration or of racial quotas is charged with having countenanced segregation or nativism a century or so ago. I do not particularly object to his blaming Americans for the recent travesty—that, after all, is his default position. I do however wish he would be more precise in locating the source of our failure to cooperate with Britain in suppressing the IRA. The most culpable of our politicians in this regard now lies in an odour of sanctity midst nauseating tributes to his virtue. I, of course, refer to the late Senator from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy, who protected IRA thugs throughout his long career. Instead Mr. Liddle delivers a loutish insult to FBI director, Robert Mueller. If we were to look to the causes of the ingathering of Irish riffraff in the state of Massachussetts we would soon encounter the plain fact of centuries of English misrule in Ireland.. Similarly, the always truculent and troublesome Scotch-Irish inhabitants of the southern US are there largely because of the English reign of terror after Culloden in 1745. I nevertheless congratulate Mr. Liddell for his staunch support of American anti-terrorism policies during the last eight years.

Dave

Chip, you're absolutely correct tha only a small minority of Americans supported the IRA. Problem is, they were politicians grubbing for the Oirish vote (eg Ted Kennedy), Judges, Lawyers and Police officers. Not one IRA terrorist was extradited from the USA.

Dave

The only thing that Rod fails to address in his otherwise excellent piece is the role of the SNP in all this. It was the SNP justice minister Kenny Macaskill who granted Al-Megrahi's release, not Labour. Anyone who knows anything about Scottish politics would be very surprised that the SNP administration would do anything at London's bidding, especially given the fact that Alex Salmond and Gordon Brown don't even speak to each other, such is their mutual loathing.

Ian

I was in Libya in 2007, working for an oil company. It was common knowledge that Tony Blair had struck a deal with Gaddafi in a swap of acreage (in oil company parlance, this is for permits to explore for oil) for an al-Megrahi release. The oil company in question was BP. I knew, British Embassy staff knew, hundreds if not thousands of people knew of the deal.
.
By the way, make no assumptions that al-Megrahi is actually guilty of the bombing of Flight 103. He may just as convincingly be a patsy. Did he make a pass at one of Muammar’s wives? Did he even look at them? He may just have been guilty of some arcane breach of Libyan law and have been fitted up as a consequence.

Archie

Chip Sviokla: Then pray tell whether we had a mass hallucination at the sight of your very own Slick Willy Clinton and the very deceased Ted Kennedy glad-handing and generally showing the IRA leadership a grand time around the US?

David Skitmore

After twelve year's of Labour's ethical foreign policy it's seven foreign war's it's time for a new government with far less morals and ethics bring back the nasty party we may get less of our brave young men and women killed in vile Labour's foreign advenchers. Ps idealism is politics alway's gets people killed.

TomTom

It is just surprising that they didn't release Al-Megrahi on 11th September and have Brown visit New York the same day !

Jez

David Short;

Real life is vulgar.

maddy

apart from what has been said I find it impossible that the media has not talked about the two Swiss men who have spent a considerable time in prison because the Swiss Government dared arrest a muslim for the usual servant beating trick!

Ricky

As America fades into the twilight world of post-superpower status, the chickens are coming home to roost.

The election of Obama was the first significant step in the decline of American global influence as the former superpower transforms from the world's policeman to the world's social worker.

This is the nation that funded Latin American gangsters, the Shah, the Taliban and the IRA. And now they are paying the price as all former colonial powers must. The UK played the Great Game from 1840-1940 until Roosevelt decided the crush our Empire at any cost, including cosying up to Stalin and giving him half of Europe. Our so-called Special Relationship includes our soldiers dying needlessly for US adventurism and paying off our Second World War loans to our American "friends" only last year.

I suspect the Chinese will be more generous to their American debtors.

Brasil, India, China and Australia will eventually supercede the United States by the middle of this century in both power and influence and no doubt they will put national interests first too.

I think that explains the chippiness of American contributors to this blog.

Holly

And then there is Libya itself — "a foul, authoritarian, despotic government back in 1988 when it planned the murder of those 270 people aboard Pan Am Flight 1032

Rod I really cannot believe that you have made this statement as a clear matter of fact. Are you really so convinced? Have you read the alternative views?

I would kindly suggest that you read the latest copy of Private Eye

In my opinion, and having read about this whole miserable episode at great length over the years I am now of the firm opinion that Libya had nothing whatever to do with this murderous act.

The one thing that I am totally convinced of is that both the UK and USA governments are frightened of the real truth emerging - hence the refusal to hold a public inquiry of which the death of Al Megrahi,in UK custody, might yet provoke.

Geoff Miller

It's funny how we bombed Saddam when he obviously posed no threat to us and yet suck up to Libya which, like the US, funded the IRA campaign of terror across the UK for 30 years.

John Law

James currin
August 27th, 2009 11:59pm

James, the Scots Irish have nothing to do with Culloden, nor are they confined to the southern states. The Pennsylvanian Scots Irish made up a large proportion of the Continental Army 1776 (60 years before Culloden).
I think we should not get into a generalised slanging match between our two nations. We should however feel free to revile individuals in each nation who are undoubtely vile (E Kennedy, G Brown, Madelslime etc.), but retain our general respect for each other which is mostly deserved.

John Law

Apologies (Correction)

The relative dates I quoted (re culloden)are quite wrong and not really relevant. The Scots Irish (mostly Protestant)were not connected to the Catholic Jacobite rebellion. They had migrated to the USA, from The early 1600,s onward for various economic, political and religious reasons.
The American Irish of popular myth arrived predominatly after the potato famine.

P O'Neill

Inaccurate and nonsensical. The IRA killed 31 members of the security forces in 1987, and civilians. Also, the USA did indeed extradite IRA men, Joe Doherty being one. This entire piece belongs in the Daily Telegraph and is reminiscent of Tebitt style gibberish.

Rod, you're an unpleasant and bitter man - typical lefty-turned-right-winger

Brian Taylor

Bravo Herbert Thornton for pointing out that British politicians have been colluding with terrorists for some time with their immigration policies, letting in to this country both those who instigate religious terrorism and those most easily persuaded to put it into practice. Which surely makes the reasoning of their Afghanistan policy - destroying the radical insurgents there so that they don't infest OUR shores - a bit suspect?

Edward

"...powerful and affluent piece of human filth (if I can put it like that)."

You should indeed put it like that Mr. Liddle.
I venture to suggest casting your net even wider.

paulgilboy

Funny old world Rod! whats funnier still is the british aluminium industry is being shut down because of European diktats.
Good job mandelson was meeting the russian so we can source a new supply from them.

D.G. Macleod

There is a huge problem at the heart of this story. As things stand a guilty man has gone home to die, his appeal abandoned and papers relating to that appeal kept from public gaze. Effectively the truth about Lockerbie is likely to die with al-Megrahi in a few weeks time. This man was convicted on scant and totally circumstantial evidence and doubts about the sooundness of that evidence has grown over the subsequent years. This decision was a bad one because an innocent man dies with the stain of mass murder on his character, the victims are denied justice and the many many unanswered questions about the Locerbie bombing are kicked into the long grass. I am ashamed to be Scots

LawhawkSF

Our anger at the release of the mass murderer is justified. But I am quite capable of sympathizing with your cry of "hypocrisy" regarding the American stance on the IRA. Our government was far too complicit in the terror. But I do remind you that one of the most important hypocrites in the US government has just gone to his eternal reward. Had the first brutal and successful terrorist attack on American soil occurred earlier than 2001, we might not have been quite so quick to coddle mass murderers in your domain. It's no excuse, but it is at least a partial explanation. And many Americans, myself included, supported the UK over the IRA long before 9-11. The current hypocrisy in Washington is unforgivable by any standard. Our administration cannot release terrorists fast enough to suit its powerful left wing. This is not a pretty time in American history, and it is, indeed, hypocrisy.

belfast16

Joe Doherty was not extradited since the US courts, as usual, accepted that his murder of a British soldier was a 'political offence'. Doherty was in fact deported to Northern Ireland as an illegal immigrant.

Snowman

MacAulay:

What part of the release by MacAskill, ‘the man of integrity’, offers compassion for the Pan Am 103 victims of the appalling act of terrorism?

And, on the delivery system of medical care. If you believe that the NHS should be an example to the American huddled masses you better seek medical help. Preferably in the US, unless you want to be one of the tens of thousands of NHS patients who die from an infection they didn’t have before checking in.

Dixon

What I want to know is why the Spectator has put on its cover a caricature of Mick Jagger. I must say, I do often find it hard to identify the putative subjects of the Spectator illustrators caricatures. In this case, whilst it is so oviously meant to be Mick Jagger, I am baffled as to how it relates to Mamma Gadfly!

But more directly prompted by Rods piece is to point out that the chief among all those fake-Oirish American politicians was no less than that fat, shifty, loud-mouthed, layabout adulterer and famed coward-in-a-crash-or-crisis-type-situation, the late Edward Kennedy. I dont give a monkeys how much "good" ( remains to be seen ) he did for Americans. My friends friend can still be my enemy. Maybe we should reciprocate American reaction to the Mc-Grahi case by saying what we really think of that Yank-beloved bloated Finnian rectal pipe, good riddance be unto him.

Dixon

Ricky
August 28th, 2009 11:34am
" As America fades into the twilight world of post-superpower status..."

What planet is this boy on? Its now the ONLY Super-power, able to fight two wars simultaneously. The US Marine Corps alone is larger than the entirety of the British armed forces. The US defence budget increased under Bush by a sum in excess of the total defence spending of all other nations on the planet combined. That was only the INCREASE.I havent heard anyone propose to cut it yet.

In technical terms the US is able to mop the floor with any two other nations on Earth simultaneously whilst having one arm tied behind its back...as demonstrated by Robert Vaughan as Napoleon Solo in "An Eskimo Called Murphy" contending at one and the same time with the master-villain played by George Sands AND his butler!

malone

It is also inconceivable that Gadaffi did n't realise that Blair, Mandelson, Brown could n't be bought off. And it is also inconceivable that the means to transfer money, via Dubai for instance, is not possible. For the amount of palm grease applied the outrage caused by the release is certainly worth it to the new labour trio of utter scum. Such is the way of the world today, always and for evermore.

omniscient

And then there is the question of al-Megrahi's prostate cancer. It takes years for prostate cancer to reach the terminal stage. Given that he has been in a Scottish jail for years, where his human rights have been fully respected, why wasn't it diagnosed and treated earlier?

Terry McCarthy

By far the best article I've read about this sorry affair so far. I wonder how many Americans will read it and more, understand it?

A. MacAulay

Snowman, why does continuing to punish someone who is beyond punishment offer solace or comfort to anyone? Is it not possible to show compassion for the victims (the living relatives) and to find justice for the dead by finding, bringing to trial and punishing the perpetrators as well as maintaining a clear perception of human integrity and the value of human life? That's the job of the justice system in a civilised country. Or what?

Picking out details to represent the whole is too easy. Resistent bugs exist everywhere and in general the NHS gives good care to the most people. It is one of a series of models (Germany, France, etc.) that the US can contemplate in its attempt to bring healthcare to the entire nation i.e into the mid 20th century.

Obama's lip service to bipartisanship has been answered with a tsunami of hysterical invective. Republicans should at least be not too surprised if their grandees are investigated by a special prosecutor for the forseable future.

OZBLU3

A good read that hit the nail on the head. This arrangement is far better than expending more lives for justice in war.

Objective pragmatism prevails!.

If there are any more jailed terrorists from oil countries, then please do stand up.

Alan Stoddart

Now it's ok to deal, or 'engage', with nightmare states if there is a nice fat payoff? How odd that we invaded a country to get rid of terrorists and dangerous states to safeguard oil and now we release terrorists to safeguard oil.

Alan Stoddart

On 21 August 1939 the Soviet government newspaper Izvestiya published a short article entitled On Soviet-German Relations ... "Following completion of the Soviet-German trade and credit agreement, there has arisen the question of improving political links between Germany and the USSR," said the article.
"The exchange of opinion on this subject that has taken place, has established the desire on both sides to reduce the tensions affecting political links, in order to remove the threat of war and to sign a non-aggression treaty."

The rest of the world was shocked.

The Washington Post published a piece on its front page expressing bewilderment and discomfort about the forthcoming signing of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression treaty.
It branded the treaty a "tremendous diplomatic victory" for Adolf Hitler.

It forecast, correctly, that the document "might portend developments of hitherto unsuspected nature" for the countries of eastern and central Europe.

'Engagement' works, doesn't it?. It's just what you are prepared to give up in order to stop fighting. The Brits flee Basra and allow the Shia militias to take over...it's a peace of a kind, but weren't we there to get rid of murderous gangsters?
The Pakistanis hand over Swat only to find the Taliban weren't so willing to fulfill their part of the deal.

So let's engage with Iran or the Taliban ourselves...as Chamberlain said: '...up to the very last it would have been possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement(like the Czechs) between Germany and Poland but Hitler would not have it.'

We could have had peace if only Hitler hadn't been there!

Well yes.

Chris Burke

I really enjoyed this, my first bit of Rod Liddle. Well done. A few small points, as one who served in Northern Ireland I advise you to read some history, it was far from the black and white image you have aquired. While the behaviour of the US Government then was, I would argue, irresponsible, Mrs Thatcher's approach was more so and deadly for many innocent people. Her behaviour excusable perhaps by the murder of a number of very decent people in politics who where her friends and I would never, even as a Socialist, do anything but condemn the Brighton atrocity against a British Government and did so writing to Mrs Thatcher at the time. Many genuine Irish Americans could not stomach our support for a Parliament that refused Catholics the vote. By the way it was a another Conservative Prime Minister who did deal with that, Ted Heath. Its worth remembering though that it was also an American President that came to our aid over Northern Ireland during the John Major/Tony Blair years at the request of a republican Gerry Fitt MP.
There are many people alive and living reasonable lives thanks to that American Government.

BIG GAK

WHAT ABOUT THE EXTRADITION OF JIMMY SMITH AND POL BRENNAN TO IRELAND.TO TRULY GALANT FREEDOM FIGHTERS WHO FOUGHT FOR THIER COUNTRY.GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT NEXT TIME.AND BEFORE YOU START.POL BRENNAN WAS SENT TO THE ROI BUT IT IS STILL THE SAME THING AS HE WAS BOOTED OUT OF THE U.S.

Pragmatist

What has anything the Americans do or did got to do with the craven cowardice of the Scots in letting a convicted Terrorist go. Please dont play the 'Moral Equivalence' card its so pathetic. I notice the Jocks are now trying to pass the buck too when the world did not as they thought praise them for their so called 'compassion' but instead called them the deluded moonbat moral cowards that they clearly are.

Paul

Interesting claim from the Millwall moron that 'in those 30 years not a single terrorist was extradited from the US to face charges here, despite our repeated requests.'

Perhaps the Millwall moron may care to explain this link which clearly shows the man convicted of the 1975 IRA killing of PC Tibble in London had been extradited to the UK from America?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/27/newsid_2515000/2515789.stm

d day

Back in the day, I never donated money to the IRA. Having read all too many snide articles by persons like liddle, I think I was too dismissive of those provo kooks.
Should I find myself in one of those "irish" bars again, I don't know what I'd do if hit up for a donation.

Shand

To d day
Perhaps you could approach the colleagues of all those Irish-American police & firemen who died at the World Trade Cerntre with your offer of terrorist funding?

John Holmes

Rod: are you convinced beyond reasonable doubt that it was indeed Megrahi Wot Dun It? Have you studied the Lockerbie case in great depth? Many, if not most, of those who have done so (and I include myself) are left with grave doubts about the correctness of the verdict.

Gary Hunter

Saw Liddle on television recently. Does he ever wash?