This affair helps to reopen the Iraq debate, in a way that vindicates Blair's most severe critics. Tony Blair's remaining defenders say he was motivated in Iraq by a hatred of terrorism and tyranny and had no regard whatsoever for getting access to oil. Yet at the very same time the New£abour government was plotting in Libya to hand the worst terrorist in British history to a tyrant in exchange for oil. It's proof that oil and corporate power were a much bigger factor in driving foreign policy than the public rhetoric of opposing tyranny or terror.
David Cameron refuses to open an investigation. He says he will release all the relevant documents – but the Cabinet Office has quietly declared that Blair's permission will be needed before any records are shown to the public. For the families of all the innocent people slaughtered in Lockerbie, this has been a cold-water education in what their governments really value. Helen Cohen, remembering her murdered 20 year-old daughter Theodora, says: "Western governments seem to be run by one thing now – the great God money."
There's a revealing postscript to this story. Last month, Blair went to Libya on behalf of the many mega-corporations who now employ him. He was greeted by Gaddaffi himself – who tortures dissidents and terrorises his population – "like a brother", according to the Libyan press. There has even been speculation that, now they need a CEO, Tony Blair will go to work for BP. In so many ways, it seems, he always has.
I do believe that Blair is competing with our Dick Cheney. :-)
ReplyDeleteThis has all gotten out of hand, and it seems there is no turning back.
Blair and Cheney would be the marriage made in corporate heaven, RZ. The chairman of BP could join them in matrimony. The Lockerbie inquiry being chaired by John Kerry is big news here just now. The senators are trying to haul in witnesses ranging from Alex Salmond, our First Minister to Jack Straw and Blair himself. The sub-text, and it is true, is that a deal was done with Gaddafi on behalf of BP to obtain drilling rights in Libya. The cost was the release of Megrahi. The Scottish Parliament made the decision but Blair is up to his neck in the intrigue. Meanwhile, Blair's party colleagues parrot Obama and Hilary in their condemnations of the release.
ReplyDeleteThey, for their part, are only trying to distance themselves even further from BP. Salmond has declined to go and Blair and Jack Straw are ducking and weaving. I will be posting on this in more detail in days to come.
EXCELLENT;
ReplyDeleteI have been meaning to ask you about this. How complicit is the Scottish Parliament in this?
Do you think a few were on the take?
Did Blair cover his tracks enough?
The story is moving on in the UK today. The sunday papers are saying that a number of the US Senators on Kerry's Committee took campaign donations from BP and, believe it or not, Obama received $71,000 from them for his campaign. They are also saying that the US Government forbade the Scottish Government to release all the documents relating to the release. There is a big oil well of hypocrisy about to blow about now. It looks as if everyone is complicit in it including some of those condemning it. I will try to summarise all the coverage from here in a post tonight.
ReplyDeleteI think they will open a huge can of sardines on this one.
ReplyDeleteI hope they all go down.
I knew about the Obama contribution.
But this will go deeper.