Scots Officials Claim Obama Administration Asked Them To Free Lockerbie Bomber

[jordan179]

According to Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent of the Guardian, in an article published just today (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/25/barack-obama-megrahi-release-lockerbie)

the US grudgingly supported freeing the Lockerbie

Comments

[squid314]

I stand by my counter-intuitive slightly horrifying essay on the subject.

[jordan179]

He is apparently not dying, or at least not rapidly. Surely America and/or Britain could speed the process, via Predator?

And if you're really concerned about making money from Libyan oil, a more honorable way for America and Britain to have done so consistent with punishing the Libyans would have been to seize the country and take reparations for Lockerbie in Libyan oil.

[squid314]

'cause, of course, invading a country is free! That's why we can invade Iraq and Afghanistan without it contributing to the deficit while of course health care would be too expensive!

(sorry, just spent a while talking to conservatives and still in kind of a bad mood ;) )

[ford_prefect42]

Well, let's see, the "wartime" military expenditures of george bush were a whole 4% of gdp. Healthcare, over the same period, was 14% of gdp. with the government fraction being 8% of gdp. So, yes. Wars (at least the ones we have been in recently) are, by comparison, extremely cheap. Healthcare *already* costs twice as much as the 2 wars did. Imagine what it will cost after the cost inflation provisions of the "healthcare" bill get finished.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ms_mil_xpnd_gd_zs&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+military+expenditures+graph

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_pub_spe_as_of_tot-health-public-spending-total

[hannahsarah]

Don't confuse people with the facts, it makes them cranky.

Besides, how much can one or two bombing raids cost anyway?

[jordan179]

Indeed, mere retaliation (rather than conquest) would be far easier. Furthermore, because Libya is dependent on oil revenues, there is an obvious way of punishing her, and continuing to do so as long as Qadaffi remains in office -- destroy her oil wells, and keep them destroyed until Qadaffi leaves office.

[hannahsarah]

That works for me!

[polaris93]

The only problem I can see with that -- and by the way, I approve of that idea, most heartily -- is that Islamic nations are more or less required to come to one another's aid (meaning now: drop bombs on the blighters, that sort of thing) if one of them is attacked by infidel nations. Meaning us. I'm all for obliterating Libya from history and the map in a few brief, all-consuming raids (after all, its government is concentrated in Tripoli, and aside from Tripoli, there's not much to the place beyond sand), but what sort of retaliation would that provoke from, say, Iran? Or the Taliban? Or whoever?

[jordan179]

The only problem I can see with that -- and by the way, I approve of that idea, most heartily -- is that Islamic nations are more or less required to come to one another's aid (meaning now: drop bombs on the blighters, that sort of thing) if one of them is attacked by infidel nations.

Problem? I see this as an opportunity -- let the lunatics expose themselves by this action to our destruction. Personally, I wish Iran would attack openly, now, and do so before she has the atomic bomb, so that we could bring down that regime without an atomic war.

[yamamanama]

If any US regime ever outdoes Suharto on the mass murderer rankings, I don't think anyone who retaliates can be considered a lunatic.

I just hope Canada would allow New England and New York, along with Philadelphia and Chicago, to become provinces of Canada. Canada would benefit and we'd benefit.

[jordan179]

If any US regime ever outdoes Suharto on the mass murderer rankings, I don't think anyone who retaliates can be considered a lunatic.

Iran retaliating against America for attacking Libya (not her formal ally) in a war which Libya started would be pretty crazy -- are you saying that whoever kills the most people in a war is morally the culprit, regardless of who started the war?

[yamamanama]

Austria and the Czech Republic weren't formal allies of Britain either.

[jordan179]

America is not trying to conquer the world, neither would simply engaging in disproportionate retaliation for clear acts of war against herself would not mean that she was trying to conquer the world. There is no requirement that one limit one's warfighting to the level of power displayed by the foe.

[yamamanama]

Not now.

Besides, lots of people killed hundreds of thousands without any desire to conquer the world.

[jordan179]

Not now.

Hopefully not ever. A requirement that one limit one's warfighting to the capabilities of the enemy would be a recipe for eternal warfare.

Besides, lots of people killed hundreds of thousands without any desire to conquer the world.

Indeed, which is why it would be insane for other Muslim countries to go to war against America if we went to war with Libya in return for the Libyan murder of Americans.

[polaris93]

What are the chances of that before Obama leaves office? I mean, bombing them at all, for whatever? Zip. By the time he leaves office, Iran will almost certainly have the Bomb. I agree with you, but you just know what Obama would do, or, rather, wouldn't, if they bombed us now with conventional weapons, and what he wouldn't if they nuked us. God damn that man absolutely and entirely to Hell forever!