What. The. Fuck.
Despite 189 American lives lost in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, the U.S. settled all lawsuits against Libya for terrorist killings and restored diplomatic relations with the country today – with reparations to be paid to Libya.
President Ronald Reagan ordered air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi on April 15, 1986, after Libyan terrorists planted 6 pounds of plastic explosives packed with shrapnel on the dance floor of La Belle discotheque in Berlin, killing three people – including two U.S. soldiers – and maiming 200 others.
Two years later, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in a terrorist attack by a Libyan intelligence agent. The blast killed 268 people from 21 countries, including 189 Americans. U.S. families filed 26 lawsuits against Libya for the 1988 bombing of the plane en route to New York from London.
The Bush administration began to consider restoring a relationship with the country in 2003 after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi promised to end production of weapons of mass destruction, halt terrorist activities and reimburse U.S. families of victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terrorist bombings. Following its pledge, U.N., U.S. and European sanctions were lifted, Libya was taken off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism and the country was granted membership in the U.N. Security Council.
An agreement required Libya to complete $2.7 billion in payments it had said it would provide to the families of victims. ……a senior Libyan government official claims there were also three lawsuits filed on behalf of Libyan citizens in response to Reagan’s air strikes – attacks that Libya says killed 41 of its people and Gadhafi’s adopted daughter.
Susan Cohen, mother of a 20-year-old woman killed in the Pan Am Flight 103, expressed outrage upon hearing news of the U.S.-Libya settlement.
“Gadhafi is an absolute horror,” Cohen told WND. “He has done many, many terrible things. He blew up the French plane, and he blew up the American plane. And what does the Bush administration do? The Bush administration is far more on the side of the Libyans than it is as far as the victims of terrorism go, though it talks a good line about caring about terrorism. If they can make friends with Moammar Gadhafi because they want his oil, then that tells you where they stand.”
Cohen said she cannot understand why the U.S. would reimburse Libyans for Reagan’s air strikes – attacks that were a result of Gadhafi’s bombing of the disco. She believes the U.S. pushed for diplomatic relations because the agreement could result in more contracts for American oil companies.
“I think this is absolutely horrible,” she said. “It’s really sickening, and it’s really dirty. They are being very private and secretive about it.”
While Libya has given $8 million of the $10 million it owed to many of the 268 families involved in the Pan Am explosion, it had refused to pay $2 million because of a disagreement with the U.S. about reciprocal obligations.
Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, told WND, “The settlement goes to both sides. The settlement is for outstanding claims on the part of Libya as well as the United States.”When asked whether the U.S. will make payments to Libya, Thompson responded, “Yes.”
……foreign companies conducting business in Libya – including U.S. companies – will begin paying into a fund to award damages to both Libyan and American claimants.
When WND asked the State Department spokeswoman if oil companies would have any part in paying reparations, she said, “I don’t have any information on that, but it has been established. I have no information on what the financial agreement will be or the financial compensation that will be paid.”
While Thompson said Libyans will receive a settlement as part of the agreement, she declined to reveal the source of the money.
“None of this will be U.S. government funding,” she said.
Nah, just by proxy with ‘funds’ from U.S. compainies.
The State Department has provided little information about the agreement. It issued a short press release stating only the following:
……The U.S now plans to open an embassy in Tripoli, confirm a U.S. ambassador to Libya and grant Gadhafi’s government immunity from more terror-related lawsuits, according to the Associated Press. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to visit Libya before the year’s end.
“Condoleezza Rice is going to Libya to kiss Gadhafi’s feet,” Cohen said. “So this is what has come? He blew up an American plane. And I am supposed to have faith in the government of this country?”
U.S. diplomat David Welch delivered a personal letter from President George Bush to Gadhafi and signed the new agreement with Ahmed al-Fatouri, head of America affairs in Libya’s Foreign Ministry.
“We went through a long path of negotiations until we reached this agreement,” al-Fatouri said. “It opens new horizons for relations based on mutual respect. … The agreement turns the page on the negative past forever.”
However, Cohen doesn’t share his sentiment.
“This is done after the murder of my innocent daughter and 270 people killed,” she said. “Gadhafi was the one who was behind the attack on that disco, and Reagan responded. Does that mean the Republican administration is saying that Ronald Reagan and Gadhafi are equivalent terrorists?”
We secured WMD and nuke disarmament from Daffy Gadhafi only to pay reparations, thus rewarding him for his terrorist acts? Unfuckingbelievable.
Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave.
Sarkozy was the first in line.
July 27, 2007
Nicolas Sarkozy faced a barrage of criticism yesterday for agreeing to build a nuclear reactor in Libya as concern grew over the price extracted by Colonel Gaddafi for the release of five Bulgarian nurses this week.
Opponents said that the French President had effectively exchanged the nurses and their colleague, a Palestinian doctor, for nuclear technology.
……President Sarkozy responded that Arab states should be trusted with nuclear technology or the West risked a breakdown of relations so serious that there could be a “war of civilisations”. He denied a link between the deal to build a nuclear-powered desalination plant and the handing over of the group to his wife, Cécilia, on Tuesday.
And you will contribute to that war on western civilization by supplying weapons to the enemy?
This defies logic:
……Claude Guéant, President Sarkozy’s chief of staff, said that the nuclear co-operation deal meant that “a country that respects international rules can obtain civilian nuclear energy”. The President added: “Nuclear power is the energy of the future. If we do not give the energy of the future to the countries of the southern Mediterranean, how will they develop themselves? And if they do not develop, how will we fight terrorism and fanaticism?”
Link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2148351.ece
Squeeze me you dumbass, but the threat of ‘dirty bombs’ laced with nuclear material is part and parcel of the terorist threat.
Our ‘friend’ Putin is next.
Arriving in Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin on July 31, Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi brought on his plane Alexander Tsygankov, the head of LUKoil Overseas in Libya, who had been imprisoned 8 months ago in that country on charges of industrial espionage.
What makes it more remarkable is that Prime Minister Putin had tried to clear up this misunderstanding during a meeting with Moammar Gadhafi in Tripoli in April, but apparently in vain.
After receiving such a “present,” there was nothing left to do but discuss the details of a whole range of Libyan-Russian large-scale cooperation projects _ from producing, processing and exporting oil and gas and laying pipelines on the Mediterranean sea bed, to selling arms to Tripoli, and building railroads and nuclear power plants.
Not all the financial details are known, but it is clear that the deals run into billions of dollars. It is enough to mention the 320 mile-long railroad Russian Railways will build in Libya for $2.2 billion, or the shopping list of weapons Libya would like to buy (90 percent of its arms are Soviet-made).
Russia has joined a long list of countries that have been standing in line to do business with the largely desert, but oil and gas rich, country since the miraculous transformation of its leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Russia is not the first in line, but nor is it the last, which is a good thing. At this point it would be appropriate to recall that for 17 years (from 1986 to 2003), Libya was considered one of the worst “rogue states” by those who use that classification.
Our government thinks they can ‘tame’ Amahdinejad the same way.
……The Americans have already dubbed this transformation the “Libyan model,” and strongly recommend that Iran follow its example. They are trying to show to Iran that it can receive all the benefits Libya has (investment, technical aid, and removal of sanctions) if it meets their demand to suspend its nuclear program.
As it often happens in diplomacy, especially, in American diplomacy, all this is actually misleading. In reality, the situation is the reverse.
Paradoxical though it may seem, Gadhafi’s miraculous transformation was made possible as a result of direct talks between the White House and his emissaries. This is precisely what Washington denies Iran. Edward Walker, president of the Middle East Institute and former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs made this comment: “Some say it is supposed to send a message to the Iranians. As far as I can see, the message is that it worked because they had direct talks with the Libyans.”
Bullshit. We sent the Libyans a message via U.S. jets in 1986, which helped in the ‘miraculous tranformation’.
Gadhafi’s decision to denounce terrorism, and shut down Libya’s programs to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in 2003 is presented as a sudden conversion, although Washington started talks with him under Bill Clinton’s presidency (1993-2001). The reason is almost too embarrassing to tell. By Clinton’s second term he was coming under very strong pressure from American oil firms. Italy’s ENI, France’s Total, and Spain’s Pepsol were already operating in Libya on a large scale in defiance of U.N. and E.U. sanctions. They were merely trying to keep a low profile. By 2003, when Gadhafi made his miraculous transformation from pariah to citizen, more than a hundred foreign companies were producing and processing oil, or providing equipment for wells and oil production, but none of them were American. That was doubly irritating because it was the Standard Oil of New Jersey (previously Exxon) that had discovered oil in Libya in 1959.
Link: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1804701/
There’s no comparison between this and say, the Marshall Plan. We totally anihilated the Axis powers and transformed their respective governments. Qadhafi is still in power.
So, since the Eurotrash violated the sanctions repeatedly, that pretty much negated whatever leverage the U.S. applied, anyway. The only reason Gadhafi renounced his WMD program was in hopes of soliciting a U.S. market for his oil. What’s to prevent a successor, someone even more nutzo than Gadhafi, from using the oil revenues to expand their nuclear threat?
Speaking of using oil revenues to finance Islamofascist terrorism:
President Bush met with Saudi King Abdullah to celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations and announce a new agreement pledging U.S. support for Saudi Arabia as it builds a civil nuclear energy program that benefits its people, observes international nonproliferation standards and prevents the spread of nuclear weapons.
Bullshit on stilts. Nuclear technology can be utilized to produce weapons, as well as ‘energy programs’.
“This agreement will pave the way for Saudi Arabia’s access to safe, reliable fuel sources for energy reactors and demonstrate Saudi leadership as a positive nonproliferation model for the region,” a May 16 White House fact sheet said.
Didja get that? A Wahabist regime where 15 out of the 19 9/11 terrorists originated, is gonna be a ‘model for positive non-proliferation’.
I have a bridge for sale…in Brooklyn.
But wait…there’s more!
The agreement will also further Saudi efforts to formulate a joint nuclear technology program with fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
……“Iran, of course, got into the nuclear business in secret with a program outside the IAEA safeguards … almost calculated in a way to raise suspicions in the international community that they had something else in mind,” said National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.
Link:
http://www.america.gov/st/peacesec-english/2008/May/20080516160353idybeekcm0.3394586.html
What makes him so sure that the rest of the nuclear beneficiaries don’t have ‘something else in mind’?
Since Sarkozy, Putin, and now our own government have jumped on the ‘diplomatic’ bandwagon, that threat has now increased.