Posted by
Billy on Thursday, August 27, 2009 12:12:21 PM
A few days ago it seemed that a preening and self-important Scottish government had ordered the release of Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi for its own squalid reasons.
The Lockerbie bomber had apparently been set free in defiance of the wishes of the British Government because the Scottish Nationalist so-called government in Edinburgh wanted to cut a figure on the world stage, and advertise its independence from London.
There is even talk in America of a trade boycott against Scotland, though that will doubtless come to nothing. Still, the SNP government and its leader, Alex Salmond, are likely to pay for their vanity, and Mr Salmond will not be welcome at the White House any time soon.
But now evidence is emerging which, while not exonerating the Scottish government in any way, strongly suggests that it did not act entirely off its own bat. At the very least the British Government appears to have privately supported the decision announced in Edinburgh, and it may have actively connived in it. Aside from Gordon Brown and the Foreign Office, the serpentine and serially untrustworthy Lord Mandelson may have been involved.
It will be too bad if our friends in the UK were part of this plan. )