Libya and Pan Am flight Lockerbie

[Paul Rigby]

October Surprise was about taking and keeping Americans hostage in Tehran, not about releasing them.

Amen...

Thatcher, Bush and Reagan met in 1978 to plan the downfall of Carter and the Democrats who were doing terrible things to their secret agencies. Khomeini was supported to power by the US, by operatives working for the secret team or shadow government. They got him across borders, they staged riots, they placed media items with predicted results in the Iranian press.

...and quite so.

In all frankness, I don't repose much trust in "Trail of the Octopus," and nor do I think the murder of Casolaro was undertaken for the reasons set out, but I did enjoy your explanation, and thank you for it.

I still think this man was (is) the key to Lockerbie, but undoubtedly other itches were simultaneously scratched:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernt_Carlsson

The stakes played for here dwarf all the other reasons I've seen adduced; and lead us into territory not in the Middle East, but a series of assassinations in Southern Africa, culminating, most notably, in this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hani

Paul

[David Guyatt]

Immediately after the crash, CIA did arrive on the scene and took control, selecting sectors were native searchers were not to tread. This would be with MI5 and/or Home Office support. What were they looking for?

I seem to recall an argument (but might be misremembering) that the CIA arrived on the scene far quicker than would have been possible had they flown in from London Station. The argument thus suggests that there was prior knowledge of something going down.

I'm not sure this argument stands up but it is, at least, worth considering.

I knew Les Coleman and found him to be okay. I think his story can be largely relied upon. But not entirely. Les loved to talk and can talk the hind legs off a Donkey. Perhaps it's the introvert in me but I am always mildly cautious about people who talk incessantly - especially in the shadowland business. Once I had a 1 1/2 phone conversation with a Canadian in Vancouver who tried to talk over every question and thus control the conversation in order to avoid answering any questions asked of him. That was hard work. Les never did that. He would always answer the question. I guess he just liked to jaw.

[Magda Hassan]

Just thought I would post this here for Helen and others.
http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...=lockerbie

[Paul Rigby]

Just thought I would post this here for Helen and others.
http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...=lockerbie

Sign of age - forgotten I'd started such a thread.

Thanks, M.

[Helen Reyes]

In all frankness, I don't repose much trust in "Trail of the Octopus," and nor do I think the murder of Casolaro was undertaken for the reasons set out, but I did enjoy your explanation, and thank you for it.

I still think this man was (is) the key to Lockerbie, but undoubtedly other itches were simultaneously scratched:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernt_Carlsson

The stakes played for here dwarf all the other reasons I've seen adduced; and lead us into territory not in the Middle East, but a series of assassinations in Southern Africa, culminating, most notably, in this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hani

Paul

Hmm, this is beyond my competence to judge. I do remember hearing Palme was assassinated because he knew too much about a mass grave of Palestinians in Sinai/Gaza and how the then-(1985?)prime minister of Israel had ordered the massacre.

South Africa certainly has top notch secret services I'm sure, but Namibia? OK the Union of South Africa refused to let German Southwest Africa go under UN trusteeship in 1947, so delays in Namibian independence should've been expected in the 80s as well. Sweden didn't exactly have a golden record in Africa anyway, they deferred to the AU over Idi Amin and basically dropped support for outside sanctions and/or intervention when it might've mattered.

Namibia?! Why, no one has any interest there except de Boers

[Paul Rigby]

Namibia?! Why, no one has any interest there except de Boers

Love the pun, almost as much as the Anglo-Americans love Namibia's smorgasbord of strategic minerals!

Farmer Rigby

[Helen Reyes]

I seem to recall an argument (but might be misremembering) that the CIA arrived on the scene far quicker than would have been possible had they flown in from London Station. The argument thus suggests that there was prior knowledge of something going down.

I'm not sure this argument stands up but it is, at least, worth considering.

I knew Les Coleman and found him to be okay. I think his story can be largely relied upon. But not entirely. Les loved to talk and can talk the hind legs off a Donkey. Perhaps it's the introvert in me but I am always mildly cautious about people who talk incessantly - especially in the shadowland business. Once I had a 1 1/2 phone conversation with a Canadian in Vancouver who tried to talk over every question and thus control the conversation in order to avoid answering any questions asked of him. That was hard work. Les never did that. He would always answer the question. I guess he just liked to jaw.

Yeah, people cite a strange response by CIA, not sure what it all entailed.

I think Coleman was good at what he did for DIA, but wasn't prepared to plumb the depths of darkness, I guess. I mean he didn't want to believe the US could've been involved in placing bombs on passenger jets. His Octopus book mentions heroin outlets in Warsaw and Prague, something he doesn't follow up on at all. Presumably Lebanese/Palestinian, but with CIA connections.

I had a friend who liked to jaw like that. He was smart and a world traveller, so everyone assumed he must be CIA. I found it easy to talk to him because I didn't always have to keep the conversation going.

Did Mr. Coleman die in Sweden? The wikipedia article on him is athree-ring circus. The talk page is even more so. I guess he's still topical if they're exerting energy spreading disinformation still. What finally happened to him? Did he go back to USA? And is McClosky the same person as McKee?

[Helen Reyes]

...
Pat Robertson!?

According to Coleman. I can't think of any reason not to believe him here, and I wouldn't put it past Robertson.

[David Guyatt]

.

Did Mr. Coleman die in Sweden? The wikipedia article on him is athree-ring circus. The talk page is even more so. I guess he's still topical if they're exerting energy spreading disinformation still. What finally happened to him? Did he go back to USA? And is McClosky the same person as McKee?

He didn't Helen. He returned voluntarily to the US, was thrown in prison where he was beaten up badly, he said, and put in "solitary". I phoned the Warden of the Lock Up the day after this "event" who said that Les had challenged other inmates and was put into "Protective Custody". The pressure the prison Governor received from around the world in a few short days was quite phenomenal. Truly impressive. I was in contact with several people who had a fair weather eye out for Les. Oddly, many of these were Mossad. Another, an African lady from Paris with the name Cadillac, I always considered to be Moscow oriented. Anyway the sum total of the pressure was that Les was soon released and shortly thereafter had his own Radio show in Kentucky (or a similar southern State), thus putting his garrulous nature to good use.

My own belief is that the South Africans were the contractors on the Palme assassination. I came across the name of the SA Intel type who was said to have been the man whodunnit when I was digging into some murky SA affairs over a period of several years. He certainly did have very close SA Intel connections and his associates were in the Private Military Contractors business - plus many, many other shadow business activities as well. I was for a long time in contact with someone who knew the realite.

But we rarely ever know the real story, eh.

[Helen Reyes]

Thank you David.

I suppose it's possible Coleman was used as an elaborate cover for the assassination of the Swedish UN envoy on Lockerbie flight, but it seems a stretch.

Saw this today in Jerusalem Post:

British elite unit said training Libyan special forces
By JONNY PAUL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

LONDON - British elite forces are allegedly training Libyan Special Forces, according to a newspaper report on Saturday.

The Daily Telegraph said the elite SAS has apparently been working with Gaddafi's regime for the last six months, suggesting it may be connected to the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al Megrahi, who was released by Scotland on compassionate grounds last month.

The British government has been accused of engineering Megrahi's release to promote Britain's commercial interests, oil in particular, in Libya.

The Prime Minister's Office has rejected the claims, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged trade and oil had played a part in the decision not to exclude Megrahi from an earlier prisoner transfer agreement with Tripoli.

According to the newspaper, sources within the SAS say they are angry at being ordered to train soldiers from a country that provided the Irish Republican Army (IRA) with Semtex explosives, machine-guns and anti-aircraft missiles used against British troops during the Northern Ireland conflict.

An SAS source told the Telegraph: "A small SAS training team have been doing it for the last six months as part of this cozy deal with the Libyans. From our perspective we cannot see it as part of anything else other than the Megrahi deal."

Another said: "The IRA was our greatest adversary - now we are training their backers. There was a weary rolling of the eyes when we were told about this."

The SAS team - said to be between four and 14 men - is training the Libyan troops in counter-terrorism techniques, including covert surveillance.

However, techniques learned from fighting Islamic terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is not expected to be passed on, the newspaper said.

The Foreign Office said there was ongoing cooperation with Libya but denied that the SAS were training Libyan troops.

"There is an ongoing cooperation with Libya in the field of defense. However to suggest this is part of the deal relating to Megrahi is simply untrue," a spokesperson said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c...2FShowFull

interesting "deal": we give you megrahi, and in exchange, we give you training.