Debate Call: Suliman

February 7 2011

This challenge is inspired by a recent string of comments at The Lockerbie Case by “Frank” (Duggan, it seems) and others. The first smears were against the blog’s administrator, Lockerbie trial “architect” Professor Robert Black. Few specifics weregiven, but it seems they were suggesting he was paid by Libya to tell lies. No proof or evidence, no lies identified.

And then smearing Dr. Jim Swire, Justice for Megrahi, and Robert Forrester, veteran anti-Gaddafi propagandist “Suliman” made a notable appearance. “Swire, Forrester and Co. should be treated as undeclared agents of a foreign terrorist syndicate, until proven otherwise.” I’ve left that issue, his "evidence", and my response, for the buried comments there. I look forward to Suliman’s speculation as to what further sinister designs this decision proves.

I'll start with the comment he started out responding to, edited slightly:

Caustic Logic said...
By omission, Suliman and the other Dugganista-types out there acknowledge these points raised by Swire, Black, et al. are darn good ones.
- Gauci's buyer was clearly not Megrahi, but he was paid at least $2 million just to let it be fudged to seem that way.
- The crucial witness Giaka was thoroughly discredited.
- The third important witness was Edwin Bollier.
- There's no normal evidence for an unaccompanied bag from Malta, strong contradictory evidence, and no known accomplice to smuggle it aboard.
- An even more rational alternative theory, apparently hushed-up and obscured by the case that did emerge.

All they can complain about is that the people raising these extremely valid points might have been paid by Libya to tell the truth. Or are perhaps compelled by some moral failings (of the type evidenced by taking Libya's settlement, which is only to reward those who toe the line, not to subsidize free thought) to probe for more accurate answers and deeper truth.

Unless there's some important unstated middle part there where the actions so inspired are themselves somehow erred or unethical.

Select responses from Suliman (in block-quotes) and my responses:

You are attempting to paint me in a certain corner, and your rationale is not anything I said but things I did not say!

Yes indeed. Any of the above. And I predict that he will continue working on the legal technicality side of this, avoiding like a plague facts of the 3-D world in which Flight 103 was physically blown up and people physically died. Of course his and others' refusal to address the facts doesn’t actually prove they know they go against established beliefs. However, the endless dodging is consistent with that, and I suspect such a fear motivates Suliman's avoidance.

What Mr. Larson and others will not touch of course is my explicit challenge to them to justify--by any means--their claims about the personal dignity of those rejecting a court ruling while accepting--voluntarily and enjoying--the financial loot that flowed from it. Go ahead, Mr. Larson, call me whatever makes you feel safe and comfortable in your escape from defending your partner Swire's dignity.

I’ll show him wrong and touch it. In itself, on a sliding scale of human "dignity," as he seems to mean it here, accepting the settlement money from people you don't believe guilty is not at the very top. Marina De Larrocochea refused it. Martin Cadman refused it. But I don't know enough of the circumstances surrounding this to judge him over it. Didn't he try to give it back but wasn't allowed?

What I see coming from Dr. Swire is generally correct, honest, and insightful. By his actions he seems sincere is his desire, despite setbacks and persistent criticism and smears, to find the truth of who killed his daughter Flora all those years ago. So I see no reason to suspect the kind of dishonesty or whatever exactly it is Suliman is suggesting lies at the heart of Swire's unpopular work. Rather, I'm half-suspecting about the opposite.

Another little-noted problem with accepting this money, if it's joined to the dichotomy Suliman proposes, is that it might bias one's public and even private view on Libya's guilt. Of the hundreds of American relatives who took the settlement, none raises a public voice about the valid questions that proliferate. Coincidence? Or has the money somehow hushed them up?

To Suliman, it seems, the epic $2.7 billion settlement is only a reward for those who toe the line, and not meant to subsidize free-thinking.

Tell me: How dignified is it to reject the court ruling and pocket the money?

How dignified is it to convince yourself (or have someone else do it?) that you’d better keep quiet about the huge lie you can faintly sense around your loved one's death? Because, after all, you profited from this version being true in the court sense. If you come to rely on that money, and accept the kind of moral dictate Suliman personifies, you'll be locked into silence. And if you break the unwritten gag order, as we can see, you’ll be smeared as a morally corrupt, money-grubbing, terrorist supporter. Mass complicity is thus purchased and enforced, intentionally or not, and the alternate reality first planned by the CIA in early 1989 remains in place.

So, Suliman, to conclude:

But at the end of your contrivances, you need to address the things I do say, not the things I don't say.

Says you, trying still to avoid being forced into the actual evidence that your villains didn’t really have anything to do with that bombing. It's a lie of admirable size, but the world is waking up to it. You just keep hitting the snooze button. Time to stop.

Count the specific facts of Megrahi's guilt you cited in that three-post screed: Gauci, Giaka, Bollier, timer fragment, 1986 bombing study, … zero. All that was a formality to get to the finish line of a guilty verdict, forever after to be the only point of reference to ever be cited. And you surely know this consciously as you do just that.

I have no gripe with your overall gripe with Libya. I don't mean to apologize for them in general on things I don't know. But on what I do know, the Lockerbie case, you've got nothing real behind the legal technicalities.

The challenge: Of the many facts that must be true for al-Megrahi to be guilty, one crucial point is the date of the clothing purchase, which can only be established from the account of the witness to the sale, Tony Gauci, compared to other reliable and accepted records. You know this, Suliman. What relevant evidence was ever adduced to support December 7 as the date?

I believe I've now addressed all of your points the best I can. What will be your excuse this time to fail in returning the favor?