American double standards
Posted by Dan Taylor on July 24, 2010
I am troubled with the idea that British politicians should justify themselves to an American senate committee. Of course, I am referring to the continued fall-out from the release of Lockerbie bomber and terrorist, Al-Megrahi a year after his original release from Scottish jail. At the time, like most people I was appalled at the idea of releasing Britain’s worst mass-murderer and still believe to this day that it was a gross misjudgment by the Scottish (aptly named) ‘ justice’ secretary, Kenny McAskill MSP. Nevertheless, I find the attempts of some US Senators to summon British politicians to Washington a troubling prospect.
The first reason for this is a matter of principle. Regardless of whether they be Scottish or British politicians, they are accountable to us, the British people, not to the US Senate. For similar reasons, I certainly wouldn’t have the audacity to summon Donald Rumsfeld over to London for the Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq war. There simply is no such precedent for such a move.
The second reason centers around what I view as the fashionable pastime of ‘BP bashing’ in the US. Assertions that somehow the release of Al-Megrahi was linked with the granting of BP oil contracts in Lybia is almost laughable, particularly since David Cameron has promised the release of papers from the discussions that led to Al-Megrahi’s release. I cannot help but think that the US are appying their own political standards to ours. Whilst our political system is far from perfect, there by no means the same degree of ‘lobbying’ with big business and pressure groups as the US system seems to encourage.
Finally (and one might call this a cheap jibe at our American ‘cousins’, but I will make it anyway), I find it utterly hypocritical for the US to chastise us for the early release of a terrorist prisoner, regardless of whether it was right or wrong. Perhaps if they want our politicians to justify to them in the US Senate why Al-Megrahi was released early, perhaps their own politicians from the 1960′s-1990′s could come to the British parliament and justify why they both supported, funded and armed the IRA during the period of the troubles. Is it a coincidence that they weren’t recognised as a terrorist organisation in the US unti after 9/11?
These are double standards at work if ever I have encountered them!
