New (well actually old) BP Fiasco. The Lockerbie Bomber

The US has recently discovered what the Brits already knew. BP was one of the companies that pushed hard for the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, "The Lockerbie Bomber."

It is felt and the British PM is denying it that BP brought pressure to free him in exchange for lucrative contracts with Libya.

I think this could be heated so I started the thread here but I don't really know what to think about it. If true and I think it is true, it means BP is as evil as Exxon. Not a huge shock, very big Oil Company is evil is not hard at all to see.

Oh no, you don't get to blame Britain or BP for this one. You can go straight to Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP, as to why he was released. This one is all the fault of the Scottish Parliament.

Yes, BP were lobbying the British Government to make favourable terms with Libya for oil deals, something that the US Oil companies did several years earlier when Libya was removed from the trade embargo list. The US got their deal when Libya forked out minor damages to the families affected by Lockerbie.

I think, at this point, the idea of such hearings is just a fiasco waiting to happen. AIUI there are allegations of serious flaws in the original case against al-Megrahi. ISTM that the obvious defense for BP, assuming that the allegations are true, is simply to claim the moral high road by making those flaws part of the official and public record here in the US.

Whether the flaws represent accurate affidavits, I can't judge. For that matter, I've always found the original trial to have been pretty odd, considering what I understood to be the prosecution's position: If it were an official Libyan operation, as I believe was claimed, why did the grunt get convicted on all charges, while his supervisor was acquitted of all charges?

Of course, I have great skepticism towards Libya. This same nation so concerned about the unjust conviction of al-Megrahi, is quite willing to convict aid workers of deliberately spreading AIDS. If the Libyan government told me that it was raining shit, I'd stick my tongue out the window. Of course, I've always felt that Libya got far too much consideration from the global community. Just for one example, under what kind of logic would anyone with a working brain put Libya onto the UN Human Rights Commission?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think anyone who deals with the Libyan government is already tarred by their association, and nothing that might be proved will change my opinion about BP, nor change anything with how the company is dealt with. It's just a bit of bread and circuses distracting us from other, more current issues.

Who gives a shit about this deal, really - even if it happened? Let's say, best case, we get a smoking gun, showing that all the evidence supporting al-Megrahi's release was bunk, the original trial got it right, and there are no embarrassments with how the CIA or other US organizations got the evidence they used (Something I think very likely to be counter to fact.), what's going to happen? al-Megrahi's not going back to jail. Libya's already paid reparations. BP is still going to have their deals with the Libyan government.

And it's going to distract Congress from doing something about improving oversight on drilling operations, and disaster planning - which is what I think the important business now should be.

Exxon is huge and powerful and has a lot of hands in a thousand different pockets but I don't know that I'd call them evil. They have a better safety record than BP at least.