20th anniversary of Lockerbie

[luke]

Apologies, Anger, and Apathy
My Lai and Lockerbie Reconsidered

A week ago, two convicted mass murderers leaped back into public consciousness as news coverage of their stories briefly intersected. One was freed from prison, continuing to proclaim his innocence, and his release was vehemently denounced in the United States as were the well-wishers who welcomed him home. The other expressed his contrition, after almost 35 years living in his country in a state of freedom, and few commented.

When Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Libyan sentenced in 2001 to 27 years in prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was released from incarceration by the Scottish government on "compassionate grounds," a furor erupted. On August 22nd, ABC World News with Charles Gibson featured a segment on outrage over the Libyan's release. It was aired shortly before a report on an apology offered by William Calley, who, in 1971 as a young lieutenant, was sentenced to life in prison for the massacre of civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai.

After al-Megrahi, who served eight years in prison, arrived home to a hero's welcome in Libya, officials in Washington expressed their dismay. To White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, it was "outrageous and disgusting"; to President Barack Obama, "highly objectionable." Calley, who admitted at trial to killing Vietnamese civilians personally, but served only three years of house arrest following an intervention by President Richard Nixon, received a standing ovation from the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, Georgia, the city where he lived for years following the war. (He now resides in Atlanta.) For him, there was no such uproar, and no one, apparently, thought to ask either Gibbs or the president for comment, despite the eerie confluence of the two men and their fates.

Part of the difference in treatment was certainly the passage of time and Calley's contrition, however many decades delayed, regarding the infamous massacre of more than 500 civilians. "There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai," the Vietnam veteran told his audience. "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry." For his part, al-Megrahi, now dying of cancer, accepted that relatives of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing "have hatred for me. It's natural to behave like this... They believe I'm guilty, which in reality I'm not. One day the truth won't be hiding as it is now. We have an Arab saying: 'The truth never dies.'"

American Exceptionalism

Calley was charged in the deaths of more than 100 civilians and convicted in the murder of 22 in one village, while al-Megrahi was convicted of the murder of 270 civilians aboard one airplane. Almost everyone, it seems, found it perverse, outrageous, or "gross and callous" that the Scottish government allowed a convicted mass murderer to return to a homeland where he was greeted with open arms. No one seemingly thought it odd that another mass murderer had lived freely in his home country for so long. The families of the Lockerbie victims were widely interviewed. As the Calley story broke, no American reporter apparently thought it worth the bother to look for the families of the My Lai victims, let alone ask them what they thought of the apology of the long-free officer who had presided over, and personally taken part in the killing of, their loved ones.

Whatever the official response to al-Megrahi, the lack of comment on Calley underscores a longstanding American aversion to facing what the U.S. did to Vietnam and its people during a war that ended more than 30 years ago. Since then, one cover-up of mass murder after another has unraveled and bubbled into view. These have included the mass killing of civilians in the Mekong Delta village of Thanh Phong by future senator Bob Kerrey and the SEAL team he led (exposed by the New York Times Magazine and CBS News in 2001); a long series of atrocities (including murders, torture, and mutilations) involving the deaths of hundreds of noncombatants largely committed in Quang Ngai Province (where My Lai is also located) by an elite U.S. unit, the Tiger Force (exposed by the Toledo Blade in 2003); seven massacres, 78 other attacks on noncombatants, and 141 instances of torture, among other atrocities (exposed by the Los Angeles Times in 2006); a massacre of civilians by U.S. Marines in Quang Nam Province's Le Bac hamlet (exposed in In These Times magazine in 2008); and the slaughter of thousands of Vietnamese in the Mekong Delta during Operation Speedy Express (exposed in The Nation magazine, also in 2008). Over the last decade, long suppressed horrors from Vietnam have been piling up, indicating not only that My Lai, horrific and iconic as it may have been, was no isolated incident, but that many American veterans have long lived with memories not unlike those of William Calley.

If you recall what actually happened at My Lai, Calley's more-than-40-years-late apology cannot help but ring hollow. Not only were more than 500 defenseless civilians slaughtered by Calley and some of the 100 troops who stormed the village on March 16, 1968, but women and girls were brutally raped, bodies were horrifically mutilated, homes set aflame, animals tortured and killed, the local water supply fouled, and the village razed to the ground. Some of the civilians were killed in their bomb shelters, others when they tried to leave them. Women holding infants were gunned down. Others, gathered together, threw themselves on top of their children as they were sprayed with automatic rifle fire. Children, even babies, were executed at close range. Many were slaughtered in an irrigation ditch.

For his part in the bloodbath, Calley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. As it happened, he spent only three days in a military stockade before President Richard Nixon intervened and had him returned to his "bachelor apartment," where he enjoyed regular visits from a girlfriend, built gas-powered model airplanes, and kept a small menagerie of pets. By late 1974, Calley was a free man. He subsequently went on the college lecture circuit (making $2,000 an appearance), married the daughter of a jeweler in Columbus, Georgia, and worked at the jewelry store for many years without hue or cry from fellow Americans among whom he lived. All that time he stayed silent and, despite ample opportunity, offered no apologies.

Still, Calley's belated remorse evidences a sense of responsibility that his superiors -- from his company commander Capt. Ernest Medina to his commander-in-chief President Lyndon Johnson -- never had the moral fiber to shoulder. Recently, in considering the life and death of Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who repudiated his wartime justifications for the conflict decades later ("We were wrong, terribly wrong."), Jonathan Schell asked:

"[H]ow many public figures of his importance have ever expressed any regret at all for their mistakes and follies and crimes? As the decades of the twentieth century rolled by, the heaps of corpses towered, ever higher, up to the skies, and now they pile up again in the new century, but how many of those in high office who have made these things happen have ever said, 'I made a mistake,' or 'I was terribly wrong,' or shed a tear over their actions? I come up with: one, Robert McNamara."

Because the United States failed to take responsibility for the massive scale of civilian slaughter and suffering inflicted in Southeast Asia in the war years, and because McNamara's contrition arrived decades late, he never became the public face of slaughter in Vietnam, even though he, like other top U.S. civilian officials and military commanders of that time, bore an exponentially greater responsibility for the bloodshed in that country than the low-ranking Calley.

Butchery in the Mekong Delta

A few weeks after McNamara's death, Julian Ewell, a top Army general who served in two important command roles in Vietnam, also passed away. For years, the specter of atrocity had swirled around him, but only among a select community of veterans and Vietnam War historians. In 1971, Newsweek magazine's Kevin Buckley and Alex Shimkin conducted a wide-ranging investigation of Ewell's crowning achievement, a six-month operation in the Mekong Delta code-named Speedy Express, and found evidence of the widespread slaughter of civilians. "The horror was worse than My Lai," one American official told Buckley. "But… the civilian casualties came in dribbles and were pieced out over a long time. And most of them were inflicted from the air and at night. Also, they were sanctioned by the command's insistence on high body counts."

As word of the impending Newsweek article spread, John Paul Vann, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was by then the third-most-powerful American serving in Vietnam, and his deputy, Colonel David Farnham, met in Washington with Army Chief of Staff General William Westmoreland. At that meeting, Vann told Westmoreland that Ewell's troops had wantonly killed civilians in order to boost the body count -- the number of enemy dead that served as the primary indicator of success in the field -- and so further the general's reputation and career. According to Farnham, Vann said Speedy Express was, in effect, "many My Lais."

A Pentagon-level cover-up and Newsweek's desire not to upset the Nixon administration in the wake of the My Lai revelations kept the full results of the meticulous investigation by Buckley and Shimkin bottled up. The publication of a severely truncated version of their article allowed the Pentagon to ride out the coverage without being forced to convene a large-scale official inquiry of the sort which followed public disclosure of the My Lai massacre. Only last year did some of the reporting that Newsweek suppressed, as well as new evidence of the slaughter and the cover-up, appear in a piece of mine in The Nation and only in the wake of Ewell's death was it mentioned in the Washington Post that a long-secret official Army report, commissioned in response to Buckley and Shimkin's investigation, concluded:

"[W]hile there appears to be no means of determining the precise number of civilian casualties incurred by US forces during Operation Speedy Express, it would appear that the extent of these casualties was in fact substantial, and that a fairly solid case can be constructed to show that civilian casualties may have amounted to several thousand (between 5,000 and 7,000)."

A year after the eviscerated Buckley-Shimkin piece was published, Ewell retired from the Army. Colonel Farnham believed that the general was prematurely pushed out due to continuing Army fears of a scandal. If true, it was the only act approaching official censure that he apparently ever experienced, far less punishment than that meted out to al-Megrahi, or even Calley. Yet Ewell was responsible for the deaths of markedly more civilians. Needless to say, Ewell's civilian slaughter never garnered significant TV coverage, nor did any U.S. president ever express outrage over it, or begrudge the general his military benefits, let alone the ability to spend time with his family. In fact, in October, following a memorial service, Julian Ewell will be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

Chain of Command

In his recent remarks, William Calley emphasized that he was following orders at My Lai, a point on which he has never wavered. The Army's investigation into My Lai involved 45 members of Medina's company, including Calley, suspected of atrocities. In a second investigation, 30 individuals were looked into for covering up what happened in the village by "omissions or commissions." Twenty-eight of them were officers, two of them generals, and as a group they stood accused of a total of 224 offenses. Calley, however, was the sole person convicted of an offense in connection with My Lai. Even he ultimately evaded any substantive punishment for his crimes.

While an opportunity was squandered during the Vietnam era, Calley's apology and the response to al-Megrahi's release offer another chance for some essential soul-searching in the United States. In considering Calley's decades-late contrition, Americans might ask why a double-standard exists when it comes to official outrage over mass murder. It might also be worth asking why some individuals, like a former Libyan intelligence officer or, in rare instances, a low-ranking U.S. infantry officer, are made to bear so much blame for major crimes whose responsibility obviously reached far above them; and why officers up the chain of command, and war managers -- in Washington or Tripoli -- escape punishment for the civilian blood on their hands. Unfortunately, this opportunity will almost certainly be squandered as well.

Similarly, it's unlikely that Americans will seriously contemplate just how so many lived beside Calley for so long, without seeking justice -- as would be second nature in the case of a similarly horrific crime committed by an officer serving a hostile power elsewhere. Yet he and fellow American officers from Donald Reh (implicated in the deaths of 19 civilians -- mostly women and children -- during a February 1968 massacre) to Bob Kerrey have gone about their lives without so much as being tried by court martial, let alone serving prison time as did al-Megrahi.

In the immediate wake of Calley's contrition, it wasn't a reporter from the American media but from Agence France Presse (AFP) who thought to check on how Vietnamese survivors or relatives of those massacred at My Lai might react. When an AFP reporter spoke to Pham Thanh Cong, who saw his mother and brothers killed in the My Lai massacre (and now runs a small museum at the village) and asked what he thought of Calley's apology, he responded, "Maybe he has now repented for his crimes and his mistakes committed more than 40 years ago." Maybe.

Today, some of Calley's cohorts, the mostly anonymous others who perpetrated their own horrors in Southeast Asia and never faced even a modicum of justice for their crimes, go about their lives in American cities and suburbs. (Others, who have committed unpunished offenses in the Global War on Terror, are still on active duty.) As a result, the outrage over what happened to the only man convicted of the terrorist act against Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, has a strikingly hollow ring.

A failure to demand an honest accounting of the suffering the United States caused the Vietnamese people and a willingness to ignore ample evidence of widespread slaughter remains a lasting legacy of the Vietnam War. So does a desire to reduce all discussion of U.S. atrocities in Southeast Asia to the massacre at My Lai, with William Calley bearing the burden -- not just for his crimes but for all U.S. crimes there. And it will remain so until the American people do what their military and civilian leadership have failed to do for more than 40 years: take responsibility for the misery the U.S. inflicted in Southeast Asia.

[faceless]

Harris tweed maker drops 'Scottish' marketing over Lockerbie release
The biggest manufacturer of Harris tweed has dropped the word "Scottish" from its marketing campaign in America amid fears of a consumer backlash over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
By Auslan Cramb,
13 Sep 2009

Harris Tweed Hebrides said it had to “de-Scottishify” the product after receiving feedback that sales could suffer. The company, whose chairman, Brian Wilson, a former government minister, believes it was a mistake to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, has removed references to Scotland and Scottish imagery from its promotional material. Instead, the firm plans to use a neutral image of a model in a tweed frock coat reclining on a couch.

Mark Hogarth, the company's creative director, said it had decided to focus on the brand's island heritage rather than its Scottish credentials ahead of the launch of its fashion collection in New York next month. He said that he was forced to rethink the marketing campaign because of the anti-Scottish backlash that followed the release of Megrahi, 57, who is terminally ill, last month.

“We are not going to promote ourselves as a Scottish company as we would previously have done,” said Mr Hogarth. “From everyone we spoke to in the US, the feeling came back that a serious mistake had been made in releasing Megrahi. It really wasn't seen as a British decision in the media there, but a Scottish one. While in Scotland and in the UK as a whole there may be a sense of ambivalence about Megrahi's guilt, in the US they are very much as one.

“We have been getting a lot of feedback and we have had to de-Scottishify the image of the brand. If he had not been released we would not have altered anything. We had hoped to increase the proportion of our US sales to double digits within a year and then see double digit growth in the year after that, but that could be seriously affected. We are quite worried.”

----------------

So, they're relying on the average consumer's ignorance to protect against the effects of their ignorance...

That's an advertising campaign I can get behind!

[luke]

Gareth Peirce is a defence lawyer who has represented many men and women in their appeals against wrongful convictions made on the basis of disputed scientific evidence, misidentification and police malpractice.

i think she worked with craig murray as well. murray reckons 'the FCO and MI6 knew that al-Megrahi was not the Lockerbie bomber'

[luke]

i've not watched this yet so don't know what its like, but the few doha debates i've seen in the past have been alright



The Doha Debates focus on the early release of the Lockerbie bomber to Libya

TRNN releases this video as part of a content sharing agreement with Doha Debates.

The Doha Debates are chaired by the award-winning former BBC correspondent and interviewer Tim Sebastian, who founded them in 2004 and secured their editorial independence.

The Doha Debates states that although the Debates are financed by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, no government, official body or broadcaster has any control over what is said at the sessions or who is invited.

The debates focus on a single, controversial motion, with two speakers for and against. Once they have outlined their arguments, each speaker is questioned by the chairman and the discussion is then opened up to the audience for argument and a final electronic vote.

The 350-strong audiences are drawn mainly from Qatars student body and come from all over the Arab and Islamic worlds.

[faceless]

George Galloway was briefly on the Scottish news this evening talking about how he'd, as opposed to the members of the Scottish government, be happy to go to answer questions about Al Megrahi at the Senate.

That could have been outstanding if he'd gone again.

(I had a look for the clip, but no luck)

[faceless]

Alex Salmond spares the US Senate another painful defeat in BP inquiry
Scotland's first minister has turned down a request to testify in the US about Libya, BP and the release of the Lockerbie bomber
Kevin McKenna
The Observer,
25 July 2010

Senator John Kerry ought to be more careful about what he wishes for. The chair of the US Senate's foreign relations committee wants Alex Salmond to appear at a hearing this week into the release of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

America's attitude towards historical accuracy is fractious. Yet even the senator and his colleagues can't have forgotten what happened five years ago, when a loquacious Scot last made a guest appearance in their house. Then, George Galloway, one of the most gifted Scottish politicians of his generation, stood before a senate sub-committee and eviscerated it. That, too, was about the black stuff. They had lamely accused him of profiting from Iraqi oil sales. But what happened next still causes some old Republicans to send for nurse whenever they hear a Scottish accent. Someone should tell Kerry that Scotland's first minister is more than capable of matching Galloway's performance.

In any case, Salmond and his justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, have decided to spare the senators another home defeat by rebuffing their invitation. They know Thursday's hearing is merely posturing before the mid-term elections. Any US politician who can succeed in dragging BP on to another penitent's stool for a thrashing will garner a few extra redneck votes in the south. Indeed, it is surprising that it took them so long to spot the potential in looking at possible BP collusion in the release last August of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to advance a Libyan oil deal.

Many believe it is good that Salmond has chosen not to participate in this charade, and that the decision to free the Libyan on compassionate grounds was a proud day for Scotland. Corroborated expert medical opinion had stated that it was likely al-Megrahi, pictured, would die of prostate cancer within a few months. That he clings still to a life of sorts is immaterial. Releasing him in these circumstances showed the world that devolved Scotland is an enlightened nation not wedded to vengeance.

[luke]

i almost want salmond to go, just for the entertainment value

[faceless]

It would be something for sure - Salmond has a great way of smiling when attacking and I'm sure he'd have done a great job if he'd gone. I'm not too keen on Kenny McAskill though, he has almost the tone of a headmaster telling the schoolchildren what's going on.

[Ash]

[faceless]

US Senators postpone Lockerbie BP hearing over lack of witnesses
US Senators have postponed a hearing to investigate BP’s alleged role in the release of the Lockerbie bomber after the oil giant and British officials “stonewalled” requests for information.
Robert Winnett in Washington
27 Jul 2010
telegraph.co.uk

The US Senate was forced to abandon this Thursday’s hearing after former ministers and senior BP executives refused to appear. Those shunning invitations included Jack Straw, the former Justice Secretary, and Tony Hayward, the outgoing chief executive of BP. The British Government has also failed to release documents requested by Senators in time. The information is currently being reviewed by the Cabinet Secretary.

The postponement of the hearing is likely to fuel growing American suspicion that a BP oil deal may have played a part in the release of the Lockerbie bomber last year — despite categorical denials from the British and Scottish governments that this was the case.

The refusal of Tony Hayward, who announced his resignation on Tuesday, to travel to Washington was attacked by senior senators who said the company was already on “thin ice with the American people”. Senators are to continue pushing for Mr Hayward to appear at a later date, saying they wanted to question him over whether BP “advocated trading blood for oil”.

The firm is also refusing to allow Sir Mark Allen- a former MI6 official who helped negotiate a valuable Libyan oil contract for BP with Colonel Gaddafi — to appear at the hearing. BP has admitted that Sir Mark, an adviser to the firm, also spoke to Mr Straw about Britain introducing a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. BP announced that it would instead send Peter Mather, the company’s head of UK operations to appear before the Senate hearing. However, this was not acceptable to the senators.

Robert Menéndez, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, said: “I would have thought that a company on thin ice with the American people for devastating the Gulf Coast would want to fully co-operate with our effort to fully understand the release of a terrorist who murdered 189 Americans”. Mr Menéndez accused BP and Mr Hayward of being consumed by his “multi-million dollar golden parachute” as he steps down as the company’s chief executive.

The senator vowed to keep pressing for Hayward to testify on “serious lingering questions about whether the company advocated trading blood for oil” and pressed for the bomber’s release to safeguard a lucrative deal with Libya.

The hearing had been called to examine BP’s alleged role in Scotland’s decision last August to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted over the 1988 bombing of a Pan-Am flight that killed 270 people. The Scottish authorities freed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds after being assured he suffered from terminal cancer and had three months to live – but nearly a year later, he is alive in his native Libya. The Scottish Government has denied that BP played any role in the release of al-Megrahi.

[faceless]

You tell im Aldo!

[luke]

US Oil Companies lobbied ‘Lockerbie’ Senator to protect Libya

New information has emerged showing the extent of lobbying of the US Senate by US oil firms over business deals with Libya.

It reveals that US oil companies wanted Libya excluded from new legislation that would have allowed American victims of state sponsored terrorism to sue the countries responsible as well as firms operating within those countries.

The amendment to remove Libya from the bill was co-sponsored by Frank Lautenberg – one of the four senators currently claiming BP lobbied for Al Megrahi’s release. The revelation will fuel calls for those US Senators, keen to investigate any business involvement with the case of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, to start with companies at home.

The information shows:

* US Oil companies were the chief lobbyists to have Libya excluded from legislation allowing American victims of state sponsored terrorism to sue responsible countries or US firms operating in those countries.
* The legislation removing Libya from the bill was co-sponsored by Frank Lautenberg – one of the four senators currently claiming BP lobbied for Al Megrahi’s release.
* Reports in the New York Times when the legislation – which prevented the families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing suing Libya was introduced – state that ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil, Amerada Hess and Occidental all lobbied alongside the Libyan Government. These firms, along with an Oil industry lobby group and supported by ExxonMobil, Chevron and Dow Chemical all lobbied US senators to pass the amendment exempting Libya.
* The amendment passed unanimously with no Senator speaking out against it.

Questions have also been raised over the role of the US-Libya Business Association and a trade deal signed between the US and Libya in May 2010 which highlighted oil as Libya’s major export to the USA.

SNP MSP Christine Grahame who has repeatedly urged the US Senators to investigate their own back yard said:

"This is another example of utter hypocrisy from the senators involved.

“Before they go making accusations at other countries and other companies they should look closely in their own back yard.”

Ms Graham criticised the reluctance of the Senate Hearing to speak to US oil firms adding:

"As yet they have failed to call Exxon Mobil – a key member of the UK Libya Business council whose activities so concerned them.

"They have not called in US CIA agents involved in negotiations with Libya and despite their concern over the UK’s deal in the desert – a concern I share – they do not seem to have any problems with their own Government signing trade deals based on oil with Libya.

"If I was running their inquiry I would certainly want to know if US companies and trade negotiators discussed Al Megrahi."

Ms Graham highlighted the role of Senator Lautenberg in protecting Libya from lawsuits and called on the Senate Committee to join the growing calls for a full international inquiry into the Lockerbie tragedy.

"Above all we now know that one of the US Senators laying accusations against the Scottish Government and BP put forward legislation on behalf of the Libyan Government and US Oil companies that stops American citizens pursuing Libya in the courts over this or any other terrorist act.

"I do not doubt the Senators care and concern for the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing and I share their desire to get to the truth over the bombing but would urge them to join me in backing a full international inquiry into the atrocity. Their hypocrisy in making allegations against the Scottish Government when they themselves have acted in favour of US oil and Libyan Government lobbying is deeply distasteful."

New oil find

The revelations follow the announcement by Libya's Waha oil Company (WOC) of a new major oil find in the country.

WOC said in its website that it had made a new discovery in the Sirte basin, 80 km south east of the area of Marada. The company said the output of the well of Lidam layer was 1.080 ppd and 0.86 million cubic meters of gas per day. The output of the lower white layer was 1.704 million ppd and 0.025 million cubic meters of gas per day.

Waha Oil Company is considered to be the second biggest oil producer in Libya, it is owned by National Oil Corporation (NOC) in a joint venture with three American companies namely:
ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess.

These companies have been working as partners since Jan 2006.

U.S.-Libyan relations

According to Reuters, the following are some important events in U.S.-Libyan relations:

* January 1986 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan orders halt to economic and commercial relations with Libya, freezes Libyan assets in the United States.
* April 1986 - U.S. blames Libya for bombing of West Berlin disco used by U.S. military personnel that killed three people and wounded more than 200.
* April 1986 - U.S. aircraft bomb Tripoli, Benghazi and the home of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Libya says more than 40 people are killed, including Gaddafi's adopted baby daughter.
* December 1988 - Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York is blown up over Scotland, killing 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie.
* April 1999 - Libya hands over two suspects in the Pan Am bombing. They stand trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law.
* January 2001 - One suspect is found guilty of murder and given a mandatory life sentence. The other is acquitted.
* March 2003 - Libya reaches political agreement with the United States and Britain to accept civil responsibility for the bombing. Libya agrees to pay about $2.7 billion.
Libya says it will abandon weapons of mass destruction programs and allow international inspectors.
* June 2004 - U.S. and Libya resume diplomatic ties after 24 years.
* September 2004 - President George W. Bush formally ends U.S. trade embargo on Libya, rewarding it for giving up weapons of mass destruction, but leaves some terrorism-related sanctions in place.
* January 2008 - Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam, Libya's foreign minister, declares an end to confrontation with the United States during a visit to Washington, the first by a Libyan foreign minister since 1972.
* August 2008 - Libya and the United States sign a deal to compensate all U.S. and Libyan victims of bombings or their relatives.
* September 2008 - Condoleezza Rice meets Gaddafi in Tripoli during the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to Libya since 1953.
* July 2009 - Gaddafi and U.S. President Barack Obama shake hands at a world leaders' dinner during a G8 summit in Italy.

http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=507:us-oil-companies-lobbied-lockerbie-senator-to-protect-libya&catid=6:leisure&Itemid=9#comments