No, I’m not talking about the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, though some very stinging questions have been raised about just how, exactly, the release was related to BP’s negotiation with Libya about an oil-exploration deal. I’m talking about the 1970s.

I don’t normally place much faith in the Independent as a news source, but this story is backed up by just-released documents from the UK’s National Archives. According to them, Britain, in a personal letter from Prime Minister Harold Wilson, offered to pay Moammar Qaddafi £14 million in return for settling various claims against the UK and ending Libyan military support for the IRA.

Predictably, the offer went nowhere, even as Britain became increasingly desperate to settle up so as to get “a share of the latest Libyan five-year plan.” By the end of the decade, Qaddafi, sensing he had the British on the run, was holding out for £51 million — that’s about £1.5 billion in today’s money — and continuing to carry on just as before.

It’s an all-too-familiar story from the 1970s, one that repeats the theme of Germany’s pathetic collaboration with the PLO, which allowed the escape of the surviving terrorists after the Munich Massacre: don’t hurt us and we’ll give you what you want. Sometimes the bad guys cash the check. Sometimes they just laugh at the offer. But whatever they do, they don’t stop causing trouble. Britain, BP, and the Labour Government — if it lasts long enough — will have occasion to find that out when the returns come in from their latest Libyan adventure.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 11:21 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.