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(1986: A year of contradictions)

Continuing our Thousand Yard Stare at years gone past, I came across 1986 and this year-end wrap up from Lesley Stahl on Face The Nation. It's a quick gloss over, probably because each story is good for about a weeks worth of posts. Nonetheless, it gives a good introduction to just what kind of year 1986 was. A lot of contradictions, not to mention denials. Between Libya, Iran-Contra, the upheaval in the Phillippines, Chernobyl - it was a busy year.

Lesley Stahl (CBS News): “What would happen to your country if Mrs. Aquino becomes President?”

Ferdinand Marcos (Philippine President): “The country will become Communist.”

The oft-used famous last words, but another indication of where 1986 was heading.

We'll be spending a lot of time there in the weeks/months ahead - fear not.

and that cheerful reminder . . .

So apparently punishing terrorists (assuming we had the right people in the first place) isn't quite as important as U.S. and British officials make it seem. It's all about the oil, baby!

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.

Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: “This is the strongest evidence yet that the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking.”

Two letters dated five months apart show that Straw initially intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, under which British and Libyan prisoners could serve out their sentences in their home country.

Downing Street had also said Megrahi would not be included under the agreement.

Straw then switched his position as Libya used its deal with BP as a bargaining chip to insist the Lockerbie bomber was included.

The exploration deal for oil and gas, potentially worth up to £15 billion, was announced in May 2007. Six months later the agreement was still waiting to be ratified.

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(Edwin Wilson - one of the CIA's Greatest Hits)

As I was digging through the archives in search of more Reagan Years material, I ran across this rather interesting tidbit via ABC World News Tonight from August 28. 1981. I forgot completely about it, and it seems so did everyone else.

The story goes, Edwin Wilson was a CIA operative working in Libya and, according to various sources, was training Libyans (or anyone with a checkbook) to carry out various assassinations and plots . . everything the CIA swears up and down they don't do. There were allegations of former Green Berets enlisted to train terrorists - or as Wilson says in his interview: "to train people in compass reading and low-level field operations".

Sounds a little like he was training troops of Boyscouts, but in 1981 people paid scant attention and the story blew over rather quickly. Wilson was convicted of transporting explosives to the Libyans and sentenced to 27 years in prison. It's just interesting that a similar story came to light in the later 80's, only that time it was called the Iran-Contra affair.

Oh, those crooked webs . . . .