This is rich: The oil industry is working to get Muammar el-Qaddafi off the hook

[bushmeister0]

for his little terrorist past. Understand, he's a "statesman," now that he's opened up his oil and natural gas fields.

Let's just let bygones be bygones. So he killed a few hundred Americans, that's so pre-9/11!

NYT reports:

" The Libyan government, once a pariah, and the American oil industry have hired high-profile lobbyists, buttonholed lawmakers and enlisted help from the Bush administration, all in an effort to win an exemption from a law that Congress passed in January that is intended to ensure that victims of terrorist attacks are compensated.

The law allows victims of state-sponsored terrorism to collect court judgments by seizing foreign assets in the United States or money from those governments held by American companies doing business with them. If Libya loses a half-dozen court cases still pending, $3 billion to $6 billion could be at stake, according to lawyers’ estimates. . .

'This really is a test of wills, a test to see if the United States is willing to stand up for American soldiers and others killed and wounded in attacks or for the oil companies and their profits,' said Thomas Fortune Fay, who represents 37 American military service members injured in the bombing of a Berlin disco in 1986. He has used the new law to file liens against 13 corporations in the United States, including ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum, whose chief executives visited Colonel Qaddafi in the last year."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/washington/22libya.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Man, these people have some real nerve. I guess we know who's at the top of W.'s pardons list before he goes. Sorry, Locker bee victims, money talks, bullshit walks.

[MADem]

1. Has all of America been asleep? This isn't really news. AT ALL.

The "rehabilitation" of al-Qaddafi began years ago. Note the date of this press release:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031219-9.html

Black gold....Texas tea.

[bushmeister0]

2. While our good buddy Qaddafi was being rehabilitated

he was ploting to kill then Crown Prince Adbullah, and as an after thought, re-arming Charles Taylor who was trying to avoid being arrested.

The case of Abdurahman Alamoudi, good friend of Grover Norquist btw, was arrested with a bunch of Lybian money in 2004.

"A prominent Muslim activist who admitted participating in a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was sentenced Friday to the maximum 23 years in prison for illegal business dealings with Libya. Abdurahman Alamoudi, 52, pleaded guilty in July to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from high-ranking Libyan officials while serving as a go-between for them and Saudi dissidents."

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/003570.php

IT's always good to keep good old Moammar in our sights.