If the oil and gas industry has learned anything from Scotland's decision to release Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1998 Pan Am airline bombing, it should have learned the meaning of the word "scapegoat."
That view clearly emerged when US Sen. Joe Lieberman urged an independent investigation of Scotland's decision to free the convicted Lockerbie bomber, expressing concern that British interest in Libyan oil may have played a role.
In urging the investigation, Lieberman pointed to "shocking" suggestions by Libyan leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, his son Saif, and the head of the British Libyan Business Council that the release was mixed with Britain's interest in exploring oil in Libya.
"I don't want to believe that they are true, but they are hanging so heavily in the air that I hope that our friends in Britain will convene an independent investigation of this action by the Scottish justice minister to release a mass murderer," Liebermann said on CNN.
Hero's welcome?
Al-Megrahi's return to what appeared to some observers a hero's welcome in Tripoli set off an outpouring of anger in the US over the decision by the Scottish government to release him on compassionate grounds.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said he made the decision on his own after doctors concluded that al-Megrahi, who suffers from prostate cancer, had just a few months to live.
"It is difficult for people sometimes in the United States to recognize that it is a different legal system, but it is a different legal system. It is a Scottish legal system and therefore we have to follow the tenets of Scottish justice," Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond told Sky News.
But adding fuel to the outrage was a claim by Seif al-Islam, al-Qadhafi's son, that the issue of Megrahi's fate "was always on the negotiating table" in talks with Britain over Libya's huge reserves of oil and gas.
Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat, said Lieberman's questioning of Scottish motives in releasing Megrahi "raises a very valid point."
Compromise over oil?
"I think we need to know what this oil deal was all about and whether there was a compromise to the judicial system for commercial gain," he said on the same CNN program.
Both Lieberman and Cardin said Libya's celebratory homecoming for the former intelligence officer should have "consequences."
But Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took a more temperate view, telling CNN that while Washington "ought to condemn as strongly as possible this release," it was also necessary "to continue our relations with Libya."
Lugar said, "I think it's important to notice that President Qadhafi has a constituency in Libya. And the rest of the world is now engaged in diplomatic relations with Libya."
In a word, it makes no sense for anyone to scapegoat the oil and gas industry for Scotland's release of al-Megrahi.
