It seems that the ruckus over this issue is not going to die down very soon. And it's because it appears that not only were commercial considerations like oil leases and expanded trade with Libya part of the bargain, but perhaps even more prominently, a perverse sense of Scottish nationalism is playing out where thumbing their nose at America is being seen as a step up for the separatists or "nationalists" in Scotland.

In the name of "standing up" to American objections to releasing the terrorist, Scottish leaders believe they have scored political points with the people. By promoting the idea that Scottish justice is "superior" to that practiced by America, the nationalists are feeding a burning resentment of their own citizens who have been fed a steady diet of anti-American claptrap for years.

This brilliant essay appearing on the blog Harry's Place on the release of al-Megrahi by Tom Gallagher, Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford and long time commenter on Scottish politics, points up the secondary agenda of Scottish nationalist leader Alex Salmond as he attempts to break the union with England that has existed for 300 years:

Alex Salmond has been particularly active in this work of deconstruction. Not only does he champion separation for a small country despite its precarious economic condition but he has been busy encouraging ethnic and religious separation within its boundaries.

These facts are surely well-known by now to the US authorities (and allegations from the more militant Nats of CIA ‘interference' are surely not long to follow). Perhaps the vigour of FBI Director Mueller's remarks stem from recent discovery of disquieting cooperation between the SNP and deeply anti-American forces occurring just beneath the radar screen. Given the company Salmond keeps, Mueller will know that ‘compassion' was not uppermost in his party's mind when al-Megrahi was released. It is a foregone conclusion that tomorrow when the Scottish Parliament has its special session, nobody is even likely to bother putting on record what were the bonds that once drew Scotland and the USA so closely together - commercial, religious, and intellectual ones as well as shared social reform efforts, and similar popular cultures.

A light in the darkness was provided by Harry Hopkins, an architect of the New Deal and later one of Roosevelt's chief diplomatic troubleshooters. He had been sent by the President to assess the determination of the British people to continue the fight and the likely effects of American help. His hosts were Tom Johnston, the Scottish secretary of State and Patrick Dollan, the Lord Provost of Glasgow, both from the Labour Party; Churchill too was there. Energised by their defiance and that of the ordinary people he had met on his tour, Hopkins delivered an emotional speech promising that he would do all in his power to ensure the support of the US for Britain's stand against Hitler.

If a new peril arose and all the objectionable features of America suddenly vanished with the realisation that its help was imperative, where are the prominent Scots an Amercan envoy would meet. Would Alex Salmond for example introduce the visitor to Lesley Riddoch, the doyenne of Scottish broadcasting who in Friday's Guardian hailed the SNP for not ‘kow-towing to the world's most powerful nation'. Or to the Pope of multicultural Scotland, Chair of the Scottish Arts Council and much else besides, Bishop Richard Holloway who wrote in Saturday's Guardian: about he ‘bravery' shown by the Scottish government in resisting ‘the enormous pressure they were under'. I think if Hopkins had met such people in January 1941 he would have assumed that his plane had been diverted to Vichy France.