Lawless Libya - A country in chaos
Sam Carrington | 15.04.2012 17:07 | Anti-racism | Repression | Social Struggles | Birmingham | World
Yaara Bou Melhem gets rare access to see what life is really like in Libya after Gaddafi was deposed by NATO backed reactionary forces against the wishes of the Libyan masses.
Warning some shocking images
Includes Images of Tawergha after ethnic cleansing by racist rebels
See -
http://globalciviliansforpeace.com/2012/04/15/lawless-libya/
Includes Images of Tawergha after ethnic cleansing by racist rebels
See -
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Sam Carrington
Comments
Hide the following 24 comments
Fair point but
15.04.2012 17:41
Nosh
Lockerbie?
15.04.2012 17:53
short memory span
Anti-violence.
15.04.2012 18:05
The purpose of which will be to invite people to morally trade one set of victims for the other therefore inviting the reader to paralyse themselves into crippling inaction.
That isn't really what Indymedia is about.
Your politics seem to be derived from the Israeli 'moral relativism' camp.
Let me make this absolutely clear to you, one crime does not justify another. You cannot imitate the object of your hatred and call it justice. If you do that, your foe is justified. By trying to legitimise the actions of the Libyan revolutionaries by placing it into context with Ghaddafi's actions, you legitimise both. It is violence you legitimise.
Ergo, you are a follower and believer in violence.
Also, populist garbage has no place here.
IMC
Reality check.
15.04.2012 18:08
That is the British Governments position and is a statist view.
Indymedia is not the state.
IMC
re: IMC
15.04.2012 18:13
IMCista
Hide n Seek
15.04.2012 18:20
Deal with what's been said.
Coward.
IMC
re: IMC
15.04.2012 18:29
Gadaffi was a power crazed shit, and the regime thats replaced him are also power crazed shits.
Nobody has the right to do to human beings the things that are being done in that video.
Therefore, whether or not Gadaffi funded or planned Lockerbie, or the fact that he tortured people gives anyone the right to torture and lock up people without process.
Just like no-one has the right to pretend to talk on behalf of IMC.
IMCista
Lets get this straight
15.04.2012 18:30
"I don't suppose you'll be posting photos of Gadaffi's victims?"
>The purpose of which will be to invite people to morally trade one set of victims for the other therefore inviting the reader to paralyse themselves into crippling inaction.
The purpose is to get an overall objective viewpoint of the entire situation rather than just looking at a small subset. It would be like just analysing post-WW2 without putting any regard to the time prior to the overthrowing of Hitler's power.
That isn't really what Indymedia is about.
> Your politics seem to be derived from the Israeli 'moral relativism' camp.
People are entitled to their opinions -> democracy + freedom of thought and speech.
> Let me make this absolutely clear to you, one crime does not justify another. You cannot imitate the object of your hatred and call it justice. If you do that, your foe is justified. By trying to legitimise the actions of the Libyan revolutionaries by placing it into context with Ghaddafi's actions, you legitimise both. It is violence you legitimise.
No one is trying to legitimise the Libyan revolutonaries actions. However, this is clearly a runup to lets-all-bash-NATO, so it is worth pointing out the situation before Gaddifi was overthrown to get some balance of why things ended up the way they are.
> Ergo, you are a follower and believer in violence.
"You cannot imitate the object of your hatred and call it justice". It could be equally said that your denial of Gaddafi's abuses makes you a follower of violence given your arguments.
> Also, populist garbage has no place here.
It seems that the lets-hate-the-revolutionaries is the populist garbage.
Denial is just a blind man spouting shit.
someone who knows whats going on
Screw NATO - screw Gadaffi and screw the new regime
15.04.2012 18:37
And why should we not bash NATO. Their mandate was to enforce a no-fly zone - they abused that and bombed the new torturers to victory. All in the name of 'humane intervention'
So, how can anyone honestly conclude that NATO was acting out of concern for ordinary Libyans?
'Humane Intervention' my arse
maybe
15.04.2012 18:45
Maybe a few marches with banners etc would of solved it
someone who knows whats going on
Cheerleaders for the forces of imperialism?
15.04.2012 18:56
However, we do have the choice of not being cheerleaders for Imperialism, and of not buying the cynical propaganda that they sell us.
There are plenty of despots with strong western backing who torture and kill political opponents.
Personally I think it more useful to focus the rage at the arms companies that make it possible.
'Humane Intervention' my arse
not clear
15.04.2012 19:00
I meant I felt we shouldn't of intervened when Gaddafi was bombing his own people.
It was bound to stir up a hornets nest. We probably should of just let him get on with it. Victim numbers would of probably been less.
someone who knows whats going on
'when Gaddafi was bombing his own people'
15.04.2012 19:10
See 2) Gaddafi is “bombing his own people”.
'Humane Intervention' my arse
other articles reporte different
15.04.2012 19:24
+
someone who knows whats going on
Airstrikes in Libya did not take place”
15.04.2012 19:39
see
Extract fom
See below
Gaddafi is “bombing his own people”.
We must remember that one of the initial reasons in rushing to impose a no-fly zone was to prevent Gaddafi from using his air force to bomb “his own people”—a distinct phrasing that echoes what was tried and tested in the demonization of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. On February 21, when the first alarmist “warnings” about “genocide” were being made by the Libyan opposition, both Al Jazeera and the BBC claimed that Gaddafi had deployed his air force against protesters—as the BBC “reported”: “Witnesses say warplanes have fired on protesters in the city”. Yet, on March 1, in a Pentagon press conference, when asked: “Do you see any evidence that he [Gaddafi] actually has fired on his own people from the air? There were reports of it, but do you have independent confirmation? If so, to what extent?” U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates replied, “We’ve seen the press reports, but we have no confirmation of that”. Backing him up was Admiral Mullen: “That’s correct. We’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever”.
In fact, claims that Gaddafi also used helicopters against unarmed protesters are totally unfounded, a pure fabrication based on fake claims. This is important since it was Gaddafi’s domination of Libyan air space that foreign interventionists wanted to nullify, and therefore myths of atrocities perpetrated from the air took on added value as providing an entry point for foreign military intervention that went far beyond any mandate to “protect civilians”.
David Kirpatrick of The New York Times, as early as March 21 confirmed that, “the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Qaddafi forces, and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior”. The “vastly inflated claims” are what became part of the imperial folklore surrounding events in Libya, that suited Western intervention. Rarely did the Benghazi-based journalistic crowd question or contradict their host
Sam Carrington
The UN confirmed it?
15.04.2012 19:44
"Civilian areas were also said to have been hit. The regime had “declared war on its people,” its own deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Omar al-Dabashi, said in disgust."
Did you read the article I cited?
here's the full quote from David Kirkpatrick that is cited in that article:
"Like the Qaddafi government, the operation around the rebel council is rife with family ties. And like the chiefs of the Libyan state news media, the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Qaddafi forces, and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior."
The other thing that rings true from the counterpunch article is the way that the debate was framed:
From 7) Gaddafi—the Demon.
"This is binary absolutism at its worst—virtually no one made allowance for the possibility that some might neither support Gaddafi, the insurgents, nor NATO. Everyone was to be forced into one of those camps, no exceptions allowed. What resulted was a phony debate, dominated by fanatics of one side or another. Missed in the discussion, recognition of the obvious: however much Gaddafi had been “in bed” with the West over the past decade, his forces were now fighting against a NATO-driven take over of his country."
It all brings to mind those poor babies that were thrown out of their incubators and left to die in Kuwait.
Imagine that, people lying to get support for wars!
Saddam would have killed us several times over by now if we hadn't got to those WMDs in time....
'Humane Intervention' my arse
not really putting any trust in that
15.04.2012 19:45
Read this. Sounds a bit dodgy.
Prefer all the other more reliable and established reports
someone who knows whats going on
The Green Desert - the Libyan People's support for the Jamahiriya
15.04.2012 19:55
sam Carrington
Put your trust in the Torygraph instead?
15.04.2012 19:57
I don't know how many demos you've been to in this country, but I've seen the agents of the state go mental over a few banners. Can you imagine how they might react if people started 'protesting' with guns and rocket launchers?
Because there was an armed uprising taking place in Libya at the time.
'Humane Intervention' my arse.
Love us or hate us, just please don't ignore us!
15.04.2012 20:05
Same narrative but different geography.
Ghaddafi the evil dictator is the villain who kills his own people and must be stopped. Heroic forces of good go in to overthrow him and force him into hiding. Evil dictator crawls away to his birthplace and centre of support, heroic forces of good hunt him down and find him hiding like a rat in a hole in the ground, such is the futility of opposing the heroic forces of good. Evil dictator dies and the world rejoices.
Exactly the same as Iraq but without the pesky protesters.
Libya has been an attempt to re-write a script that went badly wrong in 2003.
This isn't our narrative, this is the narrative of the elite, this is the left/right alliance up to its old tricks.
Fundamentally, all they really need is for the people to subscribe to it as an idea. Whether you are for, or against, doesn't really matter. As long as you have a view, the alliance goes on.
Empire is nothing if it is considered to be nothing. Debate is the gemstone at the heart of its crown..
Its the same with Israel and Palestine. The Israeli's have ownership of the 'debate' so their reign continues. Every atrocious act is met with an invitation to have a 'debate' about it all.
Debate is fine in a Democracy, but these people are not Democrats, Never have been, never will be.
Magdalena.
from the source
15.04.2012 20:17
someone who knows whats going on
I look forward
15.04.2012 21:15
just like syria..
just like iran..
just like uganda...
do we need to go back to sleep yet? zzzzz
zzzz
Sauce
15.04.2012 23:37
The same western Imperialist powers who gave us Saddam's WMD and 45 minutes to live.
And you find that credible but you don't find the findings of "a cross section of ordinary civilians" who've gone to Libya and " gathered a unique insight to the crisis that is not being portrayed in the vast majority of media outlets" credible because you disagree with an article reposted to their website?
I have this horrible suspicion that torture under the new regime feels just as painful as torture under the old regime.
I don't think anyone has a right to feel satisfied with NATOs Libyan intervention.
'Humane Intervention' my arse
sources sauces
16.04.2012 21:51
That's not really proof. It's quite obvious that Un resolutions like this are passed for political reasons. Has there been proof accepted by a court of law (that is not completely corrupted) ?
There are only five permament member states on the UN which will each have their own agenda.
Brian B