Merged Libya: People's Revolution / Criminal Imperialism?

[bikerdruid]

He mentions his name once, and he calls him the "leader of Libya".

Doesn't mention anything about his brutal and inhumane repression of the rebels and civils.

glad to see you went back and read it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

ah...so you did not read the article i see...
or read the op, it seems.

While I recently chastised a forum member for confirmation bias that everything on Democracy Now was slanted news (it is not), your link starts with a line which clearly indicates this is an opinion piece, not a news piece:

NATO’s assault on Libya, a criminal imperialist war from its outset

If you believe the facts in the article, make an effort to find a source of information rather than a source of far left opinion. There is so much far right misinformation out there. This piece contains equivalent rhetoric.

 

[Pardalis]

glad to see you went back and read it.

Where does he mention his crimes?

Are you so blinded by your ideology that you can't see the massacres?

 

[bikerdruid]

your link starts with a line which clearly indicates this is an opinion piece, not a news piece:

i never claimed it was a news piece..

 

[Pardalis]

Biker? Hello? Have you forgotten me?

Where in the article is mentioned the reasons why NATO decided to intervene, you know, the massacres.

 

[Skeptic]

We're back to the same message these folks said in the 60s: liberal democracies were evil and opressive, but totalitarianism was cool and, like, groovy, man.

 

[davefoc]

At least the revolution started first before NATO intervened, (unlike the sequence of events in Iraq). Wasn't the initial reason for intervening because the people in power were slaughtering the people in the rebellion?

Not saying we (NATO and/or the US) are typically truly motivated by human tragedy, usually we use it as an excuse to intervene when we have other motives. But picking sides in a rebellion? I'm not sure you can define that as 'all bad'. I think it would depend on a lot of factors.

I am not sure intervention in the affairs of a foreign country ever works out. Certainly the winners and losers are changed a bit when there is foreign intervention but is it ever, in net, beneficial to the population?

But if intervention is ever beneficial, this looks like a pretty good model for US intervention to me.
1. It was done without being driven by US corporate interests
2. It was done without the US manufacturing evidence to justify the action.
3. It was done for clearly altruistic reasons
4. It was done without cramming a consensus down the throat of US allies about what needs to be done
5. It was done by allowing countries that seem to have a better handle on what needed to be done to be in charge instead of succumbing to the routine US jingoistic chant that the US needs to be in charge of everything.
6. It was done after a clear cut revolutionary force had established itself (as SkepticGinger said).

No one will ever know what the net benefits of the NATO actions in Libya were, but right now it is looking like loss of life was relatively small for this kind of thing and that a Libyan government will form that won't suck US or NATA resources and that might govern Libya in a way more beneficial to the Libyans and to the rest of the world.

Of course, if you're a routine Republican partisan nut job, you can look at the way this worked out and say something like it would have been so much better if the US had intervened sooner and with more force because that model worked out so much better in Iraq.

 

[funk de fino]

I suspect post 75 will be ignored or some CT nonsense used to deny it. Not the only killings by Gaddafis men by the looks of it either.

 

[Caustic Logic]

So, I'm confused. Was there actually no local movement trying to break free of Gadaffi? Was Gadaffi not actually ordering the slaughter of said movement and anyone in their general vicinity? Did the world press, who usually love to make the USA look bad, make up the stories of Gadffi's soldiers killing civilians?

I'm not trying to be confrontational here, I'm just confused about the facts. Is the general argument that NATO should have simply sat back and let whatever happened in Lybia happen?

Ooh, help the confused! There was absolutely a minority of Libyns who for their reasons despised Gaddafi as much as the West or more. They planned in advance to bebel in February. They reportedly talked, in France, with defector Nouri al-Mesmari. Here's his ad their story:

Oct. 20 2010 - Mesmari flies off to Tunisia, with his immediate family, for "health reasons" (heart-related).
Oct. 21 - The family is in France, reports Maghreb Confidential.
Nov. 28 - Libya issues an arrest warrant for Mesmari, for embezzlement of state funds. He's put under house arrest the next day.
Dec. 12 - An alleged meeting is held, in Paris, between al-Mesmari and three high-level members of the opposition February 17 movement.
Dec. 15 - He's released for irregularities, making his detention illegal, and housed at liberty on the state dime in a fancy hotel.
Feb 5 - Gaddafi’s son Moatassim returns alone after a week in Paris trying to presuade Mesmari to come back to Libya
Feb 1-16: The regime launches pre-emptive arrests of protest leaders (including the three who reportedly met Mesmari) and February 17 leader Jamal al Hajj, who had called for the uprising to happen.
Feb 15 - Protests begin two days ahead of the called-for "Day of Rage," marking a Benghazi uprising 15 years earlier. Violence flares from the start, with police stations and such attacked. Predictably, the state cracks down with counter-violence in numerous cities. Regime change wouldn't happen the way it did in Tunisia and Egypt.
Feb 18-22 - "Protesters" somehow seize all cities on the northeast coast and several cities in the west. They vow to topple the regime and, ideally, to kill Gaddafi.
Feb 22 - In protest, Mesmari formally resigns and joins the rebels, from Paris, on live TV. It's his first public appearance. As he said to al Jazeera on the 27th, complaining of the later defectors and resignations:

Agreements made of air support if the people on the ground got things started? Who knows. But with great confisence, they attacked bases and stole weapons, and some were martyred in the process. They were called protesters. Eventually weapons were secured, cities attacked, half the country under their control, and then the outside support...

So no, no orders to slaughter civilians. The rebels made up the stories, and the media - who love to make Gaddafi look bad, just believed and repeated the reports which "cannot be independently confirmed."

Help any?

 

[Caustic Logic]

At least the revolution started first before NATO intervened, (unlike the sequence of events in Iraq). Wasn't the initial reason for intervening because the people in power were slaughtering the people in the rebellion?

Yes! And no one's been able to prove that happened! These guys had iPhones all over, but never filmed simple protesters shot while just protesting. The government there said they were attacking bases and police stations to steal weapons. There's no video to show that wrong, and some deaths are verifiably from the area of a base in Benghazi (the Katiba). And thy did wind up with a lot of weapons they said came from defectors, but the defectors aren't usually seen. Though there were apparently some defections of this type, in most cases I'm pretty sure it was thievery, with the guarding soldiers killed (like at the Katiba).

 

[Caustic Logic]

I suspect post 75 will be ignored or some CT nonsense used to deny it. Not the only killings by Gaddafis men by the looks of it either.

I'll ignore it only by skipping to your reference. I do have some "CT nonsense" in fact.

By the looks of it, they were burned. Earlier burning found in the path of arsonist rebels who were seen once burning alive foreign workers from Chad, were always blamed, by the rebels and the media on Gaddafi. In that way, these look similar.

I've mentioned these other killings above (supposed to be its own thread), an ongoing slaughter of people inside and around Gaddafi's compound. I'm compiling them here:
http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2011/08/tripoli-massacres.html

Haven't got to this new story yet, but a reader tipped me off. So far we have probably over 400 dead people discovered as rebels push forward. Some are clearly Gaddafi fighters and supporters, tied up and executed. Others do look mre clearly like gov. work - they were inside a prison, about 150, killed with guns and grenades. Luckily one guy escaped and told the world... Others are more mysterious. A hospital was stuffed with probably 150 dead, its staff, just gone. (One doctor was seen floating in a canal). One rebel doctor lazes around here, not helping anyone of the gravely injured there (mostly black men), but just showing the world Gaddafi's horrors. Because of where they were found.

After the rebels were there too. The rebels are known to execute prisoners, mutilate the dead, dump the evidence, and blame Gaddafi. They're not known for these things by most people, or by anyone much here, but by those who follow up. They're also not known to do this widely, just in some cases, with others only suspected, based on the scant evidence made available.

I'm deeply troubled by these horror stories and taking them seriously. Anyone with informed thoughts to help the investigation, one way or another, can freely leave comments at my post linked above. Anything helpful helps.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I suppose this didn't happen either.

The charred skeletons of more than 50 people have been found in a farm outbuilding in Khalet al Forjan, just outside a military camp near the Libyan capital Tripoli.


Denial denial...

So what's up with bombing neighborhoods? Can you give me any direct response where you stand on that now? I understand there are many, many, many other alleged crimes, some likely true, that you can dodge around and hide behind. I can shoot some of them down with ease, but I tire of the chase.

So quit dancing around. Did Gaddafi order the bombing of neighborhoods? Based on ANY evidence or just something you're sure of, deep in your heart?

 

[JihadJane]

They hate our fweedoms.

“With each newly minted crisis, US leaders roll out the same time-tested scenario. They start demonizing a foreign leader … charging them with being communistic or otherwise dictatorial, dangerously aggressive, power hungry, genocidal, given to terrorism or drug trafficking, ready to deny us access to vital resources, harboring weapons of mass destruction, or just inexplicably “anti-American” and “anti-West.” Lacking any information to the contrary, the frightened public … are swept along.”

- Michael Parenti

 

[little grey rabbit]

I suppose this didn't happen either.

The charred skeletons of more than 50 people have been found in a farm outbuilding in Khalet al Forjan, just outside a military camp near the Libyan capital Tripoli.


Denial denial...

Pardalis, how do we not know they were not bodies of Government fighters killed by NATO in the last furious assaults on Tripoli as the rebels swept in.

Either burnt by the loyalists because they were decomposing and there were no funeral services operating.

Or burnt by the rebels because it was the easiest way to cover up the cause of death.

At the moment the main "proof" seems to be an old man standing outside saying he miraculously managed to escape from the warehouse massacre but his three sons didn't. Which is 101 from the CIA and MI6 handbook of hate propaganda.

Although nothing would surprise me less if there were killings of prisoners, since many of the loyalists expect to be killed themselves. The Independent newspaper in London (Russian owned) is also provided reports of revenge killings of Gaddafi supporters. Such is the inevitable result if you embark on a policy of starting a civil war in a country formerly at peace.

I think it would be a plausible that these bodies in an army barracks could have resulted from NATO air attacks, but let there be no doubt: that NATO air attacks MUST have resulted in many many scenes that look identical to what is in that warehouse. For Pardalis, no doubt these were people who deserved to die and he is very happy to see it given to them.

But one thing is for sure, the international media will not be showing us the dead bodies of NATO bombing missions - unless they can in some way be manipulated into being Gaddafi atrocities.

Just as the international media concealed clips of a Benghazi mob beheading live, trussed up soldiers in the main square. It doesn't fit the narrative.

 

[Travis]

Sometimes a dictator is actually not a good guy.

 

[RandFan]

Sometimes a dictator is actually not a good guy.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Just as the international media concealed clips of a Benghazi mob beheading live, trussed up soldiers in the main square. It doesn't fit the narrative.

Agreed on all, but for that - we only see one apparent soldier ('mercenary," captured in Bin Jawad, late March. The prisoners were rolled in the night of March 28 (video), and by March 30, RT Arabic was showing the video of the one dead guy (I'm pretty sure - no fight in him, just swinging with the blows) having his head hacked off. Three views of this one from that sea of cameras, none of the other "mercenaries."

So, this happened well after the initial chaos of February. Also, he's hanging on the front wall of the court house that I gather was the NTC headquarters and media center, where many lies about mercenaries originated. Imaging a bloody racist beheading on the White House lawn. Libya Hurrah!

 

[Caustic Logic]

Sometimes a dictator is actually not a good guy.

True enough. Perhaps even in this case. Relevance to current situation?

Is being a "not good guy" good enough reason to keep making up (or believing made up) stories to "justify" bloody and anti-democratic "humanitarian" wars?

 

[Pardalis]

Breaking news, Qadhafi is still no longer the dictator of Libya.

Keep crying Caustic.

 

[RandFan]

True enough. Perhaps even in this case. Relevance to current situation?

Is being a "not good guy" good enough reason to keep making up (or believing made up) stories to "justify" bloody and anti-democratic "humanitarian" wars?

Loaded question. The point is that it's not always so black and white. FWIW: I didn't support the actions taken but I'm curious, how was the intervention anti-democratic? Also, didn't the Libyan people rise up? I mean, let's have some honesty here, the UN didn't launch an invasion against Libya. It was only after the people decided to oust Gadhafi and he, Moammar, decided to use weapons against his own people that the UN intervened. I'm really not sure how that is anti-democratic.