Libya and racism/paranoia

leftysergeant said:
Kind of hard to say in the case of the Arab-looking peiople being interogated, but that big black guy did not look or sound like a native Arabic speaker and some of the Arab-looking suspects may have been speaking a different dialect of using a slightly different pronunciation and rythm. Red flags to mark possible mercs.

Sorry, but I cannot find it in me to get worked up over the death of a few mercenaries. There are a bunch of them operating under contracxt with the US DoD of whom I would like to see the world liberated.
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Just wanted to revive this discussion, which I've looked into more. Lefty, do you feel these look like rebels killing Gaddafi's people then? And did the second half seem to match the first? That is, are the three they identify correct as being part of the nine in the interrogation?

Because it seems likely, if so, that this is relevant. The after video, without the before, is the same one widely re-posted as the Gaddafi-executed al-Baida massacre. Where some unknown number of Gaddafi loyalists bound and shot 130 mutinous soldiers and mercs for refusing to shoot protesters.In the early days, this 130 accounted for most of the 230 deaths reported in the Benghazi area, that col. Gaddafi was responsible for, but "strangely" refused to acknowledge with his different numbers.

I started a thread to discuss this if you're curious, but ghetoized it in CT forum.
 
Virus said:
Lot of racism in that part of the world. Tribes hate each other for having lighter or darker skin. The immigrant workers that do the jobs the Libyans consider beneath them are viewed as peasant scum.
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LOL......
 
DC said:
I don't know
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That's a better answer by far than most have given.

I got a slight kick out of the radical conspiracy theory interpretation at the Signs of the Times forum. 9/11 no-planes, holocaust denial, and in this case, unquestioning acceptance of the "official story":
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/224862-130-Libyan-soldiers-executed-for-mutiny

No one has ever explained what evidence there is to support that notion that Gaddafi's own people killed 130 of its own people. The only thing generally cited is a finding by the International Federation for Human Rights, back on Feb. 23.
Paris - At least 640 people have been killed in Libya in protests against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi since they started last week, the International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) said on Wednesday.

The figure is more than double the official Libyan government toll of 300 dead, and includes 275 dead in Tripoli and 230 dead in the protest epicentre in the eastern city of Benghazi, the IFHR's Souhayr Belhassen told AFP.

The Benghazi toll includes "130 soldiers who were executed by their officers in Benghazi for refusing to fire on crowds" of protesters, she said.
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http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Libya-130-soldiers-executed-20110223

No word I can find on what convinced them to include this number among those killed by the government. The best I've seen is what the rebels who "Found" them said, and that very odd "dying soldier" who explains that "Muammar sent us" but isn't visibly wounded at all, and not there at all in other versions. (see the other thread for details).
 
FireGarden said:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-mercenaries-20110305,0,5517806.story

Black people are being suspected of being mercenaries with what looks like very little evidence.
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As I bump, I must say for March, that was ahead of the curve. The problem is real, and continues unabated even now. And only now does CNN finally give it a slot with a re-run of Channel 4's recent footage, and a spot-on interview with a lady from Amnesty Int'l:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDRbdXp0Du4
As said there, it's a bad time to be a black man in Libya. Has been for six months now and running. Here's a video I made (graphic and disturbing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgbJp6fiAu8

I also put together some refutations of the mercenary meme (along with accusations and implications) here, though there is a little ambiguity I'm learning since then (that is, update needed) - there are at least some volunteer Turegs from Niger as of May, and then some workers already in Libya pressed into fighting after NATO killed a good chunk of their previous forces. But back in February - just vicious and grandiose rumors that were highly criminal and led to perhaps thousands of deaths of innocent black men.

With these and other unsavory rebel proclivities invited into city after city, and now Tripoli, are peace-keepers needed in Libya to protect the innocent? Or should we let it sort itself out?
 
Arab society in general, though of course with exceptions and in varying levels, tends to be very racist by western standards; insulting someone as a Jew, or as Black (and thus a "natural" slave), or as some other kind of foreigner, is quite common. Still, things seem to be changing and modernizing. But naturally during danger and fighting people, Arabs included, show their worst side.
 
Skeptic said:
Arab society in general, though of course with exceptions and in varying levels, tends to be very racist by western standards; insulting someone as a Jew, or as Black (and thus a "natural" slave), or as some other kind of foreigner, is quite common. Still, things seem to be changing and modernizing. But naturally during danger and fighting people, Arabs included, show their worst side.
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Yes, slavery of blacks was only abolished in Saudi Arabia in, what, 1969? And so on.

Thing is, Libya has/had its own thing within that millieu. And whatever else good or bad came of this war, these black men didn't come to Libya to die. They came to work or to pass through to Europe, and under the old conditions, were able to do so in peace. Now, as you say, things are changing. Now that freedom has come to Libya, the people are exercising their perceived right to lynch brutally the foreign and Libyan men they capture like animals, display them across the hoods of their trucks, even burning them alive in some cases.

Treating mercenaries this way is not right, IMO. And these guys weren't even mercenaries.
 
MEMRI has very interesting interviews (#3096 and #3097).

I hate to say the phrase "cautiously optimistic" -- it usually means "I am about to be proven totally wrong and things are going to blow up in my face" -- but the interesting thing about these interviews is that the Libyan rebels are acknowledging the existence of Al Quaeda etc. in Libya, only claiming they are a minority and that they do not support them.

Usually "cover" groups pretend they are totally moderate, and the whole accusation is "baseless zionist propaganda" or the like. They rarely acknowledge any problems.

So, maybe -- maybe! -- a possible good start to a new Libya. But who knows, with the Arab world's record...
 
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