Libya - civil unrest & now NATO involvement

[Ibn Khaldoun]

there were of course reports months ago about his use of mercenaries

Nigeria and Chad, and countries as far apart as Columbia, Syria and Russia too. All this being 'African mercenaries' is a distortion of Gaddafi's widely-thrown financial resources against the rebellion.

 

[BlackArab]

Nigeria and Chad, and countries as far apart as Columbia, Syria and Russia too. All this being 'African mercenaries' is a distortion of Gaddafi's widely-thrown financial resources against the rebellion.

Are Colombian, Syrians and Russians being lynched too?

 

[Lock&Light]

Are Colombian, Syrians and Russians being lynched too?

Is there any evidence for lynchings?

 

[BlackArab]

Strange that when Arabs are being perceived to being oppressed by Israel or any Western countries, the world screams blue murder, however when it's the Arabs are doing the oppressing there is silence.

 

[BlackArab]

Is there any evidence for lynchings?

yes

 

[Lock&Light]

I've seen no evidence for wide-spread lynchings.

 

[BlackArab]

I've seen no evidence for wide-spread lynchings.

very clever to include the 'wide-spread this time', are you a lawyer or just just an apologist for Arab racism?

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant Libya.

 

[Lock&Light]

I have seen plenty of evidence for wide-spread killing of rebel prisoners by Gaddafi forces.

 

[BlackArab]

I have seen plenty of evidence for wide-spread killing of rebel prisoners by Gaddafi forces.

I was starting to worry about your eyesight, now I know you're choosing what it is exactly you want to see.

 

[Pickman's model]

I was starting to worry about your eyesight, now I know you're choosing what it is exactly you want to see.

 

[elbows]

I have seen plenty of evidence for wide-spread killing of rebel prisoners by Gaddafi forces.

Most of the reports of people found dead with their hands tied have been very ambiguous about the perpetrators, but strong hints have often pointed at rebel forces. More often than not its tended not to be rebels that have been found dead for a start. And when we first started to see scenes like this in the early weeks of Benghazi uprising, rebel explanations that these were Gaddafi troops that the Gaddafi regime executed for not following orders to kill Libyans were impossible to verify and could easily be seen as unconvincing bullshit. I can't say for sure either way, assumptions not wise in this climate.

There was quite a bit of talk about people being disappeared in Tripoli during the initial uprising in certain districts there, I hope we learn more about this as time goes on. Away from the battlefields, I don't think there is all that much indication that the regime were doing a lot of killing, at least not behind closed doors, but horror may yet lurk undiscovered. Certainly quite a number of people seem to have been languishing in jail rather than having been executed quickly by the regime, but this is only a preliminary observation on my part.

 

[Lock&Light]

From the BBC:

1720:

An imam at the first Friday prayers in Tripoli since it fell to the rebels said they had "liberated the land inch by inch, house by house, alley by alley," using a well-known phrase from a Gaddafi speech against the uprising, says AP. Worshippers laughed or shouted "Allahu Akbar" in response.

 

[Lock&Light]

Most of the reports of people found dead with their hands tied have been very ambiguous about the perpetrators, but strong hints have often pointed at rebel forces. More often than not its tended not to be rebels that have been found dead for a start. And when we first started to see scenes like this in the early weeks of Benghazi uprising, rebel explanations that these were Gaddafi troops that the Gaddafi regime executed for not following orders to kill Libyans were impossible to verify and could easily be seen as unconvincing bullshit. I can't say for sure either way, assumptions not wise in this climate.

There was quite a bit of talk about people being disappeared in Tripoli during the initial uprising in certain districts there, I hope we learn more about this as time goes on. Away from the battlefields, I don't think there is all that much indication that the regime were doing a lot of killing, but horror may yet lurk undiscovered. Certainly quite a number of people seem to have been languishing in jail rather than having been executed quickly by the regime, but this is only a preliminary observation on my part.

The BBC have reported at least one prison where prisoners were taken into the yard and shot. One surviver was interviewed. There have been other reports from other sources.

 

[elbows]

The BBC have reported at least one prison where prisoners were taken into the yard and shot. One surviver was interviewed. There have been other reports from other sources.

I'm sure its quite possible. But words and eyewitness reports have lost considerable value in this conflict, need to see where the bodies are buried.

 

[London_Calling]

Yep, one side is lovely and the other is evil - can't we tone down the western liberal emotional investment just a tad.

 

[elbows]

I really would like to know the scale of the crackdown in Tripoli in the early weeks. I've got no idea how many died in the street, how many were disappeared, and how many of those are now accounted for.

I may have got my uprisings muddled, but I seem to recall that at a delicate moment in Tripoli early on, the internet came back for a while 'faster than ever' in Tripoli after being off for a while. One possibility is that this was an intelligence-gathering trap, and I wonder how many suffered as a result of this, or unguarded comments on the phone or to neighbours, and what their fate was.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Thirty Gaddafi fighters found dead at Tripoli camp

Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:19pm GMT

TRIPOLI Aug 25 (Reuters) - More than 30 men believed to be fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have been killed at a military encampment in central Tripoli and at least two were bound with plastic handcuffs, indicating they had been executed.

A Reuters reporter at the scene in the Libyan capital said he counted 30 bodies riddled with bullets in an area where there had been fighting between Gaddafi forces and rebels.
Five of the dead were at a field hospital nearby, with one in an ambulance strapped to a gurney with an intravenous drip still in his arm.

 

[Lock&Light]

There will undoubtably have been atrocities committed by both sides.

 

[elbows]

The latest one is even more grim.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14687658

More than 200 decomposing bodies have been found abandoned at a hospital in a district of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that has seen fierce fighting.
A BBC correspondent found corpses of men, women and children on beds and in the corridors of Abu Salim's hospital.
Doctors and nurses fled after clashes erupted nearby between rebel forces and those loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Some residents accused the regime of murdering those at the hospital, but it is not yet clear how exactly they died.

 

[dylans]

There is now no water or electricity in Tripoli

 

[dylans]

I've seen no evidence for wide-spread lynchings.

The Independent is reporting mass killings of black people and loyalist troops

They had taken place at a makeshift hospital, in a tent marked clearly with the symbols of the Islamic Crescent. Some of the dead were on stretchers, attached to intravenous drips. Some were on the back of an ambulance that had been shot at. A few were on the ground, seemingly attempting to crawl to safety when the bullets came.

Around 30 men lay decomposing in the heat. Many of them had their hands tied behind their back, either with plastic handcuffs or ropes. One had a scarf stuffed into his mouth. Almost all of the victims were black men. Their bodies had been dumped near the scene of two of the fierce battles between rebel and regime forces in Tripoli.

"Come and see. These are blacks, Africans, hired by Gaddafi, mercenaries," shouted Ahmed Bin Sabri, lifting the tent flap to show the body of one dead patient, his grey T-shirt stained dark red with blood, the saline pipe running into his arm black with flies. Why had an injured man receiving treatment been executed? Mr Sabri, more a camp follower than a fighter, shrugged. It was seemingly incomprehensible to him that anything wrong had been done.

They were shooting at us and that is the reason they were killed," said Mushab Abdullah, a 35-year-old rebel fighter from Misrata, pointing at the bodies. "It had been really tough at Abu Salim, because these mercenaries know that, without Gaddafi to protect them, they are in big trouble. That is why they were fighting so hard."

His companion, Mohammed Tariq Muthar, counted them off on the fingers of his hand: "We have found mercenaries from Chad, Niger, Mali and Ghana, all with guns. And they took action against us.

But, if the men had been killed in action, why did they have their hands tied behind their back? "Maybe they were injured, and they had to be brought to this hospital and the handcuffs were to stop them from attacking. And then something went wrong," suggested Mr Abdullah.

By sundown the rebels appeared to have won the battle for the Abu Salim neighborhood, next to Gadhafi's captured Tripoli compound [...] Outside his Bab al-Aziziya compound, which rebels captured Tuesday, there was another grim scene — one that suggested mass, execution-style killings of civilians.

About two dozen bodies — some with their hands bound by plastic ties and with bullet wounds to the head — lay scattered on grassy lots in an area where Gadhafi sympathizers had camped out for months.

The identities of the dead were unclear, but they were in all likelihood activists who had set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with Gadhafi in defiance of the NATO bombing campaign.

http://uruknet.org/?p=m80839&hd=&size=1&l=e

Five or six bodies were in a tent erected on a roundabout that had served as a field clinic. One of the dead still had an IV in his arm, and another body was completely charred, its legs missing. The body of a doctor, in his green hospital gown, was found dumped in the canal.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-in-tripoli-rebels-settle-scores-2344671.html

NATO supposedly went into this war with a mandate to protect civilians and stop a blood bath in Benghazi. When that happened I asked the question. What happens when the rebels take Tripoli and Sirte and begin to massacre those loyal to the regime. Why is it unacceptable for Gaddafi to lay siege to Benghazi but it is ok for rebel forces to lay siege to Sirte? Why is it acceptable for rebel troops to mass tanks around Sirte but unacceptable for its defenders to resist? Where is NATO's mandate to "protect civilians" now?

 

[likesfish]

can't see if you were a mercenary you'd get any mercy.
considering the rebels are fairly disorganized can't see them in the position to set up POW camps. After Tripoli
fell continuing the fight seems to me to be pointless time to lose the uniform and do one.
Civil wars tend to be bloody affairs especially when a tryant falls those backing the wrong side often get killed

 

[Divisive Cotton]

this is a good photo:

 

[dylanredefined]

The Independent is reporting mass killings of black people and loyalist troops

http://uruknet.org/?p=m80839&hd=&size=1&l=e

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-in-tripoli-rebels-settle-scores-2344671.html

NATO supposedly went into this war with a mandate to protect civilians and stop a blood bath in Benghazi. When that happened I asked the question. What happens when the rebels take Tripoli and Sirte and begin to massacre those loyal to the regime. Why is it unacceptable for Gaddafi to lay siege to Benghazi but it is ok for rebel forces to lay siege to Sirte? Why is it acceptable for rebel troops to mass tanks around Sirte but unacceptable for its defenders to resist? Where is NATO's mandate to "protect civilians" now?

They chose to back a side in a war not umpire a game.Either way people are going to die just this way those who backed Gaddafi die.
Who are now in the minority.

 

[Idris2002]

There were reports of Gadaffi recruiting mercenaries from Black Africa: there were also reports of innocent African guest workers being targetted by people on the rebel side (see earlier posts in this thread, we covered this at the time).

Let's not jump to conclusions about who the massacre victims in the Indie report were, and what (if anything) they may have been guilty of.

And in general - start out using violence, and in short order, violence will be using you. No matter who you are, or what the justice of your cause might be.

 

[likesfish]

Once the rumor that Gaddafi was using black mercenaries got going its almost going to be impossible to but that rumor to rest.
Any Black African in libya between the ages of 12-65 is going to be walking around with a fucking target on there back

 

[Tankus]

Nice plane

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

sounds a bit mad in tripoli. no water, no power, dwindling medicine and food. ntc say we're getting on with it but bear with us. how long can 2million people wait i wonder?

 

[pocketscience]

Ok, so I've read the detailed reply but I'd still like to know how far the dictator would have to go, until you'd be for humanitarian intervention.

My objection to NATO involvement in Libya (or anywhere else) is not because such intervention is external in and of its self, its not an objection because it is foreign. It is because it is imperialism, not assistance. I reject the entire concept of humanitarian intervention

Time machine mode > Germany 1942:
Imagine if in Germany 1942, Hitler hadn't yet embarked on any of his excursions into foreign territories but, nevertheless been systematically driving millions to their deaths in concentration camps.
Where, in this imaginative scenario, today's communication technologies are also available and there's a 1942 version of wiki leaks, with young German whistle-blowers exposing the atrocities by uploadeding the anally compiled documentation.
Reading through the documents that had been linked to the 1942 version of Urban75, would you have argued against humanitarian intervention on the "Hitler Exposed" thread of the politics forum?

Time machine FFWD > Germany 1951 and the economic miracle - the "Wirtschaftswunder"
Feeling a little uncomfortable for not supporting the imperialists going in and crushing the tyrant responsible, who then go on to steer an industrial colony that would develop into a very successful economy with a high average standard of living?

There is no free lunch so why invite the wolf to dinner

nevertheless I do see a difference between seeking assistance from the enemy of a foreign occupying power (such as Arabs or Irish seeking German assistance) and seeking the assistance of imperialist powers in a purely internal national democratic struggle.

This is where I don't get your stringent rules. They seem to overlap. I'm not buying this justification of alignment. Choosing the worst of two evils just on the basis that one has colonialised my land so I'll join up with a dictator that's invaded someone else's land.
The Irish wouldn't be too popular with the Poles, Czechs, Dutch, French, Russians and so on...

In the case of Arab or Irish nationalists, they were attempting to tempt the enemy of a foreign occupying power to support their struggle in order to pit one against another and weaken the hold of the nation occupying them.

So jumping back in the time machine, to the imaginary geopolitical playground and it's 1943, where the RA have managed to weaken the hold of the British so much that Hitler has swept through the Benelux states and strolled into the UK taking absolute control.
The British go underground to start a resistance against the Nazis.

The Irish meanwhile are nervously pondering the next part of the master plan.
What do the Irish do when they find out they don't really like the fucking Nazis?

Sure, it's possible that the NTC will find themselves the same position, it's also possible that the critical mass of the Libya people embrace the capitalist lifestyle that they're most likely to receive, now that Ghadiffi's been run out of town.

We'll have to wait and see.

 

[London_Calling]

Jesus, not the Nazis again. Is that really the best frame of reference you can come up with?