Tuesday, November 08, 2011

American media and the Libyan Lie.

The New York Times has a fluff piece entitled Sleeping in Gaddafi's Bedroom.

The 'reporter' describes as "a friend" a Libyan air force deserter "who used to be one of Gaddafi's Colonels in the Libyan Air force before fleeing." Apparently the 'reporter's' mother likes plunder too: "My mum would love a set of Gaddafi's tea cups," the 'reporter' tells us.

Hidden in the article is the fact that the villa was in fact rarely used by Gaddafi and is in fact not too luxurious, with fake leather sofas and a "tacky chandelier" and a lawn with sprinklers.

"I slept like a self-assured dictator" in Gaddafi's bed, this reporter tells us in closing.


Not to be outdone the Washington post has this ridiculous headline: Libyan women savor new freedoms after revolution.

In reality, sharia is being imposed, polygamy is being reinstated, the veil is becoming mandatory.

Meanwhile other media are more honest:

Residents said brigades from faraway Misrata had appeared at their doorstep a week ago, breaking into people's homes and looking for Gaddafi loyalists.

Dozens of young men have disappeared and four have been killed in detention, said Al Koni Salem Mohammad, the uncle of one of those killed.

Speaking at a mourning ceremony on the edge of town, he shook with grief as he showed the death certificate listing "electric shocks" as a cause of death. He said the body had been dumped outside the detention centre with its tongue and genitals cut off.

"After all this, our children and the children of our children will never be with this revolution," he said, bursting into tears and shaking his fist, as other men in traditional dress sat in the shade of a tent set up for the mourning period.

"If this does not stop there will be a reaction. Any build-up of pressure leads to an explosion ... There is a lot of anger. Doesn't the government have an army to handle this?"

Or this from the Australian.

"Mafia," says the member of the family who fought as a rebel, describing the behaviour of the militias. "This is just like the mafia in Colombia or Russia," he says. "Gaddafi was horrible, but I never knew of him capturing the relative of somebody if they could not find the person they wanted. They would have just kept looking. And I never heard of them threatening to take children."

..

The man who escaped from the rebels has returned home but fears they will return. He says he knows of one case where a man was taken away on suspicion he had been a Gaddafi supporter and was then beaten to death. The rebels telephoned his parents the next day to say the man had become ill in custody and died.

..

At present, however, revenge clearly prevails over rehabilitation. There is a growing list of human rights abuses by the Misratah brigades.

The latest atrocity linked to the rebels is the discovery of 53 bodies of Gaddafi fighters on the lawns of a hotel in Sirte, Gaddafi's home town and the place where he was captured. The bodies were found with their hands tied and gunshots to the head.

In one case the rebels beat to death a mentally ill man because he would not - or could not - give them the password of a walkie-talkie he was carrying. In another case, an African man was whipped as he was forced to run around a courtyard, then told to climb a pole while shouting, "Monkey needs a banana".

..

One pregnant woman who went for a check-up was told at the government-run hospital: "We don't treat Tawerghans here."

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Meanwhile the darlings of NATO are shooting up hospitals.

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