Don't believe everything you see and read about Gaddafi (EFerrari)

[CC27]

EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Mon Jun-27-11 02:40 PM
Original message
Patrick Cockburn: Don't believe everything you see and read about Gaddafi
   
In the first months of the Arab Spring, foreign journalists got well-merited credit for helping to foment and publicise popular uprisings against the region's despots. Satellite TV stations such as Al Jazeera Arabic, in particular, struck at the roots of power in Arab police states, by making official censorship irrelevant and by competing successfully against government propaganda.

Regimes threatened by change have, since those early days, paid backhanded compliments to the foreign media by throwing correspondents out of countries where they would like to report and by denying them visas to come back in. Trying to visit Yemen earlier this year, I was told that not only was there no chance of my being granted a journalist's visa, but that real tourists – amazingly there is a trickle of such people wanting to see the wonders of Yemen – were being turned back at Sanaa airport on the grounds that they must secretly be journalists. The Bahrain government has an even meaner trick: give a visa to a journalist at a Bahraini embassy abroad and deny him entry when his plane lands.

snip

With so many countries out of bounds, journalists have flocked to Benghazi, in Libya, which can be reached from Egypt without a visa. Alternatively they go to Tripoli, where the government allows a carefully monitored press corps to operate under strict supervision. Having arrived in these two cities, the ways in which the journalists report diverge sharply. Everybody reporting out of Tripoli expresses understandable scepticism about what government minders seek to show them as regards civilian casualties caused by Nato air strikes or demonstrations of support for Gaddafi. By way of contrast, the foreign press corps in Benghazi, capital of the rebel-held territory, shows surprising credulity towards more subtle but equally self-serving stories from the rebel government or its sympathisers.

Ever since the Libyan uprising started on 15 February, the foreign media have regurgitated stories of atrocities carried out by Gaddafi's forces. It is now becoming clear that reputable human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been unable to find evidence for the worst of these. For instance, they could find no credible witnesses to the mass rapes said to have been ordered by Gaddafi. Foreign mercenaries supposedly recruited by Gaddafi and shown off to the press were later quietly released when they turned out to be undocumented labourers from central and west Africa.

snip

The Libyan insurgents were adept at dealing with the press from an early stage and this included skilful propaganda to put the blame for unexplained killings on the other side. One story, to which credence was given by the foreign media early on in Benghazi, was that eight to 10 government troops who refused to shoot protesters were executed by their own side. Their bodies were shown on TV. But Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser for Amnesty International, says there is strong evidence for a different explanation. She says amateur video shows them alive after they had been captured, suggesting it was the rebels who killed them.

more

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patri...

Now shes on her knees for him lol. 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1372265

[DefiantSix]

She just can't stand herself when she doesn't have an America-hating dictator to fellate, can she? 

[GCBill]

She just can't stand herself when she doesn't have an America-hating dictator to fellate, can she? 

Hugo's Honey: "That Gaddafi, what a great great guy!"

(with apologies to Gene Merollis)

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np6Hel6Z3Yw[/youtube]

[Vagabond]

Ghadaffi's an asshole.  He also seemed to have gotten the memo to not irritate us. 

The insurgents on the other hand? 20% of foreign fighters in Iraq came from western Libya.  They don't exactly merit our support.

[Skul]

Here ya go, Eyugo.
Isn't "The Hague" the final arbiter of all, when it comes to libs fantasies?


http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_international_court_libya

Intern'l judges order arrest of Moammar Gadhafi
  Play Video AFP  – Libyan rebels train to become security officers
 Play Video Video:African Union reiterates "deep concern" over Libya conflict AFP  Play Video Video:Awaiting a verdict on Gaddafi in Libya Reuters  AP – Libyan chant slogans against Moammar Gadhafi during a demonstration in the rebel-held capital Benghazi, … – Mon Jun 27, 7:36 am ET
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, his son and his intelligence chief for crimes against humanity in the early days of their struggle to cling to power.
Judges announced Monday that Gadhafi is wanted for orchestrating the killing, injuring, arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of civilians during the first 12 days of an uprising to topple him from power after more than four decades, and for trying to cover up the alleged crimes.

The warrants turn Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam Gadhafi and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi into internationally wanted suspects, potentially complicating any efforts to mediate an end to more than four months of intense fighting in the North African nation.

[jukin]

If Obama is against the guy, I'm willing to give him a second look.

I Shit. You. Not.

[Duke Nukum]

Hugo's future corpse is still warm and she's already hopping into bed with another oppressive dictator?

[thundley4]

If Obama is against the guy, I'm willing to give him a second look.

I Shit. You. Not.

The Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda are supporting the rioters against Ghadaffi, therefore Obama supports them.

[Boudicca]

Hugo's future corpse is still warm and she's already hopping into bed with another oppressive dictator?

She should stick to Cuba.  That way she'd be able to hop from Hugo's bed into Fidel's.

[sybilll]

So, which kneepad does Gaddafi's replace......Obama's or Chavez's? 

[Karin]

Is her boyfriend dead yet from that ass infection, or whatever it is?  She sure does have a thing for butt-ugly dictators, doesn't she?  I think maybe she really does fantasize about being the mistress of one; and for being in the circle of power in a socialist utopian totalitarian state.  Good luck with that, Beth. 

[Duke Nukum]

Is her boyfriend dead yet from that ass infection, or whatever it is?  She sure does have a thing for butt-ugly dictators, doesn't she?  I think maybe she really does fantasize about being the mistress of one; and for being in the circle of power in a socialist utopian totalitarian state.  Good luck with that, Beth. 

Cuban medicine is so good, Castro is currently cloning a new body for Hugo's consciousness.