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I'm in no way condoning what happened, but do you really think that had a bunch of armed New Yorkers got hold of Osama bin Laden (rather than professional soldiers) they wouldn't have done as bad or worse before they killed him?Quote:
Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump
The professional soldiers killed him although he was unarmed, the Lybians didn't do thatQuote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
The Rodney King incident shows what some police will do to a suspect, so yes, I imagine the only difference between what the Lybians did and what the New Yorkers would have done was opportunity.
~:smoking:
Yes, well I for one would not have wanted to be a Loyalist American Officer during the Revolution facing New York's Liberty Boys.Quote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
Whilst no fan of extra-judicial killings, one would expect that extraction of that individual would have proven difficult, especially since they had lost a helicopter and the element of surprise. I feel relatively sure that it would have proven politically inconvenient to have released him on police bail.Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
And I lost a good friend to the tender mercies of the IRA when his cover was blown. The point being that it's not specifically a Libyan or American or British failing to inflict suffering on a captured enemy especially when that person is the perpetrator of wickedness. We're all a tortured sister from being "savages".Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
One can certainly hope for better behaviour, but we in the West have rather let the side down as exemplars in recent times.
Yes, it's worth pointing out that certain "violent men" who were once considered permenantly unclean are now politicians or even elder statesmen, and I am not thinking just of Ireland.Quote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
Ah, yes, bring Bin Laden into it. I'm sure he was sodomized as well.
My point is that these movements we all watch, and support (either directly or indirectly) have a very ugly side that shows what things are to come. I realize it does not necessarily reflect the people of the region as a whole, but it's not like they didn't know the rest of the world wanted to see the man put on trial. He could have been a bastion of information. Even Saddam Husseins execution turned out to be a tacky debacle. I seem to recall a blonde tv reporter who was sexually assualted in Egypt by jubilant savages for no reason other than being an uncovered female and a "jew." That movement is turning out great, by the way.
The people who did that to ghadafi were savages. Insterting a blade into the rectum of a wounded man you just captured ensures nothing will change my mind about that.
You're wrong about one important thing, the violence of a few revolutionaries does not indicate the direction of a revolution, that depends on the vision and force of personality at those at the top. During your revolution Patriots lynched, butcherd and tortured Loyalists on a regular basis, not just combatants but Colonial officals as well. America has a selective historical memory because its present does not reflect that past.Quote:
Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump
We'd make more progress in the discussion if you actually read my post. I made the distinction between the execution of bin Laden by professional soldiers and the likely treatment he would have received if captured by a mob of New Yorkers. I doubt if the latter situation would have seen bin Laden handed over to the International Criminal Court.Quote:
Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump
I don't disagree with your view, but rather take some exception to the characterisation of these people as "savages". Undisciplined mobs will usually seek rough justice against a hated dictator and whilst this may well be savagery, there are few men who would withstand the urge for summary vengeance. I don't think the rest of the world did want to see Gaddafi put on trial, particularly the politicians - it would have been a long trial of multiple embarrassments for them. His tawdry death served more than just an atavistic justice. We shall see whether Saif al-Islam makes it to trial from Niger.Quote:
Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump
I sometimes wonder what I would have done to the man who murdered my daughter had I been given the chance. Savage might have described it. Gaddafi did a lot worse, and to a lot more people. Of course I would wish the rules of law had applied, but I can understand why it did not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump
I'm very well aware of America's selective memory, perhaps more than most. That does not mean I necessarily approve of what happened to Ghadaffi, or Bin Laden, or Hussein for that matter. It does not also mean I am unaware of or approve of bad things done by other militaries, including my own.
The rebels F'd up. Bad. Now we will never get to hear Ghadaffi's legal defense, which may have very well unearthed skeletons from the rebels closets as well. It shouldn't have happened. He should still be alive.
The rebels did a damn good job. The ensured that there was no blowback, rather like how I am almost certain those after Bin Laden were given "Kill, no capture" orders. Who wants to hear stories of CIA backing Bin Laden from an American court? The Rebels don't have the ability or funds to stick him in an off site prison with no access to media or lawyers.
~:smoking:
Pretty interesting clip from an old BBC peice on Qaddafi from 1976. Specifically, skip to 8:00 to hear his thoughts on foreign intervention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIiR...eature=related
Of course he would have. There was a $25 million bounty on his head. He may have looked a little like Richard Reed when he got there though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
Not that anyone cares, but the amount of blood on NATO's hands continues to grow.
Quote:
Armed militias now rule much of Libya, Amnesty International said Wednesday, accusing them of torturing detainees deemed loyal to the ousted regime of Moammar Gadhafi and driving entire neighborhoods and towns into exile.
Amnesty International quoted detainees as saying "They had been suspended in contorted positions; beaten for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains and bars, and wooden sticks and given electric shocks with live wires and taser-like electroshock weapons."
At least 12 detainees had died since September after torture, Amnesty said. "Their bodies were covered in bruises, wounds and cuts and some had had nails pulled off," the group said.
The report is a fresh blow to Libya's new government, the National Transitional Council, which helped lead the anti-Gadhafi uprising that broke out one year ago this week and spiraled into a brutal, eight-month civil war.
Since the war's end with the capture and killing of Gadhafi last October, the NTC has struggled to extend its control over the vast desert nation. It has largely failed to rein in the hundreds of brigades that fought in the war, many of which now run their own detention centers for those accused of links to Gadhafi's regime.
Amnesty said it visited 11 detention camps in central and western Libya in January and February, and found evidence of torture and abuse at all but one.
"Nobody is holding these militias responsible," Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser at Amnesty International, told The Associated Press by telephone from Jordan on Wednesday, a day after she left Libya.
The U.N.'s top human rights official, and Amnesty International, have urged Libya's government to take control of all makeshift prisons to prevent further atrocities against detainees.
"There's torture, extrajudicial executions, rape of both men and women," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Jan. 27.
And if you thought they couldn't be more brutal:Quote:
Some of the militia reprisals are against dark-skinned Libyans and African contract workers who the Gadhafis had brought in for jobs ranging from construction to security and riot control, leading to attacks on so-called "mercenaries" during the uprising.
"African migrants and refugees are also being targeted and revenge attacks are being carried out," Amnesty said. "Entire communities have been forcibly displaced and authorities have done nothing to investigate the abuses and hold those responsible to account."
The violence took on an ethnic twist. "It's hunting down 'the other,'" Rovera told the AP. "They're wreaking havoc in the community."
Amnesty said that militias from Misrata "drove out the entire population of Tawargha, some 30,000 people, and looted and burned down their homes in revenge for crimes some Tawargha are accused of having committed during the conflict."
"Thousands of members of the Mashashya tribe were similarly forced out of their village by militias from Zintan, in the Nafusa Mountains. These and other communities remain displaced in makeshift camps around the country," Amnesty said.
Hooray for freedom... :shrug:Quote:
The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in prisons in Misrata in late January because it said torture was so rampant that some detainees were brought for care only to make them fit for further interrogation and abuse.
I care, and I'm getting a serious case of buyer's remorse right about now...Quote:
Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger
It makes me mad that they begged for us to intervene to save them from Ghadafi, just so they could turn around and act even worse.
Oh geez I'm amazed
So, for the time being, we went from torture before to torture after. Blood on their hands? You should have a job at a royal court.Quote:
Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger
One big tyrant replaced with a dozen smaller ones. Sorta like an anti-trust legislation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viking
Do you mind explaining what you mean by that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Viking
We backed the right horse, it just didn't win the face.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
You forgot ethnic cleansing, foreign militias and various tribes acting independently killing randomly. All the experts who don't get asked by the -still high on their own invention called the arab spring- quality media warned this would happenQuote:
Originally Posted by Viking
Is it ignorant to suggest that many islamic countries just are not advanced/enlightened enough to build themselves up at this point in time?
I don't necessarily feel that way, but the arab spring has turned out be one big dud from what I can tell. How do you go from fighting tyranny to supporting genocide?
The Arab spring was never what the news media led you to believe it was, really it just happened that some educated students and unemployed young people had the same goal as many government insiders.
However to back the old horses would have not worked either, so the docket didnt win just have to check the form again.
well...winter always comes after spring.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy
this isn´t surprising at all....I said as much back when this mess was getting started.
We got to test live fire weaponry, destroy loads of stockpiles of weapons including chemical weapons for low to no loss - and were thanked for it. That's a win in my book.
Who cares what the Libyans do after that? Europe took advantage of something and made its back yard slightly safer. If they want to kill each other, so be it. They're a sovereign state.
~:smoking:
I have serious doubts about the parts in bold....time will tell.Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
The former I don't think we had any casualties in the conflict, and I am making the assumption that our troops are out of the area. In this conflict, there was no chance for Americans to inflict friendly fire casualties as so few were on the ground.
The latter, seeing as how Libya in the past gave Semtex to the IRA things will be safer - for us. As long as they are busy squabbling and killing each other they'll be kept busy.
~:smoking:
Well, firstly, I would agree with this:Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
Secondly, I think it's naive and plain wrong to be thinking about this issue in terms of advanced/enlightened, or not. What we really mean by "enlightened" is "Westernised" but Islamic thought was and remains more complex and "advanced" in some areas.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy
Thirdly, what we are seeing in Libya is the natural endgame for Civil War once the dictator has been overthrown. There are more peacable, more honourable, and more democratically inclined people in the country but they will need time to get a grip on things over there. This will happen provided there is local support, even Somalia is dragging itself back up to the light finally.
Fourthly, Syria is doeing worse right now, has had more people die, but will still end up in the same place as Libya after all is said and done.
So, basically nothing's changed.
Maybe we should stop looking at them with western eyes, all these nation-states are artificial constructions, and what we always forget: power doesn't negotiate over there, you either have it and hang on to it any means necesary, or you simply don't have itQuote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name