Retributive Murder by Libyan Revolutionaries? by AnthonyT

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Retributive Murder by Libyan Revolutionaries?

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Monday, August 29, 2011 06:41
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Thursday, August 25, 2011 8:20 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"At a nearby intersection, a dozen bodies lay in the sun, some of them with their hands bound. Rebel fighters say the men were executed by Gadhafi's retreating forces. But the bodies appear to be those of black Africans, who made up a large portion of the pro-Gadhafi forces, raising questions about whether the men may have been executed by the rebels."

Hello,

This sort of thing is almost always sure to happen during a revolution. It is lamentable, and I suspect it will be entirely overlooked.

It would gratify me if there was a world outcry against this sort of behavior, but I doubt there will be one. I think that Liberty is the first casualty of any war for Freedom. I wish there was a better way.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Friday, August 26, 2011 1:30 AM

FREMDFIRMA

While I find it lamentable as well, it's worth pointing out that these were what I consider enablers of tyranny, folks willing, even happy, to take orders which involved oppression, abuse, or murder, and execute them without qualms or balking.

Which means if you are fool enough to let them walk away, THEN WHAT.

Then they find some other sumbitch to take orders from, cause once they've "felt the power" of being tyrannys jackboot, the authority, money, so on and so forth, it's really, really rare for any of em to give it up, so they'll actively seek it out.
(Google Also: Gypsy Cops)

I find it as distasteful as you do, don't for a moment think otherwise, but I think it's downright necessary because history shows if you do not "clean house" then you *will* face these goons later with a new would-be tyrant behind them.

Preferably one should clean house by rule of law, toss these assholes in prison and try them for their crimes, but yeah there's always a certain inclination to cut out the middleman, sure - and these rebels aren't whatever the noble figures our press is trying to make them out as just cause we're supporting them no more than the fuckin Contras were.

With me though, it's one thing to be so psychologically/emotionally broken that you're willing to don the jackboots, but at some point in there, one can no longer claim ignorance, innocence - it becomes a choice, your choice.
And AT THAT POINT, if you don't walk away - you just crossed the line between sick, and evil, and have no claim to humanity in my eyes.

So while I find it repugnant, it is in a distant, coulda-done-that-better fashion without any sympathy whatever for these assholes.
(And not much for the other guys either, who seem to be cut from the same cloth if you ask me about it.)

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, August 26, 2011 1:47 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

If you can't get your hands on the guy responsible for shelling / bombing your village, your neighborhood, then getting your hands on those who supported him is the next best thing.

Human nature, I suppose. Happens time and time again, in war.

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Friday, August 26, 2011 8:21 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Given all they've been through at the hands of Ghadaffi's mercenaries, I UNDERSTAND the retaliation, and given this sort of thing happens in war, I understand that too, but that doesn't mean I don't find it unconscionable.

And it probably won't get any play OR any outcry; it's not that the rebels are the "good guys", it's that things like this DO happen and aren't that unusual. Hell, look at some of the things our guys did in 'Nam and Abu Grabe...glass houses and all that stuff. It's just one of those nasty human tendencies we need to evolve past (I'm not holding my breath).

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Saturday, August 27, 2011 7:51 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Just received confirmation that the rebels are rounding up supposedly pro-ghadafi civilians and executing them as well, using helpful lists no doubt provided by our own intel boys.

Your tax dollars at work.

Of course, I suspect those poor folks on the end of the gunbarrels mostly didn't give a rats about ghadafi one way or the other, but are just being eliminated as an object lesson, and the people on those lists are more than likely simply folks who would oppose exploitation of their country by foreign powers - the blood ain't even dry yet and the vultures are already there waving contracts.

Of course, you ain't gonna see those round ups and massacres on the news, just more propaganda and bullshit playing up these murderous thugs as icons of liberty, of course.

It ain't JUST that our tax dollars finance and enable such atrocities, it's that we steal the very lifeblood from the poorest of the poor to do it, to take from those who have so little, to enrich the elite, is a horror, and it is a horror that spawns atrocities in it's wake, leaving no doubt whatsoever about the nature of the thing.

As the christians say, by their fruits you shall know them, and what fruit has ever been reaped from the bitter sowings of our so-called protectors but misery ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 2:24 AM

DREAMTROVE

Reading around some of the international press, it seems that black is all you have to be to be a "suspect." Also, some references before the war began that we were aware we had allied ourselves with forces who might instigate a large scale pogram. Who exactly have we allied ourselves with this time?

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 5:14 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Who have we allied ourselves with THIS time?

Oh, someone who'll play footsie with our banks and corporations. That's what qualified Pinochet, Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Anastasio Somoza, Mubarak Let's hope that the new fearless leaders of Libya don't turn out to be yet another bunch of corrupt dictators, like Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 5:35 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

DT, I'm betting that's because most of the mercenaries he hired were from Africa, but nonetheless, how awful. Humans, bah; "the more I'm around humans, the more I like my dogs", or somesuch.

Am I being selfish to think "at least this time, it's not OUR GUYS doing it"--or at least not many? I remember the atrocities of 'Nam all too well (not to mention Abu Grabe, etc.).

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 7:06 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Just received confirmation that the rebels are rounding up supposedly pro-ghadafi civilians and executing them as well, using helpful lists no doubt provided by our own intel boys.

Your tax dollars at work.

I do not serve the Blind God.

Hello Frem,

I don't think the rebels need any help from us when choosing who to execute. These sorts of wars have a long history of such killings.

Our only blame lies in helping them defeat their enemies. We now bear some burden for what they do with their new freedom. We now must pray that they are better than the men they defeated. I think it will be hard to tell the difference.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 7:27 AM

DREAMTROVE

Sig, I concur. I think we want three things: Sign our trade treaties, WTO, MEFTA, etc., allow foreign ownership of assets, and then to hand us the oil.

I suspect there's some lobbyists in there who want recognition of Israel and things like that, but we seem jake to allow them to continue as they were on anything outside of these essentials.

I'm not going in the "Qadaffi was an evil bastard, but..." ritual rant that follows any US attack. I actually think we might have just deposed a halfway decent govt. He had a pretty strong stance for equality for women and minorities, and a pretty fair amount of decentralized "home rule" allowed for communities within Libya.

As for the new govt, once they sign on the dotted line, borrow themselves into debt with the IMF and World Bank and give us the oil, and they come to us and say "But we can still kill the blacks, right?" I suspect we'll say "We'll just pretend you didn't say that," but won't actually do anything about it.

Niki

Abu Ghraib

Anthony,

That's why I'm going to set up my society to have a maximum punishment of exile. That way when everything heads south, they'll just kick me out.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 7:58 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"That's why I'm going to set up my society to have a maximum punishment of exile. That way when everything heads south, they'll just kick me out."

Hello,

If everything heads south, no one will care what the 'maximum' punishment is.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 9:49 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
I don't think the rebels need any help from us when choosing who to execute. These sorts of wars have a long history of such killings.

Indeed, which is why I suspect the lists we gave em had more to do with folks who might be able to generate successful resistance to corporate exploitation, as a sort of nod and wink to the massacres, as we'll pretend not to know so long as they whack THESE people too.

Also it's becoming pretty obvious that these goons, like in much of history, don't really wanna cut the leash, so much as change which hand holds it, something also historically the case all too often.

Our enabling of this pisses me off, and given that we are not without our own atrocities, even today - what right do *WE* have to decide the fate of another country's government ?
How would you feel if some other country bombed the fuck out of america in order to loft these batshit rightwingnut dominionist crusader assholes into power in exchange for the right to loot our resources ?

And is there ANY doubt at all they'd commit their own massacres and pogroms, when we see them all but unapologetically drool over the very idea in public these days ?

Oh how bout this, if some country did that to america and you had the chance to bomb THEM in retailiation....
And people wonder where terrorism comes from, as if it ain't bloody fuckin obvious such happens to the be the direct and resultant consequences of shit like this.

Of course, the alphabet boys can't be said not to care, for without the ever-present threat to hold up in order to justify their existance, sucking all our blood and treasure into a pit from which nothing good ever flows... then they might have to explain why we have em, whether we need em.
And if you doubt for a moment that our own alphabet goons are not willing to deliberately create threats to justify their existence, might I remind you that's EXACTLY what the BATFE was doing in regards to the smuggling operation, obviously so despite weak excuses.

Ponder for a moment that if we had restricted our military and intel folk to defensive purposes, this kind of crap would be far less possible, far less feasible, and not so damn tempting.
(Microcosm of that was us stripping our local police of all those shiny and expensive toys that serve no useful law enforcement purpose - and lo and behold!, they've actually been DOING THEIR JOB instead of oppressing folk, whoda thunk it?)

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 6:09 PM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:

Hello,

If everything heads south, no one will care what the 'maximum' punishment is.

--Anthony

I disagree. I think society is based on this principle as much as many others. Many societies in the past have exiled their worst enemies, traitors and criminals rather than punish them, because it was the accepted maximum.

However, assembling the guillotine in the city square turned out to be a bad move for those who ordered it done.

The same is true with just about anything. If you set the bar to life in prison, expect to end up there. If you put rapists and torture chambers in those prisons, expect that also.

Another good model would be to make punishments financial, then you could buy your way out of collapse.

Notice that the only societies that collapse into cannibalism already had it at some level. Corporate boardrooms don't. The collapse into bankruptcy, because it's the worst thing they know.

I really think this holds true for society. We just live in a society of killers, that's why we would get killed.

The Amish wouldn't. They would shun.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 6:17 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:

Hello,

If everything heads south, no one will care what the 'maximum' punishment is.

--Anthony

I disagree. I think society is based on this principle as much as many others. Many societies in the past have exiled their worst enemies, traitors and criminals rather than punish them, because it was the accepted maximum.

However, assembling the guillotine in the city square turned out to be a bad move for those who ordered it done.

The same is true with just about anything. If you set the bar to life in prison, expect to end up there. If you put rapists and torture chambers in those prisons, expect that also.

Another good model would be to make punishments financial, then you could buy your way out of collapse.

Notice that the only societies that collapse into cannibalism already had it at some level. Corporate boardrooms don't. The collapse into bankruptcy, because it's the worst thing they know.

I really think this holds true for society. We just live in a society of killers, that's why we would get killed.

The Amish wouldn't. They would shun.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

Hello,

I feel that if everything goes south, then society collapses, and whatever maximums you set up can't be relied upon. Rules only work when not everything has gone south.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Sunday, August 28, 2011 7:22 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I think killing mercinaries who worked for your enemy is pretty standard fair, it might be unpleasant for civilian types, but its standard fair nonetheless. I hope it wasn't explicitly because they were African because that makes no sense to me, or anyone else with good sense. But killing civilians off of a "list" who might have been okay with the former regime is crossing the line, is over the line and I'm not okay with it, war or not. Obviously it will still happen whether I sanction it or not, but it isn't okay with me. And it doesn't sound like they're just killing a few to set an example either. I understand that new leaders do that, set an example by killing someone, like new bosses set an example by firing someone, its mean and nasty but it happens. But this is going too far. So goes the timeless struggle between men in the quest for power, it has happened before and it will happen again, on and on throughout the sands of time.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Monday, August 29, 2011 6:41 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

There's also the fact that it takes a lot of courage not to "return the favor" when things like this happen:

Quote:
Amnesty International said on Friday it had uncovered evidence that forces loyal to deposed Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi killed several detainees being held at two camps in Tripoli.

It said eyewitness testimony from escaped prisoners described how loyalist troops used grenades and gunfire on scores of detainees at one camp this week, while guards at the other shot dead five people being held in solitary confinement. http://news.yahoo.com/gaddafi-forces-killed-prisoners-says-amnesty-152
213119.html]

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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