by Stephen Lendman
Wherever it goes, NATO slaughters, ravages, lays waste, incinerates, contaminates, devastates, conquers, colonizes, plunders, exploits, impoverishes and immiserates.
Libya is its latest victim.
It’s now a hellish inferno thanks to NATO and its rebel gangs, unleashed to commit mass murder with impunity.
NATO calls it humanitarian intervention responsibility to protect. It’s Orwellian doublespeak for war – for Libyans, without mercy to destroy another independent state.
For America, Britain and France, it’s for another imperial trophy.
For Libyans, it turned their world upside down through the barrel of a gun.
They call it naked aggression, mass slaughter, and turning Africa’s most developed state into a dystopian nightmare.
It’s why people of conscience say never forgive or forget.
Watch the Libya Truth video and compare the country before and after NATO, accessed through the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aJURNC0e6Ek
With independent Tripoli-based voices silenced, it’s hard getting accurate daily information. Nonetheless, some mainstream sources report rebel forces are committing reprisals, revenge killings, and perhaps indiscriminate murder across the city, repeating the same pattern they followed in other parts of the country.
On August 27, London Independent writer Kim Sengupta headlined, “Rebels settle scores in Libyan capital,” saying:
“The killings were pitiless.” Rebels murdered people in hospitals. “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.”
Dozens more dead were decomposing in summer heat, many with their hands tied behind their backs before being murdered in cold blood. Many were Black guest workers, victimized by taking employment at the wrong time in the wrong place.
In rebel-controlled areas, atrocities continue against suspected Gaddafi loyalists. As a result, up to 95% of Tripoli residents are at risk. A potential bloodbath may ensue, but who’ll know if coverup replaces good journalism.
On August 28, London Independent writer Patrick Cockburn headlined, “Rebels wreak revenge on dictator’s men,” saying:
Dozens of rotting corpses “are an ominous foretaste of what might be Libya’s future. The incoming regime makes pious statements about taking no revenge,” but you’d never know it from visible carnage across the city.
“The crucial question for Libyans is whether the war will now truly end,” or if Libya will replicate Afghanistan and Iraq where nothing so far is resolved, only an illusion of quasi-stability in Baghdad and other parts of the country.
Cockburn quoted Sky News reporter Alex Crawford’s comments on rebel-committed bloodshed in Zawiya, saying:
“They were bringing in people with half their heads blown off, people with their legs blown off….We saw Gaddafi fighters who were tied up and executed…Rebel retaliations here are really upsetting.”
Tripoli is experiencing the worst of them, war crimes by NATO-unleashed killers.
On August 26, Washington Post writer Simon Denyer headlined, “Libyan rebels carry out reprisal attacks,” saying:
Mass killings “cast a dark shadow over (rebel-controlled Tripoli), and call into question whether” they’ll keep reigning terror on city residents.
Amnesty International’s (AI) Diana Eltahawy said:
“In Tripoli, we are seeing the same pattern in recent days that we saw earlier in the east,” describing extrajudicial killings, torture and other forms of abuse committed against Gaddafi loyalists.
Denyer reported five Gaddafi supporters in a field hospital and fire station “in agony and blood, apparently left to die….without food, water or medical attention for two days.”
Bodies of others loyal to him “lay rotting in the sun” near his compound. Some were face down with their hands bound behind their backs.
Dark-skinned residents are most at risk, whether Libyans or guest workers. Revenge killings and other atrocities are now the order of the day. As a result, it’s unsafe for anyone suspected of being anti-NATO in rebel-controlled territory. It’s been that way across the country since conflict began last winter.
War indeed is hell. Libyans know the worst of it that’s far from over. McClatchy News Service offered another glimpse, saying:
“The dead had been pro-Gaddafi fighters, but they had not gone down fighting. Some had been shot inside their tents, possibly asleep, without shoes on. One had been shot inside an ambulance and another (in) a field hospital, still hooked to an intravenous drip. Others had gunshot wounds in the back of their heads, fueling speculation of executions by rebel fighters.”
Reuters reported evidence of mass graves. The Los Angeles Times described “the visceral violence of rebel forces hammering away at residential neighborhoods known to be” pro-Gaddafi.
In fact, it includes practically all of them, so imagine what may lie ahead. The London Guardian quoted State Department official Heather Hurlburt admitting what should be widely known; namely that:
“I have not seen a whole lot of effort to keep defining this in humanitarian terms.”
In other words, she officially called the pretext for intervening a lie, in more polite terms.
With tongue in cheek perhaps, she added:
“There is a perception in the UN that NATO’s campaign has gone way beyond the mandate.”
She, of course, knows it was planned that way well before bombing began on March 19.
New York Times articles, commentaries and editorials discussed little of what’s explained above.
Instead, on August 28, writers Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers produced a typical Times Pentagon/administration handout piece headlined, “US Tactics in Libya May Be a Model for Other Efforts,” suggesting perhaps raping Libya reflects US generosity.
“It would be premature to call the war in Libya a complete success for United States interests,” they said. But rebels arriving in “Tripoli last week gave (Obama’s) senior advisors a chance to claim a key victory for an Obama doctrine for the Middle East….”
In other words, imperial lawlessness that includes bombing, massacring, and laying waste across Libya should be replicated wherever US “interests are threatened,” they suggested.
Those “interests,” of course, mean unchallenged global dominance, no matter how many corpses it takes to achieve it. In Libya alone, it’s many thousands, as well as millions adversely affected, heading for much worse if NATO occupation takes hold.
Before conflict began, Washington planned it after completing laying waste to vast parts of Libya. It’s the same strategy used in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan hoping for the same outcome, with Special Forces leading insurgents instead of imperial assault troops, then perhaps “peacekeepers,” not NATO country contingents, as occupiers.
As in all wars, only wealth and power interests win at the expense of an intolerable price for ordinary people under falling bombs, as well as ravaged by marauding ground forces.
Yugoslavs know. So do Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Palestinians, many others, and now Libyans. Ask them. They’ll explain better than Times and other major media sources that lie.
A Final Comment
Amidst the bad news, there’s some good. Voltaire Network reported the French Foreign Affairs Ministry saying Thierry Meyssan, Mathieu Ozonan and Julien Teil left Tripoli aboard a rescue ship.
After a 36 hour trip, they and the other independent journalists arrived safely in Malta. On arrival, Meyssan expressed his gratitude, saying:
“Thank you all. Your mobilization was tremendous. We owe you our lives.”
At the same time, they left many friends behind, facing a frightening fate at the hands of NATO and their rebel killers.
Never forget. Never forgive what US-led aggression did to millions of Libyans and so many others in the region.
On August 29, Global Research.ca reported the following:
“Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya left Tripoli Sunday at 1.00pm EDT together with the group of independent journalists of France’s Reseau Voltaire.”
Safely in Malta, they’ll be heading home shortly.
An email sent this writer late Sunday afternoon said “we now have no independent journalists” in Tripoli.
Hopefully, they’re all safe, heading home with much to recount from what they witnessed firsthand.
Libyans, however, are less fortunate. They remain to face the worst of what NATO has in mind. An August 29 email sent this writer perhaps expresses what many feel, saying: “Come back Gadaffi, all is forgiven.”
Much about Libya will be discussed on future Progressive Radio News Hour programs, including on September 1, 3 and 4.
Listen live or archived for honest Libya coverage and important discussions on many other major topics.
Rest assured! This writer and radio host won’t ever forget what was done, nor fail to continue supporting the rights of all people everywhere to live free from imperial domination.
Nothing less ever should be tolerated!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
