NATO Underplayed Civilian Deaths in Libya: HRW

[Hissyspit]

Source: Reuters

NATO underplayed civilian deaths in Libya: HRW
By Sebastian Moffett
BRUSSELS | Mon May 14, 2012 12:07am EDT

By Sebastian Moffett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO air strikes killed 72 civilians in Libya last year, Human Rights Watch said on Monday, accusing the western alliance of failing to acknowledge the scope of collateral damage it caused during the campaign that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi.

In a report based on investigations at bombing sites during and after the conflict, the New York-based HRW said NATO strikes killed 20 women and 24 children. It called on the alliance to compensate civilian victims and investigate attacks that may have been unlawful.

"Attacks are allowed only on military targets, and serious questions remain in some incidents about what exactly NATO forces were striking," Fred Abrahams, special adviser at HRW, said in a statement.

The report claims to be the most extensive investigation to date of civilian casualties from NATO's air campaign and presents a higher death toll estimate than a March paper by Amnesty International which documented 55 civilian deaths, including 16 children and 14 women.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE84D03F20120514?irpc=932

[PDJane]

1. This is not surprise, nor should it be.

The death toll in Iraq by the Lancet estimates around 1,500,000 dead. There is also the 2,000,000 dead from the years of sanctions, 500,000 of them children. Then there are the internally and externally displaced.......the toll is horrendous enough. Add the damage to the population from depleted uranium dust and chemical weapons; cancers, birth defects, skin ailments. Then there is the fact that the Euphrates is polluted beyond imagining.

The third world doesn't hate the US because of US freedoms.

[joshcryer]

4. Roughly 20x less civilians killed by NATO in 8 months than Gaddafi killed in 3 days...

...in Benghazi.

Yes, it sucks, it sucks really bad, any time innocent unarmed civilians are killed by a hostile force.

NATO treated Libya far better than it treated Iraq or Afghanistan and the US's drone war in Pakistan is just a slow massacre.

[The Magistrate]

2. Given Almost Ten Thousand Strike Missions Flown, Ma'am, And Nearly Six Thousand Targets Destroyed

This is probably a record for the least harm inflicted on civilians in the course of air operations in the last century.

[joshcryer]

3. Yep.

More were killed in Afghanistan / Pakistan in the past few months by drones than by the NATO actions in Libya.

[harmonicon]

5. I suppose they're not counting the murders which could only happen because of the air strikes.

Those murderous thugs couldn't have taken power without NATO. Without NATO they couldn't have rounded up blacks, executed them, and stacked the bodies. Without NATO, they couldn't have captured so many prisoners, tortured them, and killed them with their hands still tied behind their backs. NATO has the blood of far more than some dozen people on its hands for what was done in Libya... but that's how it's got to be - keeping capitalism preeminent in the world isn't a clean job ... or something.

[joshcryer]

6. Those atrocities would've gone on with or without NATO.

Don't be naive that it wouldn't have been a protracted battle where blood would've ran either way.

[harmonicon]

7. And the allies would have won WWII without the US and Russia.

You can make up any fiction you want to justify an atrocity after the fact, but it doesn't make it so.

[joshcryer]

9. I suppose the atrocities going on in Syria are NATO's fault, too.

[harmonicon]

12. No, and lets see what's happened....

have "rebels" destroyed the government and assassinated the leadership? No? I think that makes a decent case for NATO playing a strong hand in Libya.

[joshcryer]

21. We're talking about atrocities committed.

They would've happened regardless. Gaddafi's racist policies toward black African's guaranteed it.

[harmonicon]

23. Why do you do this? Who/what do you think you're helping?

You equate refugees and "illegal" immigrants along with black Libyans as "black Africans", but it does not work. Yes, they're all African, but their treatment by the Gaddafi government and the NATO-supported coup is completely different and completely immaterial, because they're different groups. This would be like trying to equate the treatment of black US citizens with that of Haitian refugees simply because they're all black. You know it. Having refugees leave is very different than Libyans killing other Libyans because of their race.

It may suck to acknowledge that NATO gave aid to royalist, racist, capitalist rebels, but it did happen. You can even be ok with it, but denying it will not change the facts. It won't make things better. It just makes you look desperate.

[joshcryer]

24. So it's justified when Gaddafi's government persecutes "immigrants," but it's not OK when NATO...

...supports rebels who persecute "citizens."

Fact of the matter is many of the persecuted were immigrants trying to get citizenship, by both sides.

Trying to separate the two is just unjustifiably horrific.

Because Gaddafi treated blacks as second class human beings is the entire reason the Libyan people have such deep rooted racist attitudes toward them.

You act as if they were protected but they were segregated and relegated to second class status even under Gaddafi.

NATO gave aid to some racists, some capitalist rebels, sure. It does not suck at all to acknowledge that. The royalist element, however, is bullshit, because that never had traction even when racists on DU (who have since been PPR'd for their racism) were posting false propaganda about the Libyan Revolution. The royalists may have thought they were going to be something important but it never had traction.

[Arctic Dave]

8. Perhaps, but it was NATOs team that did it.

Just because they didn't pull the trigger doesn't mean they didn't help doing it.

[joshcryer]

10. Is NATO complicit on Gaddafi's side's atrocities against black African's?

I don't think so.

[The Magistrate]

11. Of Course, Sir: Poor Dear Thing Would Have Never Hurt a Fly Without That NATO Threatening Him....

He had to protect himself, and the future, or try to, anyway: he was the mainstay of resistance to Capitalism and Imperial exploitation!

"The mind wobbles...."

[harmonicon]

13. Gaddafi's side weren't those killing blacks because of their race. (nt)

[joshcryer]

18. Loading blacks onto leaky ships at gunpoint, killing as many as a thousand...

...isn't racist at all!

"Tomorrow Europe might no longer be European, and even black, as there are millions who want to come in," said Col Gaddafi, quoted by the AFP news agency

"We don't know what will happen, what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans," Col Gaddafi said.

"We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11139345

Libya’s recent immigration “reforms,” introduced by Colonel Muammar Gadaffi apparently after overtures from Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, resemble a catalogue of human rights abuses against migrants and asylum-seekers. African internees and migrants in Libya are being detained in what one MEP has described as “catastrophic conditions.” And Libya continues forcibly to deport Eritrean refugees to Eritrea, where they face arrest, illegal detention and torture. If Libya is called on to run EU processing camps, we can surely expect more of the same.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2004/09/15/closed-door-immigration-policy-shameful-vision

What is to be sure is that Gaddafi was the primary reason so many Libyan people were and continue to be how they are toward black Africans. It will take a generation or more for Gaddafi's corrupt ideology to be shed from the Libyan people, sadly. He started it, he fomented it, and then he is washed of all blame for it after the fact by supposed progressives who lack the information that conveys the situation fully.

[harmonicon]

22. You're conflating two different things - it doesn't work.

I really do wonder if you believe the kind of stuff you spread on here, or if you just get some kind of rush from spreading disinformation.

[joshcryer]

25. I'm appalled that you put them into two different categories.

[harmonicon]

26. You're only getting puke on yourself - I'm thousands of miles away, thankfully.

... and I'm appalled that you don't. (Hey!! I disagreed with someone on the internet!! Time to make an H&M popularity contest/flame-war about it!!)

[joshcryer]

27. What's appalling about not classifying groups in order to justify their persecution?

[harmonicon]

28. I'm not engaging with you about this anymore.

If I thought you really cared about these sort of points, I *might*, but I think you'll just post anything to justify NATO's support of war crimes in Libya, so I'm not going to bother.

[joshcryer]

29. I'm not here to defend NATO.

I'm here to refute garbage points that NATO was worse than Gaddafi or was responsible for Gaddafis ideologies' societal repercussions.

[Arctic Dave]

15. Not sure what what you mean.

[joshcryer]

20. You aren't faimilar with Gaddafi's people loading black African's onto leaky ships at gunpoint?

[may3rd]

17. A French journalist tried to file a report from Benghazi

those 'freedom fighters' used her own audio/video equipment to record what they did to her before she was killed.
I think the freedom movement has a LOT more blood on their hands
than the US/NATO strikes

[joshcryer]

19. That video was PSYOPS, was never confirmed by any French journalist agency.

And it was posted on a pro-Gaddafi site back in Feb. to discredit the freedom fighters. Even if it was real (which I saw no indication that it was, the propaganda from pro-Gaddafi sites is strong, and tough to weed out), it would not be an indictment on all the freedom fighters, just as the atrocities the French committed after their occupation was not an indictment on all French fighters, etc.

[Eugene]

14. Nato hits back at Libya's civilian deaths report

Source: BBC

14 May 2012 Last updated at 13:48 GMT

Nato hits back at Libya's civilian deaths report

Nato has hit back at a report urging the alliance to investigate fully the deaths of civilians in air strikes in Libya last year.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 72 civilians had been killed in the strikes and the bloc needed to bear responsibility where appropriate.

But Nato's spokeswoman said the campaign was conducted "with unprecedented care and precision".

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She added that the alliance "looked into each credible allegation" of harm to civilians and "confirmed that the specific targets struck by Nato were legitimate military targets".

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Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18062012

[may3rd]

16. HRW needs to look at mexico next

More murders are committed each day than the entire US