Death Toll Hits 450 as Fighting As Fighting Continues in Libya's Benghazi

[Comrade Grumpy]

Source: Xinhua

TRIPOLI, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least 450 people were killed in violent clashes and illegal executions in Libya's Benghazi since the Libyan army launched operations in the second largest city, medical sources said on Sunday.

<snip>

A spokesman for Benghazi Medical Center announced that the hospital has received 401 dead bodies, mostly army soldiers, since mid October. The number of dead bodies received by other hospitals in eastern Libya since the start of the battles is about 49.

A joint statement of the Libyan Red Crescent Society and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the violence has forced more than 10,000 families to leave Benghazi, and many other deserted their homes in the city.

Since Oct. 15, the Libyan army and forces loyal to the retired Major General Khalifa Haftar are waging a war to restore the city of Benghazi which had been held by Islamist militias. Some witnesses said that heavy clashes took place in the dense-populated area of the city. Benghazi, the birthplace of the 2011 protests that toppled Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, has witnessed a drastic escalation of violence since then. The city is now plagued by assassinations, kidnappings and deadly clashes between different armed groups.

Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/africa/2014-11/30/c_133823682.htm

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Benghazi!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. "Benghazi!"

Oh yeah, let's open another, "Hi! Were the United States of America!" store.

[quadrature]

2. outing Ghadaffi...was a foreign-policy success or failure? ...nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

3. Republicans loved him. I score it as a good thing....

Now if we can just stop picking which religious fanatics we want based on who will lie to us and tell us what we want to hear as they take our bribe....

[Turbineguy]

5. What?

And throw out a many decades old tradition of getting ourselves screwed up?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Who else is going to do it? The Canadians? They're too smart to get involved.

[saintsebastian]

4. The Answer Seems Obvious

This was definitely a failure for the Obama White House -but this is usually the case with bombing campaigns and wars in general.

The strikes killed many civilians and as far we can tell did more harm than good. Libya fell into chaos and more civil war ensued. Due to the chaos, the United States for the first time in decades, lost an ambassador when he was killed in an attack by an armed mob on one of our diplomatic facilities. We later had to close our embassy and evacuate the staff. The United Nations had to their people out as well.

[daleo]

7. It created a lot of chaos and disruption

Sometimes one assumes that is the whole point of these interventions. Not much else makes sense.

[Amonester]

8. Obviously, they are having a Civil War, so who else had one of these nasty battles?

Nobody should intervene but Lybians themselves, until a winner wins and a loser surrenders.

People die in Civil Wars. That's what they do. Reality check. Sad, but real.

[Amonester]

9. It's a Civil War.

People die in Civil Wars. That's what they do.

They had the chance to create a new country, but chose to wreck it all up instead.

May the winner win and the loser surrender. That's what Civil Wars do.

Nobody else than Lybians should be involved, as forces on each sides seem to be quite equivalent.

[jamzrockz]

10. Sorta the same thing

my neocon friend says when I bring up Iraq and what Bush did to that country. He says, its just a sectarian fight that has been going on for 1000s of years. Saying it like Bush had nothing to do with setting it in motion. Gaddafi would have squashed the little terrorist uprising in Benghazi if Obama and NATO had not come to the rescue.

We destroyed it, now stop blaming it on the civil war

[Amonester]

12. One little thing you forget: Not one U.S. soldier died...

How many U.S. troops died because Bush lied?

And the U.N. has a RTP policy since Rwanda. (I bet you don't know that little detail.)

[blackcrowflies]

13. oh well, that makes it okay then.

We all know non-U.S. lives are worth nothing.

[blackcrowflies]

11. Another victory for Hillary

A reasonably stable country with free health care and where women had access to jobs and education, now a seething dangerous mess. I'm sure Israel is delighted with their little sweetie for turning another Arab country into a pit.

[joshcryer]

14. For perspective, twice that many people died in Venezuela.

In the same period of time.