New videos help piece together Gaddafi's last minutes

[jakeXT]

New videos help piece together Gaddafi's last minutes

(Warning: Some of the videos included in this post are extremely disturbing)


An examination of several brief video clips that have emerged since Col. Moammar el-Gaddafi and his son Muatassim were killed on Thursday seems to suggest that both men suffered their fatal wounds sometime after they were captured. Their dead bodies were later put on display in the city of Misurata.

At the end of a revolution against the Gaddafi family's rule that was, in part, propelled by video of protests and repression recorded on cell phones and distributed through social media, Reuters has posted graphic footage of Libyans crowding around the bodies of Colonel Gaddafi and Muatassim Gaddafi, eagerly capturing digital images of the two corpses as souvenirs. The gruesome images of both men appear to offer clues as to how they died.

The Reuters video of Colonel Gaddafi's body, stripped to the waist and awaiting burial in a commercial meat locker, concludes with close-up images of what appears to be a wound from a gunshot to the left side of his head.

The news agency's video of Muatassim Gaddafi's body, on display in a house on Thursday night, zooms in on a gaping hole in his throat.


Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/new-videos-help-piece-together-gaddafi-s-last-minutes-143368&cp

[dkf]

1. They are claiming it was crossfire. Maybe they haven't seen episodes of CSI.

[MADem]

2. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. A Sharia court in post-Qaddafi Libya is not

going to convict those guys of anything--in fact, their faces will be covered with flowers, as they say.

All that "God is Great" hollering that was happening while they were taking care of business wasn't just for show. A lot of those people had very personal reasons for wanting to extract the old "eye for an eye" retribution on Muhamar and his son.

If they could have revived him again and again so that a new person could step up and kill him once more, the line would probably snake all the way to Chad and there'd still be people stepping up to visit a little retribution on the guy.

[dkf]

3. If anything it's to establish credibility in the eyes of the world.

[MADem]

4. They have the right to run their nation as they see fit.

We do business with China, and they employ children in sweatshops, imprison people for political reasons, execute at the drop of a hat, etc., etc. They aren't too worried about their standing in the world. They have economic clout.

Libya has sufficient oil to help with the worldwide oil supply, and is quite handy to Europe AND has a delightful location along the littoral of Africa, a convenient spot for filling up those tankers. They can light their way to the world's good graces with that asset alone.

There's a point where you just have to acknowledge that some things are INTERNAL to a nation's customs and traditions. Mob murder of a guy who killed thousands of his unwilling "subjects" is probably to be expected in this situation. Frankly, I'd put women's issues in that general end of the world way out in front of how a bunch of revolutionary fighters offed a despot. After all is said and done, the result is the same--he would have been dead after a trial, too. It's not the 51st state, so we really have no say in what they do internally. We can suggest, and they can ignore.

In a way, he got off easy--he had a brief experience of total terror, some abuse, and then met death. He'd probably be tortured for months if he'd been allowed to live.

There are a lot of people in Libya who had a substantial bone to pick with that guy.

[whatchamacallit]

7. Why did we give a shit about Gaddafi's brutality if we don't give a shit about the rebel's?

Oh yeah... OIL!

[MADem]

12. When the rebels put thousands in unmarked graves for crimes like

making a smart-ass comment about the Fearless Leader, then you might have a point.

Most of those rebels, though, have had a personal encounter with Qaddifi's excesses, when they came home and a brother, uncle, cousin, father, what-have-you, went "missing" and was never seen again, after pissing off someone in MQ's inner circle.

[polly7]

37. Those peaceful rebels proudly filmed one atrocity after the other

and kept uploading them to social-media sites. When one was taken down, they'd put up another.

What did NATO do to protect the all those people they brutalized?

[MADem]

38. Why are you calling them "peaceful" rebels? Where did you get that characterization?

Certainly not from me.

Don't make shit up to try to make a point. People notice.

War sucks--you didn't know that up till now? Well, now you do.

[polly7]

42. Nobody has to 'make shit up'.

The propaganda machine did it from the start. People are just starting to notice.

Libya 'must allow peaceful protests'
2011-02-17 08:09

"London - Human rights group Amnesty International called on the Libyan government Wednesday "to end its clampdown on peaceful political activists" as protests gained momentum in the North African country."

http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Libya-must-allow-peaceful-protests-20110217


Almost from the being of the Arab uprising in Libya, Qaddafi met the peaceful protesters with maximum violence. By 21 February, he was already using war planes against demonstrations in Tripoli and Benghazi. It was specifically his use of jets and helicopters against the people, a step not yet taken in Bahrain, Yemen or Syria, that earned him a "No Fly Zone."

Death from above is hideous stuff so naturally Qaddafi apologists have had to refute the stubborn fact that Qaddafi used war planes on his own people. To the rescue came the Russian military with the following story:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/01/990315/-Did-Qaddafi-Bomb-Peaceful-Protesters

(The death from above was already a complete lie, as were the peaceful protests)

and on ..... and on .......... and on.




There Was No Libyan Peaceful Protest,
Just Murderous Gangs and Nic Robertson

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28376.htm

By Jay Janson

June 20 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- Nic Robertson and Anderson Cooper are surely aware of their achievement in promoting the human carnage of civil war and the destruction of a beautifully well-kept and prosperous nation, the 53rd highest developed country in the world with free health care and education. A standard of living that was higher than nine European nations, including Russia, is no more, thanks to their having daily led our entertainment with their war mongering of purposely distorted reporting, misreporting, disinformation, and blacking out of information that would have made this massive loss of human life impossible. They'll not be able to wash this off their conscience.

Blah, blah ...... war is hell. Do you think anyone on the planet doesn't know this?

[MADem]

44. You are conflating the protesters with the armed rebels. They are two completely different groups.

But then, look at your sources--no wonder!

[dkf]

8. Then so did Qaddafi. But we didn't like it so we rounded him up for the Libyans to kill.

[MADem]

10. Qaddifi was one OLD guy. The people of Libya are a much larger entity.

They also have a few legitimate beefs--like the thousands dead in unmarked graves, put there by Muhamar and his thugs.

So....Who ya gonna back?

I mean, come on--get real.

[dkf]

14. I back no one...and you have made exactly my point.

[MADem]

22. Not terribly sure what that was, actually. nt

[sendero]

32. It amazes me.

... that people think that in a brutal WAR SITUATION a captured general is going to be handled with Geneva Convention rules. A general who has ignored any and all rules for decades.

MQ got what he had coming. He lost, and that is that. And I don't need a trial, everyone in the world knows what kind of murderous thug he was, especially Libyans.

Just what the world does not need, another farcical "trial" dominated by world politics. Good riddance to bad rubbish, he could have just LEFT months ago and he probably would have been spared.

[MADem]

39. Precisely--and everyone in the world knows it. It's the LIBYANS who will be doing the

"investigation"--not the Hague, not the UN, not NATO, not the US....they'll ask a few questions, write up a report, refer to the "fog of war" and "hot pursuit" and call it a day. The rest of the world will move on.

They're burying the guy tomorrow, so they'd best get a move on, I suppose.

All your points are very well taken, and your last sentence is right on the money--he WAS offered exile, by many in the Islamic world, and he declined it. It's suggestive of serious delusion on his part, but that doesn't make the guy's conduct over the years any less malicious or mendacious.

[Kaleva]

6. I don't think much of the world cares how he died.

[dkf]

9. Personally I thought the photos were pretty stomach turning.

[polly7]

17. I think it's just human to care that any human being was brutalized,

tortured and ....... sodomized with a stick! Jesus, how sick does someone have to be to stand around and cheer that like they did? Yes, there is video.

Those peaceful rebels.

[Kaleva]

18. And it's human to be inhuman.

[polly7]

19. Nah ......... they were acting more animal than human. n/t.

[RC]

15. It has been reported that Gaddafi was shot in the head by a 17 year old, using

Gaddafi own gold plated gun. Gaddafi was captured alive and unharmed, then roughed up and shot in the head.

[MADem]

24. He was also wearing a NY Yankees hat. The Post had a pretty brutal headline, themselves.

http://www.nesn.com/2011/10/muammar-khadafys-yankee-fan-gunman-has-more-hits-than-a-rod-says-front-page-of-new-york-post.html



http://newyork.sbnation.com/new-york-yankees/2011/10/21/2504862/new-york-post-khadafy-gunman-had-more-hits-than-a-rod-alex-rodriguez-yankees

[tabatha]

5. He was bleeding from the left side of his head when he was taken out of the sewer.

However, I think the stomach shot happened after he was captured.

[Cleita]

11. I guess the Mediterranean world hasn't yet emerged

from the Bronze Age when it comes to human rights and blood retribution and we are being hypocritical if we think we can sit back and criticize what we are watching on TV and the internet. Remember what was done to Saddam while we sat back and allowed it to happen during our military occupation of Iraq. Both those dictators should have been handed over to The Hague.

[MADem]

13. That is accurate ONLY if you believe that a bunch of unelected strangers at "The Hague"

should have sovereignty over your nation. We don't buy that shit ourselves, so why impose it on someone else? We manage our own affairs, we don't ship people off to Europe for justice.

Most people don't feel that way, see? The Hague is a place that only works when EVERYONE, save, say, Kim Jong Il, gets onboard. You've got to have an overwhelming concordance amongst nations to make that happen, and in the case of Libya, or Iraq, I couldn't ever see trials there coming to pass. Most people do feel that MQ, despite the sloppiness, got what he deserved and what he would have gotten at the end of the day, anyway.

You think the Saudis would agree to any Hague intervention? The Egyptians? Anyone in the African littoral? Anyone in the Middle East/Southwest Asian sphere? Of course not. They'd say "Who the fuck is this Euro Trash judge, to impose his will over OUR affairs? He knows nothing of Islamic law--he is Not Qualified!" And the Chinese, who will benefit from Libyan oil down the road, would weigh in with their own "Hell to the NO" as well.

It's just "not on," as they say...

[Cleita]

16. You really don't understand how the Hague works

do you? They have a website that explains it all. They don't just sweep in and try people. It takes a sovereign nation to lodge a complaint of a dictator's crimes against civilians or another nation before they hear a case.

[MADem]

21. Yeah? And like I said, which sovereign nation is going to do that?

Which one?

No complaint, no grand trial by an unelected, unrelated pooh bah.

I completely understand how it works, but you, apparently, do not. You need serious world concordance to even start that train. That's not going to happen.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. The NTC did

You missed the arrest warrants I see.

[MADem]

30. A warrant is not possession, and the only people who "possessed" MQ were the same rebels

who killed him.

You can indict a ham sandwich--it doesn't mean you'll get a conviction, or you'll even get a prisoner to the dock. He never would have gone, even if he'd been kept alive. Look how long SH was jailed? Surely they could have sent him on his merry way in all that time?

There was no will. There was no will to do anything Hague-like to MQ, either.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. But, but you said there were non

Pick a lane here...oh wait you did...we should not concern ourselves with such complex matters.

Jaysus. And with that I am done discussing anything that has a smidgen to do with law or morality with you. Pretty piccies are IT

[MADem]

35. Well, I said nothing of the sort, but do what you like.

FWIW, the NTC has said (to the UN and the US, not the Hague) they'll investigate the death, i.e., come up with a satisfactory commentary to put this business to rest. They only did this after being asked. They were only asked in order to "check a block." They didn't ask for Hague intervention.

Since they're burying MQ tomorrow in an unmarked grave, they'd better get a hustle on.

27 min 40 sec ago - LibyaIbrahim Beit al-Mal, a spokesman for the Misrata military council, has said htat Muammar Gaddafi will likely be buried on Tuesday in an unmarked grave in a secret location, the Associated Press reports.

He said that he was "90 per cent sure the bodies will be buried tomorrow".

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya

[EFerrari]

25. A nation or an individual who is a citizen of a nation who is a signor

of the Rome Statute ( or a victim who was injured in a country who is a signor) can petition the prosecutor's office for a case to be reviewed.

[MADem]

26. They can petition till the cows come home, but nothing will happen if there is not

concordance around the world.

In this case, there wasn't, as there wasn't with Iraq.

[Fumesucker]

20. And yet Slobodan Milosevic died in a cell at the Hague while at trial..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milo%C5%A1evi%C4%87

Apparently all dictators are equal but some are more equal than others.

Or something.

:shrug:

[MADem]

23. That's because he had NO FRIENDS. He didn't have friends who would

take him into exile under house arrest.

He didn't have friends who would bring him to their nation, let him live in luxury, and deny extradition.

He simply had NO FRIENDS. We all know Slobbo's excesses. They were pretty extreme. No one likes ethnic cleansing.

MQ was a pretty nasty guy, too. Turns out he did some serious "political cleansing" of his own, and huge buried stockpiles of bodies of "disappeared" people are being discovered in Libya. His conduct in the world at large (Berlin bombing, Lockerbie, etc.) just didn't endear him to many.

However, the very minute you try to send someone like a MQ or a SH to the Hague, suddenly, they'd find those friends, no matter how brutal their crimes. If it ain't Sharia, some people just aren't feeling it--and there is a plain resentment towards western justice on the part of many in the Middle Eastern/SW Asian/North African sphere. These folks have no problem with a nation meting out justice as they see fit, even hood-of-the-car justice, but they would have a problem with Judge Eurotrash doling out non-Islamic justice towards someone of note in the Muslim world.

So you are entirely correct--all dictators are NOT created equal. Some get more status, by virtue of their friendships (Shah of Iran, for example, who died in Egypt in exile, or King Farouk of Egypt, who ended his days in the same fashion in sunny Italy--there are many others). Others end their days, like SH and MQ, at the hands of their angry former subjects, meeting a brutal death and serving as a warning to others.

[Fumesucker]

27. Lots of people like ethnic cleansing..

Their only real quibble is over who is going to be the cleansers and who the cleansees.

Legitimate revolutions get co-opted by someone or some group with an ulterior motive and a hidden agenda more often than not I think..

Personally I would rather live under a relatively secular Gaddafi or Saddam than under a theocracy, something I think has a fair chance of happening in Libya no matter how much some people claim otherwise.

Muslim fundies are no different than Christian ones, highly motivated, utterly convinced of their own rectitude, always trying to get power and pure damn poison if they do, I'm not confident that the Libyan equivalent to Joe Sixpack won't cheer the creation of a theocracy just like old Joe here would.

[MADem]

28. Well, they didn't care for Slobbo's brand of it. No one defended him. No one ran interference for

him. He had no friends.

I don't think you would like living under those two. They killed an awful lot of folks. That's not to suggest that a theocratic arrangement would be "better" but at least it is a system of law. You have a fighting chance when the rules are written down, as opposed to being the whim of a dictator on a particular day.

[Fumesucker]

31. Right, the rules are written down in a theocracy..

:eyes:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg

Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion. -Stephen Weinberg

Seriously, do the terms "crusade" and "jihad" have meaning for you?

The rules in a theocracy are theologically based and theology is anything but consistent, else there would not be so many schisms, so many sects. so many religions.

I'm reminded of the old joke..

"I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off.

So I ran over and said ‘Stop! don’t do it!’ ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he said.

I said, ‘Well, there’s so much to live for!’ He said, ‘Like what?’ I said, ‘Well…are you religious or atheist?’

He said, ‘Religious.’ I said, ‘Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?’ He said, ‘Christian.’ I said, ‘Me too!

Are you Catholic or Protestant?’ He said, ‘Protestant.’ I said, ‘Me too!
Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?’ He said, ‘Baptist!’

I said, ‘Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist church of god or Baptist church of the lord?’ He said, ‘Baptist church of god!’

I said, ‘Me too! Are you original Baptist church of god, or are you reformed Baptist church of god?’
He said, ‘Reformed Baptist church of god!’ I said, ‘Me too!

Are you reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?’. He said, ‘Reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!’

I said, ‘Die, heretic scum,’ and pushed him off".

(Emo Phillips)

[MADem]

36. I have no desire to get into a religious debate with you, but the NTC has said

quite plainly that their system of law would be based on Sharia. Now, this shouldn't be a shock to anyone, as the laws in most of the nations in that end of the world are based in some regard or another on Sharia. They've also said that their "bent" would be "moderate," so you can take that from whence it comes.

I really don't understand the :eyes: business. Just because they are basing their laws on their cultural and religious traditions (rather like everyone else in the world does), does not automatically mean that they won't write 'em down and enforce them even-handedly. All we can do is wait and see what kind of government emerges. Anyone who thinks this is over, though, is smoking something. This is just the beginning.

Ref: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya

2 hours 12 min ago - Libya French foreign minister Alain Juppe has acknowledged NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil's statements regarding concerns related to Libya adopted Islamic law.

"Abdel Jalil said that moderate Islam is his reference."

Speaking in the southwestern city of Bordeaux, where he is mayor, Juppe said that sharia is applied "in a great number of Arab countries including some that are countries which respect the fundamentals of democracy."

"It's up to the Libyan people to choose their destiny in free elections," Juppe said, adding that "there is room all around the Mediterranean for an Islam that is reconcilable with our democratic values."

"It is to this that the intercultural and interreligious dialogue that we must develop with Islam must contribute rather than barricading ourselves behind our Western beliefs," he said.

[Fumesucker]

40. The eyeroll is because the Bible and the Koran are written down..

And yet there are a well nigh infinite number of interpretations of both documents.

In a legal system based on theology it is the interpretation of that theology which determines what the rules will be and as I have pointed out there are a great many interpretations of any theology you care to name.

Written rules make no difference when the interpretation of the rules is open to question, theologically based rules are always open to question.

Try and get a Unitarian and a Southern Baptist to agree on a theological point of view some time, I know which one I'd rather have interpreting scripture if I was in the docket in a Christian Sharia court.

[MADem]

41. Oh, come now. What do you think appeals courts do? Or the Supremes?

They "interpret" rulings as well, and either hold them up, or strike them down. The only difference is, they do not reference an Invisible Man in The Sky as part and parcel of their decision-making process, or a book called the Quran. Often, they reference a document called The Constitution of the United States.

The fact of the matter is, in a nation that utilizes Sharia law, there aren't that many variations of Islam available to muddy the argument. You wouldn't have a Unitarian-Southern Baptist problem, because everyone is singing from the same sheet of music. Even when you're dealing with nations like Iraq that have substantial shi'a and sunni populations, the essential Quranic values are the same. Where they differ has more to do with who was Muhamad's legitimate successor, and a few other noodgy details, not "the word" as it is written.

Sharia (the Way) law (which is, by definition, Islamic--not Christian--law) doesn't thrill me, particularly when it comes to rights for women (which require some digging through the Quran for one's justifications), but it is what it is, and it's not going away over that way. Libya says they'll be going the "moderate" route--we'll see how that works.

[Fumesucker]

43. We shall see, I fear this is going to end up a disaster for Libyan women..

Sharia can hardly be called woman friendly..

As someone with a daughter and two granddaughters the idea that women will be going backwards in respect to their social and legal status is troubling to me.

Say what you will, that is precisely what happened in Iraq.

[MADem]

45. You might be right. I do hope you are wrong. The one thing Libyan women have

going for them is that they're already OUT there in a big way. They are an important part of the economic machine and they will be needed as the new nation comes together.

Time will tell. Bottom line? It's not up to us. They've got to call it as they see it. We can only hope for the best. They're in the "...if you can keep it" phase, to quote B. Franklin.

[Name removed]

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