Rape used 'as a weapon' in Libya

[thewiseguy]

As Libya's opposition fighters push west, doctors are uncovering more victims from the front line.

Several doctors say they have found Viagra tablets and condoms in the pockets of dead pro-Gaddafi fighters, alleging that they were using rape as a weapon of war.

They say they have been treating female rape survivors who were allied with pro-democracy forces.

Furthermore, 175 people, including doctors, have been reported missing from Ajdabiya, and many have now been found to have been killed.

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton reports from Ajdabiya.

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/03/201132845516144204.html

But I thought women were treated so nicely under Ghaddafi's rule. :wtf: :argh:

[Scuba]

1. Chicago too, I hear. LA, New York, Houston, DC, ... need I continue?

[Green_Lantern]

3. but in those places criminals do it...it's not state sponsored..

By your argument the Holocaust was no worse than the everyday murder we have here.

[DutchLiberal]

5. Stupid comparison.

And I think you know it.

[Shagbark Hickory]

20. +1 the comparison is valid.

[cali]

25. how so? do explain how the rape of women by authorities is analogous

to the rape of women by criminals?

[Shagbark Hickory]

27. Rape is used as a weapon in chicago just as it is in libya. Simple as that.

We don't go starting wars in Chicago.

[Scuba]

29. My original point exactly. Thanks. n/t

[Green_Lantern]

33. yes but in Chicago it isn't an international war crime...

If a US soldier rapes an Iraqi it'd be a war crime.

Surely you don't put the Holocaust on the same level as a murder in Chicago.

[Shagbark Hickory]

42. Oh yeah. Lets go cracking open that can of worms. The holocaust now? Really?

[Green_Lantern]

45. I wasn't comparing Libya to the Holocaust...its more like Kosovo..

Was Kosovo no worse than Chicago?

[Green_Lantern]

2. Gaddafi will say it is a Jewish conspiracy or something like

"My people don't need Viagra". People on DU will say the CIA planted it.

[DutchLiberal]

4. But we shouldn't care and try to help the Libyans, because they have oil...

Rule 1 on DU: when a place has oil, whenever there's a humanitarian crisis there, we cannot invade.

[sabrina 1]

28. What a ridiculous comment.

Rule #1 for all those who support the Libyan Revolutionaries, as I have from the beginning, is to question the motives of those who are claiming to be their 'saviors'. Especially since the Revolutionaries, if you have been following them since this started, over and over again demanded that their country not be 'turned into another Iraq'.

Now, you either care that since they are fighting and dying so they can create their own democracy, NOT as they have stated so clearly, an 'Iraqi-style democracy', or you don't.

And since their saviors are the same suspects who created Iraq (in which similar protests have currently been brutally suppressed btw) and are currently slaughtering civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan, any decent human being who heard their demands from the start, will NOT brush aside THEIR and OUR concerns that the warmongers still operating in Iraq, just may have ulterior motives.

YOU ignore the danger to the Libyan people if you wish, but do not mischaracterize the legitimate concerns of their supporters, people who were with them from the start.

Clearly you are of the opinion that the invaders of Iraq and Afghanistan who have slaughtered over one million human beings, have had a miraculous change of heart and overnight have turned into Compassionate Humanitarians totally dedicated to the safety and well-being of civilians!

I, otoh, am still observing these newly minted humanitarians wrt to Libya, sending their deadly drones into civilian areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan where there newly found humanitarian instincts appear to still be wanting for some reason.

[DutchLiberal]

43. I wasn't questioning those on DU with legitimate concerns. I was criticizing tinfoil-hatters...

"Clearly you are of the opinion that the invaders of Iraq and Afghanistan who have slaughtered over one million human beings, have had a miraculous change of heart and overnight have turned into Compassionate Humanitarians totally dedicated to the safety and well-being of civilians!"

In your own words: what a ridiculous comment!

[SoCalDem]

6. Rape is always a wartime tactic.

It's one of the most effective ways to demoralize/terrorize people into submission. It does not take a military genius to know that killing/maiming the young males of an area & raping the women is a way to capture & hold them on "your side". Soldiers tend to be young males.. young males want sex.. women who have had their male protectors chased off/killed have few is any ways to prevent being raped. Commanders may look the other way or even encourage their soldiers to rape the women (it's unlikely that many would willingly participate with enemy soldiers who have killed their mates)

[Green_Lantern]

7. Oddly it seems like we just started to accept that rape occurs

In wartime situations recently(the 90s) even though it happened in even the Civil War.

[bobbolink]

8. "Rape occurs" with US forces, too... against their own peers!

More women veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming homeless than the men... and a big reason is because of the rape they have experienced from their own peers.

Yet, I don't hear any outrage about that.

[Green_Lantern]

10. yeah you do..Defense Dept was sued over it

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110215/ts_dailybeast/12432_robertgatessuedoverusmilitarysrapeepidemic_1


You can't tell me everyone ignores rapes in our military.

[bobbolink]

11. Has it been a huge concern here? I think you know what I meant... it isn't one of the "priority

issues".

But, if you need to win, then fine.... you are right and I was wrong. Go for it.

[Green_Lantern]

12. I'm not trying to show you up or anything and I agree with you

That our military has dealt with the issue horribly. A big part of the problem is they haven't been very quick in integrating women into the armed services. So of course they aren't seeing it as being a military issue but a criminal law issue while the civil law sees it as a military issue.

The victims get lost in the shuffle.

[CTyankee]

9. It goes back from ancient time onward. One of the favorite themes in classical

art depicts such acts as the rape of the Sabine women where women were carried off to become the chattel of the conquering tribes...

[Bucky]

18. You got the story of the Sabine women wrong.

Of course it's only a legend (and actual sexual assaults may have occurred in the real events that inspired the legend), but according to Livy, who first put the story in writing, the rape of the Sabine women was only "raptio" in the sense of an abduction. The women of the Sabine tribes were given their choices of husbands and had to be bribed with equal property rights by Romulus before some of them agreed to stay on with the proto-Romans.

Of course Romans historically did as much raping as any army in pre-modern times. Your larger point is true. I'm just quibbling to point out that the legend depicts an idealized birth of Rome in which sexual assaults did not occur.

[CTyankee]

24. Yes, I am aware of the technical term of "rape" in classic art.

But of course women were carried off by men to be enslaved. They were captives and as such at the mercy of the men who have captured them. Just as the black women enslaved by slave owners in the South were subjected to continual rape by their masters.

[WatsonT]

16. I think it predates the Civil War

Rapes have always occurred in wars. That goes back to the first time any group of humans ever used weapons against another group of humans.

[seabeyond]

13. do i still get to oppose, be disgusted, outraged by it even though it "just is". nt

[CarlaLevin]

14. Please do not think I am in any way sympathetic with Gaddafi

He was and is a sociopath, tyrant, murderer ... but ... I think I smell a little propoganda here from the rebels?

Rape as a weapon of terror against a population, unfortunately, I understand that happens ... but condoms? For what? To prevent the vicitms from becoming pregnant? To prevent the rapsits from contracting STD's (as thought hey dont already have them)? The condom part makes the whole thing seem a little like a ham handed presse release.

And I want to repeat, I am solidly anti-Gaddafi so I hopefully dont get labelled as a sympathizer.

[Green_Lantern]

15. alot of rapists use condoms because otherwise they leave DNA

Evidence with the victim.

Also yes if the victim gets pregnant, paternity of the child could prove rape.

[WatsonT]

17. Doubt there's going to be a lot of investigations in to this

in Libya, in the middle of a civil war.

And the pro-Gaddafi side are either going to win, in which case all is forgiven. Or lose, in which case they'll be dead anyway.

Criminal convictions are not going to happen.

[Green_Lantern]

19. why not? it happened in Bosnia and even in Europe after WW2..

The ICC has already said they'll be investigating war crimes in Libya and bring charges against Gaddafi.

He's gone way past the point of "all is forgiven";he passed that weeks ago.

[WatsonT]

22. Call it a hunch

but I can't think of any time in history when a muslim nation in this situation has placed prosecuting rape at the top of their agenda (if it were against men then maybe, but because it was homosexual not because it was rape).

And in Bosnia/WW2 there was a large occupying american force that enforced all those trials.

We currently have no plans of occupying Libya.

[Green_Lantern]

26. I'm not an international crimes lawyer but you can't say

Rape must be just propaganda because the rapist carries condoms.

[WatsonT]

38. Huh?

I think you're responding to someone else because I said no such thing.

All I said was that legal prosecution is unlikely.

[Green_Lantern]

39. sorry..

replied to wrong posting

[Shagbark Hickory]

21. Uh oh. Looks like we got a critical thinker on our hands.

[CarlaLevin]

23. There is a good chance the underlying story is true

but the problem is or can be when people get too wrapped up in proving a point that they accept shaky evidence, then if the evidence gets discredited, so does the underlying truth.

It is a lot like the situation with Dan Rather and the Bush National Guard story. The issue of exactly how much preferential treatment Bush got (beyond the incredibly easy assignment in the National Guard to begin with)and whether eh even showed up for the cushy job got buried because the Right was able to play 'gotcha' with a set of shaky documents. What actually happened and what was really important got completely forgotten and the documents origin became the whole story.

[Green_Lantern]

36. I believe history shows that most dictators have used rape, torture,

And sexual assault to beat down the opposition.

It's weird to see progressives denying what right-wingers denied about anti-communist dictators.

[Green_Lantern]

30. saying rapists don't use condoms isn't critical thinking...

Next we'll hear "That guy can't be a rapist because he's handsome and she's plain."

[Shagbark Hickory]

32. We have to question all this propaganda that comes out. condoms and viagra?

I mean, Aren't they a little busy? Blowing shit up with their tanks and whatnot?

The footage I've seen doesn't really lend itself to intercourse. Call me a skeptic I guess.

[Green_Lantern]

34. well Serbs sure found the time in Bosnia...

You don't think Gaddafi's secret police sexually abuse women?

Name a dictator who doesn't.

[Shagbark Hickory]

41. Do you think Obama's secret constituents sexually abuse women?

Should a foreign country come in and intervene due to these atrocities?

[Green_Lantern]

44. the UN didn't intervene just because of potential rape but due to

Gaddafi's attack on civilian masses.

If Obama starts having the military massacre US civilians yes I'd want UN intervention.

Are you saying Obama is a dictator?

[Shagbark Hickory]

46. Where do I begin with this one?

Qaddafi didn't attack civilians yet. The war was to prevent that. (whithouse.gov saturday sit-down 3/26)
In a CCTV news interview with a rebel on the battlefield (aired 3/26), when asked "why do you want Qaddafi out?" the rebel replied "We want healthcare, education, communication." (End of response). He said nothing about any massacres.

[Keith Bee]

31. I thought rape was ALWAYS a weapon

Silly me. :sarcasm:

[Distant Observer]

35. Wow! Soldiers Rape and Pilage!! Now we find out. Not when the rebels do it! Those reports are

FALSE RUMORS. Don't pay attention to anything negative you hear about the rebels. They are
freedom fighters, democrats, they are like us -- no raping and pillaging here.

[Green_Lantern]

37. this story is about Gaddafi paid mercenaries not the "rebels"..

Since when do progressives rally to support dictatorships?

[bobbolink]

40. Could you please include a link to stories of revolutionaries raping women?

Thank you.

[bobbolink]

47. No links? No corroborating evidence at all? Gee, that's a surprise.

[Distant Observer]

48. Both CNN and MSNBC have mentioned hear of this but have not reported or interview anyone

on the air.

I heard 1 BBC interview on a 3rd party recounting the roundups, rapes and killings of pro-Gaddafi people
during the 1st drive of the rebels, but generally there apparently is a blackout in Western news rooms on this topic.

I don't like to discuss the topic either but the hypocricy in now blaring this when they
silenced it when the rebels were accused is disgusting.

A few links:

LIBYA: Rebels execute black immigrants while forces kidnap others

http://somalilandpress.com/libya-rebels-execute-black-immigrants-while-forces-kidnap-others-20586
UN High Commission for Refugees: accounts of intimidation and rape by rebel insurgents coming from people who had fled both eastern and western areas of Libya.
http://www.unhcr.org/4d7658719.html
Rebel rule of Benghazi included terror, rape and murder of black civilians
http://www.barutiwadaily.com/afrocapitalist/article.php?story=61

[bobbolink]

49. Its clear you don't like the revolution. That is your perogative, but don't make up stories about

revolutionaries.

Taking Gs word for ANYTHING is beyond ridiculous.

[Distant Observer]

50. Yes the UN High Commission for Refugees is a very biased source. Sorry

:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

Please provide some real information, not just ad-hominen attacks

[bobbolink]

51. That "commission" isn't in Libya now.. there are hardly any journos there.

First you couldn't give a link, and now all of a sudden you have a "resource".

Still no link with specific charges, but a very good :sarcasm: put down.

Facts are actually the best thing that "progressives" have on their side.

[gracchorumspes]

52. Recced, but who said that?

I don't recall anybody commending Ghaddafi's regime for upholding the dignity of women. Nobody should have to be subjected to rape, in any situation, in wartime or not. These are war crimes undoubtedly, however, please consider that in a CIVIL war, both sides are prone to overstepping what is considered humane action! Will the rebels conduct themselves any better if they prevail? If so, your argument is infallible, but if not...not so much.