Criminal law, International, Media, Politics, Society

The Gadhafi Video: Where Is The Outrage?

New video evidence below shows Maummar Gadhafi was alive after being seized in the operation that led to his capture. What I find rather disconcerting is the treatment of this video by the media, which covered the “joy” and “celebration” of the event while ignoring the shocking abuse of a wounded man and then the parading and stripping of this corpse. We were appalled when militants paraded the bodies of Americans in Somalia and Iraq. Yet, when it is someone we hate, it barely draws mention while newspapers taunt the dead man as being pulled “from a stinking drain.”

Following the killing, President Obama took to the air to herald the victory and a “future . . . of dignity.”
We long denounced Gadhafi on this blog. However, the treatment of Gadhafi below should shock the conscience. Only this morning did I see a brief story on CNN interviewing a man on how he felt about the way Gadhafi died. The thrust however was not about the abuse but the lost opportunity of a trial.

Instead of addressing the abuse of a wounded man and later a corpse, CNN and other outlets simply warned about graphic images and focused on Libyans firing weapons (including heavy machine guns) into the air (a moronic form of celebration that led to the wounding of various civilians).

We previously discussed the discomfort of watching Americans dancing and celebrating the shooting of Bin Laden. The media again did not dare to question the propriety of such displays despite the condemnation of the same displays in other countries after the 9-11 attacks.

Because human rights groups have called for an investigation and raised the question of whether he was shot in the head after capture, CNN and other news outlets are raising the question this morning. CNN’s anchor notes this morning that “some people” may find the parading of the body again this morning (including being struck by shoes as a sign of contempt) “might not be respectful.”

This video should shock the conscience and the story should be not the celebration but the crime depicted in this video.

Here is my warning: the video below is graphic and shows the abuse of a wounded man and corpse as a form of celebration. Human beings will find this video disgusting.

129 thoughts on “The Gadhafi Video: Where Is The Outrage?”

  1. “Osama bin Laden was executed immediately in order to prevent a rallying point, how does that not apply to Ghaddafi?” (culheath)

    You, sir, (I’m assuming you’re a sir) have an uncanny knack for asking a question within which the answer is contained. I admire that skill. 🙂

  2. I don’t get the difference between killing him outright as a combatant by those he sought to exterminate as rats and cockroaches or executing him after a trial that would have simply repeated his 40 year public trial during which we all witnessed the inhumanity and violence he perpetrated. Except to hold to some ideal of justice I fail to see what purpose a trial would engender except to delay a much needed healing process by the Libyan people. Osama bin Laden was executed immediately in order to prevent a rallying point, how does that not apply to Ghaddafi?

  3. rafflaw
    1, October 21, 2011 at 12:49 pm
    Blouise,
    Are you suggesting that Obama is involved in a CIA plot? And if so, how does Obama’s stopping illegal torture play into that?

    ————————————————————–

    Plot? No, a definite, now firmly entrenched, plan. When I was referring to torture (and the confusion is my fault for not being more specific) I was referring to his refusal to prosecute … it was that refusal that signaled me he was on board with the plan. Stopping the torture was his particular tweak … a good one.

  6. “We long denounced Gadhafi on this blog. However, the treatment of Gadhafi below should shock the conscience”

    That saying seems to be a rite of passage, a self purification directed toward the eyes and ears of those it is directed to, evidently lurking somewhere in the shadows.

    I only know what I read in the paper or on the google and elsewhere on the innertubes (where I am told he was evil incarnate), but:

    “That is, the fact that the Libyan people were cared for by their government (they shared in the revenue when their oil was sold, and it was deposited into their bank accounts; they had benefits at no cost to them such as health care, full education, zero interest loans, $50,000 upon marriage, free land use for farmers together with seeds and tools, cheap gasoline at .14 cents per liter, half of the purchase of a vehicle provided to them, and on and on) was not the reason they were invaded “in order to save them from their government”.

    Beyond the fact that they were better off than most Americans “saving them from their government” does not pass the smell test.

    In further support of that hypothesis, Dredd Blog notes that many nations would have to be invaded to stop that type of embarrassment (here are a few example nations):

    Uninsured people in USA: 50 million. Uninsured people in Britain: 0. Uninsured people in Germany: 0. Uninsured people in Canada: 0. Uninsured people in Israel: 0. Uninsured people in Italy: 0. Uninsured people in Libya: 0. Uninsured people in Iraq: 0. Uninsured people in Kuwait: 0. Uninsured people in Spain: 0. Uninsured people in France: 0. Uninsured people in Cuba: 0.”

    (MOMCOM And The Sins of Libya).

    “Don’t believe anything you hear or half what you see” was the old saying before photoshop.

  7. Moammar Gadhafi did some unspeakable things to many of his people.

    Does that justify ‘eye-for-an-eye’ justice with his murder after capture?

    The news media’s treatment of this video and Gadhafi’s death are very disturbing, along with the events themselves.

    I remember Vietnam body count TV reports from 40 years ago. Have we grown so numb to atrocity that we ignore it, no matter who is responsible?

  9. Blouise,
    Are you suggesting that Obama is involved in a CIA plot? And if so, how does Obama’s stopping illegal torture play into that?

  10. http://truthout.com/un-panel-calls-inquiry-qaddafis-death/1319210424

    UN Panel Calls for Inquiry Into Qaddafi’s Death
    Friday 21 October 2011
    by: Nick Cumming-Bruce, New York Times News Service | Report

    Excerpts:

    Geneva – The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Friday for an inquiry into the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi amid conflicting accounts of how the Libyan dictator met his end and video that appeared to show him alive after his capture.

    “We believe there is a need for investigation to see whether he was killed in fighting or some form of execution,” Rupert Colville, the spokesman for Navi Pillay, the human rights commissioner, told reporters in Geneva.
    …

    In a telephone interview, Mr. Colville said that the independent Commission of Inquiry for Libya, set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council, would likely look into Colonel Qaddafi’s death. “This obviously falls squarely within their mandate,” he said. The commission is led by Judge Philippe Kirsch, the former president of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

    “In the laws of war there is an obvious difference between someone killed in combat or crossfire, or a captive being executed or summarily shot down,” he said.

    Marlise Simons contributed reporting from Paris.

  12. I’m not one for conspiracy thoughts where 9/11 is concerned but … the CIA develops scenarios all the time and then works out plans based on those scenarios. In my opinion, 9/11 fit one of their scenarios perfectly and voila, the plan was presented, debated, tweaked, and approved. Osama bin Ladin’s 9/11 venture kicked-off the downfall of the Middle East as he had known it.

    I totally agree Blouise, it’s no secret I am a 911 Truther
    and speaking of the CIA develops scenarios all the time and then works out plans based on those scenarios.

    I was a major X-Files guy.

  13. I have not watched any of the videos of his death. Life is too hard and short to view the brutality of it over and again. The minute the first moron on the news on 9/11 said this changes everything, license was given for the resultant carnage and brutality. From the exultant show of “shock and awe” to rejoicing at viewing this man’s brutal death is a progression towards savagery. He was a horrible bastard for certain, but humanity professes moral precedence over other animals. We are but little different then monkeys flinging excrement at eachother in derision.

    The media Pundits lack the courage to express moral outrage and I believe few actually posess an ethical conciousness. Ratings and revenue are king and Murdoch style journalism the norm.

  14. Bdaman,

    I watched Bush carefully and took from his words the fact that the man was serious about transforming the Middle East into a model more appealing to western culture.

    I’m not one for conspiracy thoughts where 9/11 is concerned but … the CIA develops scenarios all the time and then works out plans based on those scenarios. In my opinion, 9/11 fit one of their scenarios perfectly and voila, the plan was presented, debated, tweaked, and approved. Osama bin Ladin’s 9/11 venture kicked-off the downfall of the Middle East as he had known it.

    I figured Obama had come on board the minute he announced his decision about torture … in fact, I believe him to be a more steadfast supporter of the plan than Bush. I look back at FDR placing oil embargoes on Japan in retaliation for their invasion of our long time ally, China, sending equipment to Britain, etc., but what I see is Truman … he gave the go-ahead to drop the BOMB (2 of them) and he made the decision to go into Korea … sometimes the next guy is more committed than the first guy. Probably because the next guy has seen just how well the plan works.

  15. Regardless of whether the US shares responsibility for how he was treated, the media is absolutely responsible for its coverage of the event. The almost gleeful reporting while showing video of his treatment at the hands of an apparent mob reflects something very disturbing. The lack of outcry in response to such coverage is even more disturbing.

  16. I’m having a hard time finding compassion for a man who referred to his own people as, “rats and cockroaches” that he was going to “exterminate”. in Misrata and elsewhere in Libya.

    I am opposed to the death penalty — always have been — but am not a pacifist. This man was a reprehensible person with widely believed support of terrorist organisations. Lockerbie being just one.

    My sense is, after the horrendous treatment the Libyan people have suffered at the hands of this man and his murderous thugs and spies for 40 years, I expected no other outcome to his capture.

    I don’t welcome it particularly, but neither do I cry over the lack of any judicial formalities. Revolutions are rarely painless, and they are always messy. However, in this instance we are focussing on the fate of one man…. were we as outraged about the seige of cities and continuous rocket attacks on residential neighbourhoods, the house to house shootings of his opponents by his soldiers when a town fell into Gadhafi’s hands?

    I wonder.

    Gil Scott-Heron once said the ‘revolution will not be televised’. He was dead wrong on that. Literally.

Comments are closed.