In “liberated” Libya, violence is on the rise as militias attack one another on a regular basis and seemingly everyone accuses everyone else of being a Gadhafi ally. Arrest, in this environment, often means open-ended detention without charges. And torture.
Nominally under the control of the US and NATO-backed National Transitional Council (NTC), this new Libya is a nation awash in arms and grudges, the product of an ugly civil war and an international community that seems determined to throw its weight behind any interested party still alive on the ground.
In one instance, a knife fight at a market between two men from neighboring towns culminated in the massing of troops and the kidnapping and torture death of an uninvolved resident of one of the towns. His wife has just given birth the day before. Each side claims the other are pro-Gadhafi fighters.
Western diplomats are shrugging off the problems as a “country coming down off a victory high.” But Libyans don’t trust their new interim government and mass protests are breaking out against the brand-new regime.
The NTC is looking to placate the public with a few token resignations, but the issue goes well beyond the unpopularity of a few late-in-the-game defectors from the old regime. The protests against the Gadhafi regime began with the hope of a free country, and the realization that the NTC commandeered their revolution — possibly replacing one tyrant with another — is not something that can be easily tamped down.
All completely predicable. The Libyan "revolution" was in fact a counter-revolution waged by a Western imperialist axis of UK, France and NATO/US using as proxy a rag-tag, disparate, disunited but heavily armed group of discontented Libyans who were actually a minority. There never was anything to holdit together so now it is falling a part. The West is not, was not, interested in "democracy" in Libya, it aimed to smash Libya and make it more easily exploitable by imperialst interests. Smashing all the Arab states is also an aim of the rogue state of Israel.
There is good evidence that the House of Saud was the actual smasher. Israel had little if anything to fear from Khadaffi.
Disillusioned you say? Torturing and killing? Wonder what would happen if they just got mildly depressed.
Good job, NATO and GCC monarchies!! You thought you were saving the Libyans from Qaddafi and only pretended to give a crap about what happens afterwards!
I wonder if the "revolutionaries" are still glad about that whole "no-fly zone" business they begged for.
Any other secular Arab states left out there?
Better beware, Heroine of the People Susan Rice may want to liberate you next!
It's not torture- it's 'enhanced interrogation techniques' now. When will you folks ever get it right?
Funny though: one can do a side-by-side comparison of the modern Army manuals on 'torture' and those books on the same subject used during the Spanish Inquisition to extract information and confessions… you will find that little has changed, other than the quality of 'interrogation' devices and the terminology used.
I'm surprised that they are fighting the pro-Gadhafi fighters instead of pro-NATO fighters. Gadhafi was a dictator, but he was good towards the Libyans. It will take the Libyans sometime until they will realize what they have missed.
Mission accomplished. Next on the list, Syria.