Amnesty International has become the latest in a long line of organizations taking NATO to task for its civilian killings in Libya’s 2011 civil war. Or rather, Amnesty is faulting NATO for its refusal to conduct investigations into those killings.
“NATO officials repeatedly stressed their commitment to protecting civilians,” the statement said, “they cannot now brush aside the deaths of scores of civilians with some vague statement of regret.”
NATO initially claimed that not a single civilian was killed in their air strikes, but after a UN investigation uncovered 60 civilians killed, and also lashed NATO for refusing to cooperate with the probe, NATO did eventually cop to the killings of 55 of them.
In its admission, NATO simply confirmed the killings and expressed “regret” but provided no evidence that the targets were military in nature and openly shrugged off the idea of a probe, saying that the UN mandate had expired and that would prevent it from carrying out “any activities” related to the Libya war. Amnesty urged NATO to carry out full investigations, and to punish anyone who was found guilty of violations of international law.
Meanwhile, new reports on the pair of British journalists held hostage for a month by US-backed militia forces show that the pair had been reporting on that militia’s revenge attacks on black Libyans. Considerable violence was carried out in the wake the NATO-backed regime change against blacks in Libya, who were accused of being uniformly in league with the Gadhafi regime. This included the complete destruction of the town of Tawargha by Misratan forces, and the ghost town’s replacement with a sign that says “New Misrata.”
How do organizations like Amnesty Intl & HRW reconcile their consistent calls for intervention with the fact that the same governments they want doing the intervening are themselves criminal?
Very good point. These organizations are at times involved in major cover-up themselves. I remember vividly still August of 1995, when an entire region of Croatia, Krajina, was in a matter of days cleansed of its entire population. Human Rights Watch was there, and reported about it as if we are seing a rush hour traffic of tractors and horse driven carts, mingled with cars and buses. They never showed the military offensive that caused the exodus of hundreds of thousands. Another instance was a few years ago assignment to Human Rights Watch to investigate Carla Del Ponte's accusation of Kosovo's leader, Hashim Tachi in organ harvesting scheme using kidnapped Serbian population in Kosovo. HRW just burried all the leads. And it was not until Dick Marty, well regarded former Swiss prosecutor took up the cause, and together with Carla Del Ponte reinvestigated the matter, and issued a report to EU. Even then, US and UK insured that the story is BURRIED.
What are they getting excercised about in case of Libya? They now have gangs ruling Libya, and making life a living hell for population. Do they care? No, they are going to get into academic debate over NATO thoroughness. How slick.
Amnesty International, please excuse me while I spit. Out the backdoor of course. Amnesty International is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Department of State.
Besides, 'humanitarian intervention' is a proven winner for colonialism anywhere and is therefore above reproach.
Now be honest, no one actually believed that NATO was going to investigate themselves. AI has been after DoD and other strong arm organizations for years to explain their actions, to what success? As that world class tactician stated, with aplomb, "Stuff Happens!! – get over it"
Can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not (though by your username I should probably assume that you are), but I certainly did not believe that NATO would investigate themselves. Hell, I also did not (and do not) believe the bullsh*t claims that their mission was (or ever has been) to protect civilians. This is precisely why I am *against* military interventions in the first place!
Any honest assessment of history would require one to determine that western governments are responsible for more violations of human rights than perhaps any other government (arguable sure, but it's damned close especially since western govts get away with it so easily), which should lead one to adopt a non-interventionist stance. That organizations like AI & HRW *don't* recognize this or maybe they do and are still willing to ignore it is hypocritical to say the least. "Beware human rights imperialism" as they say.
Of course, I probably shouldn't expect every organization to be as consistently non-interventionist as Antiwar.com!
Dripping with "…" 😉
I agree completely. It is, after all, the powerful who usually attempt to write their own history. In the time before global connectedness, they did – they just haven't adjusted to the new realities of "everybody is watching!!"
NATO is a militarism regime, a long arm for EU and US to steal and change regimes for their masters, you will never hear that US militarism regime is wrong being in Afghanistan, you well never ever hear that US will admit to its war crimes around the world, from Korea to Vietnam to Yugoslavia to Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya, if Amnesty International wants to do something about these matters they need to put their money where the international court of crime is and hire the best there is to start prosecuting Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Paul Wolfowitz, George W. Bush , Carl Rove and hundreds other from Sweden to Washington.
This is all so sadly hypocritical. And, once again, I have to remind myself just what kind of "better" place did our humanitarians intend to create after blasting everyone to hell?
A better place for US corporations and the US military (Libya to host AFRICOM?). Here I use host in the say way that human host a plague virus, for example.
What fraud news ! "a UN investigation uncovered 60 civilians killed…" Kill 60.000 and admit 60 !
Tripoli alone has been bombed daily and every night over 6 months and in the latter half the tactics changed to bomb civilian infrastructures to press people to turn against Gaddafi (what they did not) and they bombed intentionally the Libyan water supply by bombing the main desert pipeline and (!) the pipe factory in order to disable repair!
They also bombed many schools, universities, children clinics, food storages, supermarkets actually anything civilians. There was a young woman who did committ suicid trial, because she want not to wait every night when she got killed. This surly was the tactic behind this bombing at any day and night – people should feel that they can be killed any hour.
Some infos I have:
1.
60 deaths were reached easily. 89 deaths in Zliten residential houses bombed:
NATO VICTIMS
civilians victim by NATO in libya.mp4 /watch?v=CzvLzuBpHag
Mahdi Nazemroaya, NATO Carpet Bombing Libya, NATO Crimes In Libya
NATO has been bombing the city non stop destroying homes and infrastructure.
http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/06/cutting-baby…
Pictures of Nato attacks on Tripoli Today 7:6:2011.mov Libyan TV building bombarded
Libya: Eyewitness Describes The Attack On Gaddafi's Compound
You got that right, Jimmy. There’s a lot of iron up there. I was up there for a restoration course and a bunch of us got probing around and through the snow banks coming up with all kinds of neat stuff. One guy ended up with an RHD Model T chassis.