The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor says there is evidence that Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi ordered the rape of hundreds of women as a weapon.
Link.
Recently, I was reading Ralph Raico's book "Great Wars and Great Leaders" and found this passage regarding the propagandizing of German activity at the outbreak of WWI in order to drum up support for intervention:
The truth about Belgium would hardly have created the firestorm of rage against the Germans that British propaganda aimed for. It was all the gruesome fabricated details contained in the Bryce report—the women raped en masse, the children with their hands cut off, the violated nuns and the Canadian soldiers crucified to barn doors—that made people’s blood boil and proved German savagery.
Does the State ever tire of recycling the same tricks or are they simply continuously effective?
I don't understand their statement. How is raping hundreds of women a weapon?
When you rape a bunch of people, does the pile of bodies turn into a rape-gun?
I don't know if it is true or not. It would be sad to deny it just because it seems to be a trick. I don't know.
But the statement makes no sense.
And at the same time you can read stories about how women respect Gaddafi more than anyone else http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/08/gaddafi-women-supporters-libya_n_873057.html . Not to say that a person can't act peaceful one day and violent another, but either way none of this is going to end well.
Well, the key thing to remember is that all governments - without exception - are continually involved in a never-ending story of atrocities. During elections, politicians begin to tell the truth about each other... scandal, sexual escapades, conflicts of interest, compromised principles, grift, bribery, threats and intimidation - amoral behavior of every variety. A lot of it is exaggerated and hyperbolic but it is only erroneous as a matter of degree. During times of war (or "war", as the case may be), States begin to tell the truth about each other... tales of murder, rape, torture, genocide and so on begin to emerge. True, a lot of it is exaggerated but it is only erroneous as a matter of degree. It is essentially all true. Governments are constantly involved in all sorts of atrocities. To take a recent example, consider the death of David Kelly which widowed his wife. This was an unusually transparent move on the part of the authorities to ensure the war on Iraq proceeded on schedule, unhampered by questions of fact. This was an MI5 or CIA hit.
Gaddhafi is a pretty nasty guy but not as nasty NATO and the US will be as colonial governors. He may very well have used organized rape to intimidate and demoralize resisters. You can bet we'll do much worse once we've gotten hold of power there.
Clayton -
The more outrageous the accusation the less proof you need. What kind of monster would deny a systematic campaign of mass rape? Have you no empathy?! It didn't happen. The notion is idiotic and has been much abused in the past.
Is invasion imminent?
No, not necessarily. This intervention in Libya has been most reminiscent of intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that one dragged on for years. They said worse things about the villains there but never invaded. Of course there they didn't need to, since the proxies there, unlike the Libyan rebels, could fight.
Plenty of countries used rape as weapon.
Some use fear of rape as weapon, e.g., Chinese Communists often raped wives of their opponents during 1930s - 1970s during torture.
Some use rape as blackmail, e.g., Iraqi Ba'th and various Iraqi Socialist Parties before them, or just about any African countries were Islam is taken seriously, or where local custom's respect virginity and "purity."
Rape is common as weapon in Muslim countries because it is way to blackmail women, in those countries were virginity or loyalty to husband is religiously required.
Rape, if revealed, in these countries casts shame on family of victim, so not only is the rapist attempted to be punished, but victim is killed also by their family members, including by fathers and brothers, quite often.
Honor/shame is paradigm in such countries, something Europe grew out off with death of Chivalry. Honor can only be lost, but to get it back requires blood. That is how Schopenhauer made fun of this illogical concept. Illogical or not, however, honor/shame is the defining social relation in plenty of underdeveloped countries today.
...Canadian soldiers crucified to barn doors...
Interesting. My great-grandfather (fought in the Canadian army in the first WW) wrote a letter to his family mentioning that he had seen this very event occur. It was published in a newspaper with a fairly large run, we still have the original. Wonder if he was pressured to write this by a propaganda department.
It looks like Gaddafi has put out hits on Loyd Blankfein and other bankers for the Libyan Sovereign Wealth Fund squandering.
http://somalilandpress.com/libya-rebels-execute-black-immigrants-while-forces-kidnap-others-20586
http://blog.drkentshow.com/?p=1687
http://maxkeiser.com/2011/06/01/gaddafi-goldman/
I am not sure i believe what the Western media reports about Gaddafi. There is too much evidence of al qaeda (the rebels are very racist and are murdering black people indiscriminately) being the main fighting force.
Eating Propaganda
What do you mean i don't care how your day was?!
Major points to you for remembering the propaganda about the "Huns". I have in my possession a contemporary propaganda postcard representing a German firing squad (complete with pointed pickelhauben, which by that time had been discarded) murdering a small, lovely boy scout for no apparent reason and Tony Robinson even referred to the nun episody in Blackadder Goes Forth.
Lybia is different from Belgium: there's no mass conscription in the air. News about air raids or whatever are usually met with nothing more than a yawn or a shrug since the ordinary person in the street is either too busy staving off inflation or just doesn't care at all. In fact I often wonder why the media (now equipped with Super Shill Action as standard) bother at all trying to sell a war nobody's really interested into and making complete asses of themselves (even more than usual) by reporting such news.
Well, it's time for a massive reality check about Lybia. The US had to admit their NATO allies are proving "unable" to support the war in Lybia after Norway pulled out their F16 fighter-bombers due to lack of spares and ammunitions. After the initial onslaught the US scaled back their commitments in Lybia considerably and sat back to watch what their big-mouthed NATO allies could do. The first sign that something was comically wrong was the ever decreasing frequency of air strikes due to both the strain put on the very modest NATO air tanker fleet and the depletion of ammunition by both the French and British air forces. US commitments elesewhere meant there are no air tankers available and, differently from what happened in 1973, ammunition stockpiles cannot be replenished using US stocks because, despite decades of "standardization" programs, both British and French use their own weapon systems. This has led to the paradoxycal situation of having Gaddafi's artillery pieces sitting like nice targets in the middle of the desert and being used with impunity because there are no bombs to smash them to pieces.
As far as ground forces go, the situation is even worse. While the best NATO troops bogged down in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Cyprus etc there is just a handful of special forces teams being used to train local insurgents and employed in "hit and run" strikes. And even if there were troops available the means to carry them over to Lybia and keep them supplied are reduced to the bone. Differently from the lavish US Navy amphibious command, NATO landing ships are few and highly unsuited to a "shooting war", being based on commercial vessels which may be cheap to run but not exactly what you may want in a war zone. Air transports are insufficient and most of them are bogged down in Afghanistan.
Uncle Sam seems to have used Lybia to gauge the capability of his garrulous European allies to wage war on their own. And he's not pleased by what he sees. Truth to be told NATO leaders showed a little too much eagerness to jump into the fray to please their masters. For one they didn't even checked their bombs stockpiles to see if they had enough to finish the job at hand. Big Government: inefficient even when it comes at murdering people.
http://www.infowars.com/nato-reportedly-bombs-libyan-university/
here we go. U.S.A! U.S... egh, i can't even say it...