U.S. launches airstrikes on Libya

[Milkman delivers]

If we're going to liberate Burma, we may as well do the same for Siam.

[Texsox]

That's the best kind of justice, and it's certainly the most dependable.

hyperbole? sarcasm?

[southsider2k5]

If we're going to liberate Burma, we may as well do the same for Siam.

 

I need to capture Kamchatka as well.

[The Sir]

If we're going to liberate Burma, we may as well do the same for Siam.

 

I couldn't think of the proper term for residents of Myanmar off the top of my head. Myanmarese? Myanmarians? Myanmarish? I'd go with the first one, but I'm not sure.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

I couldn't think of the proper term for residents of Myanmar off the top of my head. Myanmarese? Myanmarians? Myanmarish? I'd go with the first one, but I'm not sure.

 

It's Myanma but Burmese is still acceptable. They still speak in Burmese and write in a Burmese script as well.

[Balta1701]

I dont agree with street justice, but from the videos its hard to determine what exactly happened. Its possible that Gaddafi died die to injuries suffered prior to capture, who knows.

 

As for going down the road to Islam if thats what the people of Libya want, who am I to stop them. When people are free, they have the right to make their own decisions about their govt.

The reason I withheld comment yesterday was that I was guessing there was a firefight involved at some point, rahter than him just being killed by a mob. The Post is running with a story saying Quadaffi was in fact killed in a firefight prior to where those videos of his bloody body were taken.

The prime minister said Gaddafi was discovered with a group of supporters in a sewage pipe in Sirte, armed with a pistol and wearing pants and a long-underwear shirt — a far cry from his famously flamboyant outfits. He did not resist arrest.

 

As Gaddafi was being walked to a truck, however, he was shot in the right arm in an exchange of gunfire between his supporters and revolutionaries, Jibril said.

 

The truck then got caught in crossfire as it headed toward a hospital, and Gaddafi was shot in the head, Jibril said.

 

“That was the deadly shot,” he said in an interview. The former leader died shortly thereafter, he said.

[Milkman delivers]

I though he was still alive (though brutally beaten and near death) in that video posted by Infantry.

[southsider2k5]

The reason I withheld comment yesterday was that I was guessing there was a firefight involved at some point, rahter than him just being killed by a mob. The Post is running with a story saying Quadaffi was in fact killed in a firefight prior to where those videos of his bloody body were taken.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/af...tml?_r=2&hp

 

MISURATA, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s last moments Thursday were as violent as the uprising that overthrew him.

 

In a cellphone video that went viral on the Internet, the deposed Libyan leader is seen splayed on the hood of a truck and then stumbling amid a frenzied crowd, seemingly begging for mercy. He is next seen on the ground, with fighters grabbing his hair. Blood pours down his head, drenching his golden brown khakis, as the crowd shouts, “God is great!”

 

Colonel Qaddafi’s body was shown in later photographs, with bullet holes apparently fired into his head at what forensic experts said was close range, raising the possibility that he was executed by anti-Qaddafi fighters.

 

The official version of events offered by Libya’s new leaders — that Colonel Qaddafi was killed in a cross-fire — did not appear to be supported by the photographs and videos that streamed over the Internet all day long, raising questions about the government’s control of the militias in a country that has been divided into competing regions and factions.

 

The conflicting accounts about how he was killed seemed to reflect an instability that could trouble Libya long after the euphoria fades about the demise of Colonel Qaddafi, who ruled Libya for nearly 42 years and is the first of the autocrats to be killed in the Arab Spring uprisings.

 

At the same time, the flood of good news for the former rebels prompted a collective sigh of relief and quieted talk of rivalries, as strangers congratulated one another in the streets.

 

For weeks, as the fight for Surt, Colonel Qaddafi’s hometown and final redoubt in the eight-month conflict, reached a bloody climax, NATO forces and Libyan fighters had watched for an attempt by his armed loyalists to flee and seek safety elsewhere. Soon after dawn, they did, leaving urban bunkers in the Mediterranean town and heading west, said a senior Western official in Europe knowledgeable about NATO’s operations in Libya.

 

Around 8:30 a.m. local time, a convoy slipped out of a fortified compound in Surt, the scene of one of the civil war’s bloodiest and longest battles and a city that was on the verge of falling to Colonel Qaddafi’s opponents.

 

Before the convoy had traveled two miles, NATO officials said, it was set upon by an American Predator drone and a French warplane. With the attack the convoy “was stopped from progressing as it sought to flee Surt but was not destroyed,” Defense Minister Gérard Longuet of France said.

 

Only two vehicles in the convoy were hit, neither carrying Colonel Qaddafi, a Western official said. But the rest of the convoy was forced to detour and scatter. Anti-Qaddafi fighters rapidly descended on the scene, telling Reuters they saw people fleeing through some nearby woods and gave pursuit.

 

A field leader in Surt, who gave his name to Al Jazeera television as Mohammed al-Laith, said that Colonel Qaddafi fled from a Jeep in the convoy and dived into a large drainage pipe. After a gun battle backed by his guards, he emerged. Mr. Laith told Al Jazeera that the former Libyan leader had a Kalashnikov in one hand, a pistol in the other.

 

“What’s happening?” he quoted him as asking as he came out.

 

The video on Al Jazeera shows Colonel Qaddafi wounded, but clearly alive. The network quoted a fighter saying that he had begged for help. “Show me mercy!” he was said to have cried. There was little of that, in the video at least.

 

One fighter is seen pulling his hair, and others beat his limp body. Two fighters interviewed by Al Jazeera said someone had struck his head with a gun butt.

 

Omran Shaaban, 21, a Misurata fighter who claimed to have been the first, along with a friend, to find Colonel Qaddafi, said he was already wounded in the head and chest and bleeding in the drainage pipe and then whisked away to an ambulance. Precisely how he died after that, Mr. Shaaban said, was unclear.

 

By all accounts, he was then taken in an ambulance to Misurata, a coastal town to the west that fought perhaps the most ferocious battle against Colonel Qaddafi’s government and whose fighters still celebrate their reputation for martial prowess.

 

Holly Pickett, a freelance photojournalist working in Surt, reported in a Twitter feed that she had seen Colonel Qaddafi’s body in an ambulance headed for Misurata, along with 10 fighters inside with him. It was unclear from her posts whether he was dead. “From the side door, I could see a bare chest with bullet wound and a bloody hand. He was wearing gold-colored pants,” she said in one post.

 

Within an hour of the news of Colonel Qaddafi’s death, Libyans were celebrating. “We have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Mahmoud Jibril, the prime minister of the Transitional National Council, the interim government, said. “Muammar Qaddafi is dead.” He was speaking at a news conference in Tripoli. Mahmoud Shammam, the council’s chief spokesman, called it “the day of real liberation. We were serious about giving him a fair trial. It seems God has some other wish.”

 

At least one of Colonel Qaddafi’s feared sons, Muatassim, was also killed on Thursday, Libyan officials said, and there were unconfirmed reports that another, Seif al-Islam, had been captured or wounded.

 

The Arab Twittersphere lighted up with gleeful comments, many of them hinting at a similar fate awaiting other Arab dictators who have sought to crush popular uprisings — most notably President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. One of them, also referring to former President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, read: “Ben Ali escaped, Mubarak is in jail, Qaddafi was killed. Which fate do you prefer, Ali Abdullah Saleh? You can consult with Bashar.” Another was more direct: “Bashar al-Assad, how do you feel today?”

 

No videos or photos appeared to show Colonel Qaddafi alive after the ambulance spirited him away from Surt, though there was a debate over who exactly was responsible for his death. NATO never claimed the airstrike killed him, and some officials of the Transitional National Council made clear he died at their own hands.

 

A reporter accompanying Ali Tarhouni, the interim government’s oil and finance minister, who visited Misurata to view the body, saw Colonel Qaddafi splayed out on a mattress in the reception room of a private home, shirtless, with bullet wounds in the chest and temple and blood on his arms and hair. Three medical officials arrived, presumably to conduct more forensic tests. News agencies quoted a spokesman for the council in Benghazi as saying a doctor had examined Colonel Qaddafi’s corpse in Misurata and found he had been shot in the head and abdomen. The shot to the head was visible in photos that followed.

 

A remarkable feature of the Arab revolts is the degree to which almost every incident is documented, usually by cellphone camera images. They are almost instantly fed to the Internet and satellite channels, or ferried by e-mail.

 

A flurry of images followed Colonel Qaddafi’s death. In one, broadcast by Al Jazeera, his body is half-naked, bleeding on the pavement. Even more dramatic is a video posted on YouTube. Celebrating fighters surround his corpse, which appears to have been washed. Clearly visible is a gunshot wound to his forehead.

 

A forensic pathologist in New York, Dr. Michael Baden, said in observing the photos that there were as many as two bullet wounds and possibly four in Colonel Qaddafi’s head. From what he saw, he believed the shots were fired at fairly close range.

 

“It looks more like an execution than something that happened during a struggle,” said Dr. Baden, a former New York City medical examiner. “Two pretty identical-looking wounds like that would have been hard to do from a distance.”

 

Late into the night, Libyans celebrated Colonel Qaddafi’s death, as did some elsewhere in the Arab world, seeing it as a lesson to autocrats in Yemen and Syria. “It is a historic moment,” said Abdel Hafez Ghoga, a spokesman for the Transitional National Council. “It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Qaddafi has met his fate.”

 

Western leaders who helped the anti-Qaddafi fighters throughout the conflict also hailed Colonel Qaddafi’s demise.

 

“We can definitely say that the Qaddafi regime has come to an end,” President Obama said. “The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted, and with this enormous promise the Libyan people now have a great responsibility to build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic Libya that stands as the ultimate rebuke to Qaddafi’s dictatorship.”

 

But occasionally voiced in the Middle East was unease at the violence of the moment, the fact that a bloody revolution ended with yet more bloodshed. “It’s not acceptable to kill a person without trying him,” said Louay Hussein, a Syrian opposition figure in Damascus. “I prefer to see the tyrant behind bars.”

 

[The Sir]

Soxbadger:

 

I didn't think of this the other day when we were discussing this, but I'd be interested to hear your opinion.

 

I still believe Libya is about to fall to radical Islam, so while I believe Gaddafi got what he deserved and is just one asshole killed by other assholes, I'm not celebrating wildly because I don't see that country improving anytime soon. I stand by that.

 

However, one thing that could absolutely appease from the NTC which is poised to take over the country is if they turn Abdel Basset al-Megrahi (the convicted Lockerbie bomber) over to American forces. The Libyan people can do whatever the hell they want with their lives, but al-Megrahi (on Gaddafi's orders) murdered 270 people, many of them Americans, and we have the right to put him on trial. His compassionate release was a fraud (as all compassionate releases are, but that's a topic for another day) and I believe that should be a major point in any talks we have with the new regime.

 

Of course, I believe they've already denied this demand, so the point is probably moot. And that only reinforces my opinions about the sort of people who've taken over.

 

What do you think?

[Balta1701]

However, one thing that could absolutely appease from the NTC which is poised to take over the country is if they turn Abdel Basset al-Megrahi (the convicted Lockerbie bomber) over to American forces.

Isn't he lying comatose in a hospital?

[The Sir]

Isn't he lying comatose in a hospital?

 

That's what the NTC minister who said he would not be turned over to us said. But I'm not convinced. After all, he was supposed to have died back in 2009. That was the stupid logic behind releasing him in the first place and it turned out to be a lie. Yet here he is, still breathing, and only a few months ago he was spotted at a Gaddafi rally.

 

And even if he is comatose, so what? 270 innocent people were murdered twenty years ago. I hope brain cancer hurts like Hell for that turd. It still won't be as bad as what he gave his victims. I don't see why we give compassionate release to anyone, much less to mass murdering terrorists. There's no reason al-Megrahi should not die in a dank, Western prison cell. None whatsoever.

[GoSox05]

That's what the NTC minister who said he would not be turned over to us said. But I'm not convinced. After all, he was supposed to have died back in 2009. That was the stupid logic behind releasing him in the first place and it turned out to be a lie. Yet here he is, still breathing, and only a few months ago he was spotted at a Gaddafi rally.

 

And even if he is comatose, so what? 270 innocent people were murdered twenty years ago. I hope brain cancer hurts like Hell for that turd. It still won't be as bad as what he gave his victims. I don't see why we give compassionate release to anyone, much less to mass murdering terrorists. There's no reason al-Megrahi should not die in a dank, Western prison cell. None whatsoever.

 

I'm sure you feel the same way about someone like Luis Posada Carriles.

[The Sir]

I'm sure you feel the same way about someone like Luis Posada Carriles.

 

Posada Carriles was never convicted of anything. Well, he was once, in absentia in Panama but he was later pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso. And frankly, we have no reason to try him because none of his victims were American. Cuba, Guyana and the DPRK are free to try him for murdering their citizens, but in 35 years they have failed to do so.

 

Now, if Carriles were suspected of, and in one nation convicted of, murdering dozens of people, US citizens among them, and then he was compassionately released to his home nation, then I would be angry and demand his arrest by that nation.

 

Also complicating things is the fact that Carriles has no chance of receiving a fair trial in any of those countries I named previously. I'm not going to support turning someone over to certain extrajudicial executioners in Cuba or North Korea.

 

Your analogy doesn't fly, not that I'm surprised.

[GoSox05]

Posada Carriles was never convicted of anything. Well, he was once, in absentia in Panama but he was later pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso. And frankly, we have no reason to try him because none of his victims were American. Cuba, Guyana and the DPRK are free to try him for murdering their citizens, but in 35 years they have failed to do so.

 

Now, if Carriles were suspected of, and in one nation convicted of, murdering dozens of people, US citizens among them, and then he was compassionately released to his home nation, then I would be angry and demand his arrest by that nation.

 

Also complicating things is the fact that Carriles has no chance of receiving a fair trial in any of those countries I named previously. I'm not going to support turning someone over to certain extrajudicial executioners in Cuba or North Korea.

 

Your analogy doesn't fly, not that I'm surprised.

 

 

I think it's pretty fair analogy. It has to be able to go both ways.

 

 

[Balta1701]

That's what the NTC minister who said he would not be turned over to us said. But I'm not convinced. After all, he was supposed to have died back in 2009. That was the stupid logic behind releasing him in the first place and it turned out to be a lie. Yet here he is, still breathing, and only a few months ago he was spotted at a Gaddafi rally.

 

And even if he is comatose, so what? 270 innocent people were murdered twenty years ago. I hope brain cancer hurts like Hell for that turd. It still won't be as bad as what he gave his victims. I don't see why we give compassionate release to anyone, much less to mass murdering terrorists. There's no reason al-Megrahi should not die in a dank, Western prison cell. None whatsoever.

This wasn't just a statement by some minister, CNN actually located the guy in late August. There's video of him lying unconscious in a hospital bed supported by breathing machines.

[Balta1701]

The bodies of 53 people, believed to be supporters of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, have been found in a hotel that was under the control of anti-Gadhafi fighters, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

 

The rights group said it found the bodies clustered together at Hotel Mahari in Sirte on Sunday. About 20 residents were putting the bodies in body bags to prepare them for burial when Human Rights Watch found them.

 

"We found 53 decomposing bodies, apparently (Gadhafi) supporters, at an abandoned hotel in Sirte, and some had their hands bound behind their backs when they were shot," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch.

 

"This requires the immediate attention of the Libyan authorities to investigate what happened and hold accountable those responsible."

Link

[Soxbadger]

Infantry,

 

Its not a clear cut question. He was convicted in some sort of Scottish proceeding. The Scots are saying that they are the only ones that can request any sort of transfer. That being said there are 2 issues here, 1) what is the current status of his conviction and 2) if he was tried in the US would it be double jeopardy.

 

Im not that knowledgeable on international criminal laws, but Id have no problem if he was tried in the US. I definitely would not agree with applying another countries conviction in the US.

 

Balta,

 

Probably will only find a fraction of the death sites (that is on both sides).

[The Sir]

Its not a clear cut question. He was convicted in some sort of Scottish proceeding. The Scots are saying that they are the only ones that can request any sort of transfer. That being said there are 2 issues here, 1) what is the current status of his conviction and 2) if he was tried in the US would it be double jeopardy.

 

Im not that knowledgeable on international criminal laws, but Id have no problem if he was tried in the US. I definitely would not agree with applying another countries conviction in the US.

 

I don't want to apply Scotland's conviction. If Scotland believes his compassionate release is null and void because it was a lie, and they want him back, I'd support that. But if they're not going to take that route, we should absolutely demand that he be turned over to us for trial.

 

Double jeopardy? You're a lawyer, I'm not. But I don't think this counts. Not only different jurisdictions, but different countries! He can only be tried once by our country, but the Scottish one does not count towards his right to be protected from double jeopardy. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but haven't there been cases where a person was convicted and imprisoned in one jurisdiction, and upon the termination of that sentence, they were immediately extradited to another jurisdiction to face charges there? I swear that's happened. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

I think we should make some nice offers to the NTC for this dickhead. An increase in foreign aid, some weapons for the military, maybe some training for their soldiers? I'm not sure what, just give 'em something nice for this goon.

[Balta1701]

How can releasing him because of his poor health be based on a lie when the guy is in a coma?

[The Sir]

How can releasing him because of his poor health be based on a lie when the guy is in a coma?

 

Because in 2009, a doctor said he had three months to live and he got released. He's still alive, and he was well enough to attend a Gaddafi rally earlier this year. That's a lie, at least when considering what the doctor said.

 

And regardless of his health, why should he have been released at all? So he can die peacefully with his family? The 270 people he murdered didn't get that opportunity. So why should he? Compassionate release is crap. You killed 270 innocent people and now you got AIDS/brain cancer/ebola? Great! You can die in prison and we won't have to feed you anymore.

 

Why should we show compassion to people who showed none to their victims? We have no obligation to do that. They did the crime, they were given a fair trial and now they will pay the penalty in full regardless of their health. Please don't tell me we should do it because we need to be better than them, and "hold ourselves to a higher standard". We already do that by not murdering innocent people.

[Balta1701]

He shouldn't have been released, but the uk wanted to secure petroleum access. Not the worst thing done this decade for that goal.

 

And regardless of whether he was well enough to attend a rally earlier this year, he's been in a months long coma since then. Torturing the body of a near-vegetable brings me no joy or pleasure.

[The Sir]

He shouldn't have been released, but the uk wanted to secure petroleum access.

 

Yeah, I read this. f*** BP.

 

Torturing the body of a near-vegetable brings me no joy or pleasure.

 

You don't have to then. Give him to me and I'll torture him enough for the both of us. Deal?

[Balta1701]

Frankly...no. Having someone else get their jollies off on te shell of a terrorists body sickens me quite a bit.

 

If he ever regains consciousness, then the uk should demand his return from the new government (won't happen, see previous reason). Otherwise, it's a shell, not a person any more.

[The Sir]

Frankly...no. Having someone else get their jollies off on te shell of a terrorists body sickens me quite a bit.

 

If he ever regains consciousness, then the uk should demand his return from the new government (won't happen, see previous reason). Otherwise, it's a shell, not a person any more.

 

FYI, I was joking about torturing him. You used that word. But I would like him on his deathbed in a Western prison. Only in a liberal's mind would that be considered torture for someone who murdered 270 people. You're unbelievable.

 

Please explain why al-Megrahi should be allowed to die with his family when his victims did not receive such privileges.

[The Sir]

He was speaking to the media this month! Your news crew found him "comatose" in August. I call bulls*** on you. The dude's coherent enough to talk to the media. Your "unconscious" claims are lies.