who perpetrated this Libyan massacre?

[Caustic Logic]

Before I nod off, it occurred to me to put this before the forum community. Warning: all subject matter is gruesome, of the type now tolerated by Youtube and Facebook as essential for the cause of freedom in Libya.

First, the rebel version, complete with survivor, who I guess explained the truth of the massacre. I find the camera's pronographic zooming in on the gore disquieting, and the encounter with the thirsty dying martyr strange as well.
http://www.libyafeb17.com/2011/03/g...dafi-forces-for-refusing-to-shoot-protesters/

This is the real movie that demonstrates the falsity of Gaddafi run state tv which accused the rebels of executing these soldiers after muting the audio and filtering sections of it. The fact of the footage is that there was a group of Libyan soldiers who refused to obey orders to shoot their fellow Libyans and they were executed by the regime and its mercenaries. We can see at the end of the footage a dying soldier who is being encouraged to say the testimony of faith. We ask God to accept the martyrs of this nation.
Translation:
Cameraman: These guys have been killed here. You can see the bullet shells strewn all over._Cameraman: He said from AzZawiyah, he said Mu’ammar sent him…_Man: Say there is no god except God_Another man: There is no god except God_Cameraman: Give him water. Alright alright, don’t give him too much, you might kill him.

Then, the Libyan TV version, complete with a whole alternate beginning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8POHluG86IU
It's a different shot of the same scene later on, quite a few dead, all with hands tied, heads blown open. without the survivor - his space is just empty in this version. Who are all these guys, capptives and captors, and what is going on between these two videos? Did the state news just edit out the telltale survivor, and fake that intro, or was their purpose leaving that out only to show "the ret of the story?" What is the story? How did they get this extra footage? Etc.?

(Arabic speakers would help in this one)

 

[Caustic Logic]

Bump.

My own understanding is that the captors in the version run on Libyan TV are the racist Islamist type of western rebels, the good guys we're so hot to protect. The captives seem to be genuine military types, at least in part, and some black guys. The captors are haranguing them and brandishing weapons. They're bound and just waiting.

The edited video, without this, leaves the killers unclear. The cameraman and the group he's with are part of the murder team, I think, the dying victim is acting, and the story that the soldiers were killed by their own is something they made up, to make this a false flag massacre to be blamed on Gaddafi.

I don't claim that all the other such incidents were the same, but it's possible at least some of hem are, and that the human rights abuses we're bombing Libya for are at least partly carried out by our heroes, with their stories simply taken as fact, in the name of freedom, panic, and swift action.

Anyone care to disagree?

 

[Rolfe]

This was on the TV news here, and it was being presented as the people who had actually carried out the massacre faking up a false victim (who wasn't bound or shot like the others, and was in a position which was empty in another video of the same scene) so as to blame the massacre they had carried out on the other guys.

Which side was which in this narrative, I was never entirely sure. We all like to think the anti-Gadaffi rebels are the good guys, I suppose.

Rolfe.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It was a Mossad and the CIA False Flag operation of course.

 

[Rolfe]

Well, that's a really helpful comment - not. According to the BBC, the interview with the "victim" was probably a fake. Who was faking against whom I'm less clear.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Yep, swooping in for the unfounded ridicule.

The captors don't seem like regime types, the captives do. The before segment clarifies the after, the conclusions shared by the camera crew and the "dying survivor" clarify it in the entirely opposite direction. Right?

But this was on the news in the UK? How was it presented there, Rolfe? You make it sound like the overall impression was ambiguous - how did that impression come about?

 

[little grey rabbit]

Regardless, the democratic uprising was certainly lynching people in the streets in the 2nd video.
The 2nd video also shows that democratic uprising beating up an African in the vicinity of the executed men. The living man who says "Mu'ammar sent us" doesn't sound consistant with the alleged scenario of soldiers being executed for refusing to fire on protestors. And while it is not impossible, it is unlikely that the army would execute such soldiers and then retreat to allow them to be found by a civilian mob.

This appears consistent with the opposition first executing people who they believe were acting for the Government - and then trying to construct another narrative on top of it when they realised it looked bad.

However, if the will of people as expressed by the democratic uprising says these people must have their hands tied behind their back and shot as a good leftist (Who Would Wikileaks Summarily Execute?) I would like to add my approval here.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Actually good observations, for a holocaust denier.

Not a popular conspiracy theory at the moment, huh?

Got others ... those defecting fighter pilots with the orders to "fire on protesters" - made up to start the no-fly discussion.

... the rebel-flown Gaddafi regime Mig fighter shot down over Beghazi ... staged, intended as a frame-up, but then ... ?? What did happen with that? I should go check.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yep, swooping in for the unfounded ridicule.

Why unfounded? you see a conspirace in everything. Just calling it as I see it.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Why unfounded? you see a conspirace in everything. Just calling it as I see it.

Everything? Really?

So this episode is just as the rebels presented it then? And the Gaddafi regime faked the alternate intro with CGI, or what?

It's no fluke either. Googling for reported incidents, I found few that gave any details of these mass killings of soldiers who refused to fire. Here's one:

130 Libyan soldiers were executed because they refused to open fire against the protestants, according to the International Federal Human Rights organization.
A video posted online shows the dead bodies of 130 soldiers with their hands tied behind their back. The soldiers were executed at Al-Baida, close to Benghazi.

The video linked to is the one in discussion.
http://www.xianet.net/2011/02/libya...s-killed-soldiers-and-the-massacre-continues/

The number of people killed in this atrocity is 130. Libyan state TV are the ones who showed the video of who their captors were. The rebel and western-accepted version has all that removed, and some mud-covered non-bound, non-shot guy clearly from a different set of people, in that empty spot near the wall, explaining what "really" happened.

ETA: That's in the one at Facebook. The version I just found does not feature the survivor, nor the pre-slaughter footage.

The last line in that video, as translated above - "don't give him too much (water), you might kill him," almost reads as a sick joke. Sick people, however, might take pains to pan in on the gore of the heads they just exploded with a fascinated "eww!" The Facebook version of the video at least does that.

 

[little grey rabbit]

You might wonder if the cameraman was Mohammed Nabbous
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Nabbous

Although there is absolutely no reason to think it is - there are probably plenty of people running around with video cameras.

Anyways, if you want a conspiracy theory then mine would be that the tall, suave Nabbous who spoke with quick fire brillance, engineering graduate of Oxford university was either a fiction or his death by sniper on roof was a fiction.

Not the slightest bit of proof - just it has a "death of Neda in Iran" feel to it.

In that grimy warren of hallways and former interrogation cells, reclaimed from the regime and plastered floor to ceiling with graffiti slogans and cartoons, his name was intoned gravely, even reverently.

 

[Caustic Logic]

You might wonder if the cameraman was Mohammed Nabbous
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Nabbous

Although there is absolutely no reason to think it is - there are probably plenty of people running around with video cameras.

Anyways, if you want a conspiracy theory then mine would be that the tall, suave Nabbous who spoke with quick fire brillance, engineering graduate of Oxford university was either a fiction or his death by sniper on roof was a fiction.

Not the slightest bit of proof - just it has a "death of Neda in Iran" feel to it.

Interesting and, some would say, detestable idea. As you say, no evidence, and so on.

The article I cited above mentions support for the rebels' theory from the International Federation for Human Rights (I presume, though the name was mangled.) I checked their website, http://www.fidh.org/-english-
They seem pretty balanced, impartial, and evidence-oriented, and not the slightest bit alarmist or political.
http://www.fidh.org/Libya-Strategy-of-scorched-earth-desire-for
I didn't find anything on there about a report or anything to support the finding they're credited with, but it sounds about right. This is the closest, an oblique reference, from the link above:

New credible information, and sometimes still difficult to verify, regarding the murders of soldiers refusing to follow orders [...] suggest that Gaddafi has effectively decided to implement a mass extermination of those participating in the protests and furthermore, the systematic repression of civilians. The intention announced by Gaddafi in a speech on Feb. 22, to eradicate the “rats” should be taken seriously.

Also, FIDH cite the plight of back African migrants. The human rights abuses perpetrated against them by rebel forces, as shown to some extent in the video under discussion, later on, and in articles like this), finally makes the word "genocide" almost applicable as a real danger in Libya. This all goes unmentioned in their report, with the real threat being their racist deployment as mercenaries and "Human shields" in Gaddafi's army.
http://www.fidh.org/Colonel-Qaddhafi-forces-enrollment-of-African

 

[little grey rabbit]

Interesting and detestable ideas are my specialty.

I will be interested if there is a big fuss made for the funeral of the matyr. Although I daresay there are a few martyrs in Benghazi - and a few in Tripoli too for that matter.

 

[little grey rabbit]

BTW, if you look at the second link again - what would be obvious if one understood arabic - the beginning of the clip is a number of people being harangued. These people are the ones who end up being shot. And the person who asks for water in the feb17.com version and says Gadaffi sent them appears to be just a stooge or actor.

Or as C.S Lewis put it in "That Hideous Strength"

“No Emperor ...” began Merlin, and then his voice died away. Presently he said, “This is a cold age in which I have awaked. If all this west part of the world is apostate, might it be lawful, in our great need, to look farther ... beyond Christendom? Should we not find some even among the heathen who are not wholly corrupt? There were tales in my day of some such: men who knew not the articles of our most holy Faith but who worshipped God as they could and acknowledged the Law of Nature. Sir, I believe it
would be lawful to seek help even there—beyond Byzantium. I know not where .. Babylon, Arabia, or Cathay.”
Ransom shook his head. “The poison was brewed in these West lands, but it has spat itself everywhere by now. However far you went you would find the machines, the crowded cities, the empty thrones, the false writings: men maddened with false promises and soured with true miseries, cut off from Earth their mother and from the Father in Heaven. The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus.”

 

[TheRedWorm]

but really,

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6972703&postcount=26

 

[Foolmewunz]

Interesting and detestable ideas are my specialty.

I will be interested if there is a big fuss made for the funeral of the matyr. Although I daresay there are a few martyrs in Benghazi - and a few in Tripoli too for that matter.

Bolded part: QFT

 

[TheRedWorm]

IOW, a blatant troll.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Hmmm.

 

[little grey rabbit]

Any update on the funeral of Nabbous?

 

[Caustic Logic]

LOL!

No.

I'm finally looking for all the news stories that have surfaced about this. Not to read all, just scanning. This is Wikipedia's source for the IFHR claim of the al-Baida massacre. http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Libya-130-soldiers-executed-20110223

Paris - At least 640 people have been killed in Libya in protests against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi since they started last week, the International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) said on Wednesday.

The figure is more than double the official Libyan government toll of 300 dead, and includes 275 dead in Tripoli and 230 dead in the protest epicentre in the eastern city of Benghazi, the IFHR's Souhayr Belhassen told AFP.

The Benghazi toll includes "130 soldiers who were executed by their officers in Benghazi for refusing to fire on crowds" of protesters, she said.

So we can see the truth of this incident is of great significance to the human rights aspect of this war. Gaddafi conceded to I believe all Tripoli deaths, but only a handfull in the Benghazi area where the government swore it hadn't attacked at all (I think?).

We have reason to believe now that 130 of these reported 230 lives were taken by rebel hands. Any comment?

 

[little grey rabbit]

It should be pointed out that the Libyan government's death toll

The Libyan government said on Tuesday that 300 people had died in the protests, including 111 soldiers.

If, and I stress if true, it would be hard to argue that the army's response was totally disproportionate. Less disproportionate that Operation Cast Lead.

Of course, I know you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, but all the security-defense establishment ever seem to end up with is lots of broken eggs and no fricking omelette

 

[Caustic Logic]

Yeah, true. I should include the rest of that short piece. Its date, old now, is Feb 23.

Belhassen, who heads the Paris-based IFHR, said the toll was based on military sources for Tripoli and on Libyan rights groups assessments in Benghazi and elsewhere.

The Libyan government said on Tuesday that 300 people had died in the protests, including 111 soldiers.

I don't know about these rights groups, or just what evidence made anyone clear who killed those 130 soldiers in the first days of this civil war.

What I recall about the number of deaths in Tripoli is that Gaddafi's numbers wound up pretty close with outside estimates. Apparently there is some discrepancy, with Triploi's on the side that makes them look better, of course. It seems that at this time, they simply weren't acknowledging these massacred at al-Baida (were they counting lives lost, or lives taken, and tallying accordingly, with these "under investigation," etc.?) 130 is itself higher than the entire number of soldier deaths cited then.

Eventually, that video was found (or faked? Anyone?) and they decided these were killed by rebels.

The huge discrepancy in death tolls comes in mostly on the Benghazi side, where one tally figures in these deaths as attributed to the government/on the protester side. That seems to be in question.

And that was the desperate plight nearly a month ago in besieged Benghhazi, with a government kill rate possibly exaggerated by at least 130%.

 

[little grey rabbit]

As for the executed in Al Baida, if it is Al Baida - it was only 15 or so people. At least that is what most reports say. OK, "only" is the wrong world, but "only" in comparision to 130.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110223/wl_time/08599205349000

Many were captured during fierce clashes between residents and Gaddafi's forces last week; and in the ensuing chaos, a group of men from al-Baida executed 15 of the suspected mercenaries on Friday and Saturday in front of the town's court house. They were hanged, says the country's former Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abd Al-Jalil (who recently quit and joined the revolution): it wasn't entirely planned, but the people here were enraged.

However, there were also reports of 50 being burnt to death when the mob set fire to the prison holding prisoners. 15 looks about right for that video - which of course doesn't exclude plenty more outside the short time frame of that video in other places.

 

[Caustic Logic]

First, Rolfe ... you mentioned that this story was in the news over there. Did you mean the massacre story, or the massacre story having some sort of problem? If the latter, or the former, I suppose, any links handy?

As for the executed in Al Baida, if it is Al Baida - it was only 15 or so people. At least that is what most reports say. OK, "only" is the wrong world, but "only" in comparision to 130.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110223/wl_time/08599205349000


However, there were also reports of 50 being burnt to death when the mob set fire to the prison holding prisoners. 15 looks about right for that video - which of course doesn't exclude plenty more outside the short time frame of that video in other places.

These guys weren't burnt or hanged, it seems. From what I'm seeing, 130 is the number at al-Baida, executed, hands bound, like these. (including the "survivor"?) If so, it's looking like peaceful protesters / citizen-fighters responsible for at least 198 unnecessary killings there, including the two hanged police officers. It might be higher.

The pre-massacre video shows nine prisoners, one (#4) about 16 years old or so, lined up on a couch. The later video shows at least 20-25 corpses, and is widely cited as being of this massacre. That's not the full 130, if there were that many, but it's more than the nine we saw alive.

These are the prisoners seen in the Libyan TV video:

That this video and the aftermath line up is based on the Libyan TV analysis. I think the three prisoners of the nine appearing dead (not for posting here) are pretty good guesses. The ones they identified by color, build, and clothing, are #6, #8, and #9 as shown here. I kind of think the one laying across #6's backside, with his brains all over his blue camo legs and the ground, is #5. But it's hard to tell with no face.

He spends half the video pleading with, explaining, begging, to the captor #2 as I've called him, just off camera (that's #1, unseen). #2 has a long beard, holding a walking stick, possible robe (or is that a Gandalf/Osama leap of imagination?) He patiently comforts the distressed young man, then finally makes him shut up and sit down. Later he dramatically turns to the big black guy, #9, causing a brief moment of total fright, as seen here.

Other captors later.

 

[Rolfe]

It was in the news for having problems. The BBC related just what you have pointed out - that the interview with the "dying victim" seemed to have been edited in, and the apparent victim wasn't in the same condition as the dead people (no head wound, not tied up).

I'm afraid I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention at the time. I didn't pick up on which side was being accused of what.

Rolfe.

 

[little grey rabbit]

The only one I was absolutely appeared shot with tied hands was #8 - he has a distinctive top that can be recognised. I didnt freeze frame the video to be certain about the other claims - however I expect they are true.

Did the people interrogating/haranguing them get shown at any point?

 

[Caustic Logic]

It was in the news for having problems. The BBC related just what you have pointed out - that the interview with the "dying victim" seemed to have been edited in, and the apparent victim wasn't in the same condition as the dead people (no head wound, not tied up).

I'm afraid I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention at the time. I didn't pick up on which side was being accused of what.

Rolfe.

That'll do. It's only one of two problems, however. That looks strange (and really the whole idea is strange - how many other soldiers did it take to tie up and execute 130? Really?). But we also have, and no one seems to care, good proof of either Gaddafi's media's ability to organize a very convincing fake video to explain this, or good evidence we've all been hoodwinked and are blowing up Libya to help hand it over to uncivilized war criminals with no compunction about denying this and fobbing it off on the enemy.

To clarify my CT, by the way, it's that. It was probably not planned as a false flag op, but as a massacred of hated enemies. Someone among them, or someone else, decided it looked very bad for their side, and was too big to hide, so the cover story was made.

And the survivor is only one half of that. The larger and more cited and more credible seeming support is the IFHR's statement this was a government job. Just what that was based on isn't clear.

 

[Caustic Logic]

The only one I was absolutely appeared shot with tied hands was #8 - he has a distinctive top that can be recognised. I didnt freeze frame the video to be certain about the other claims - however I expect they are true.

Did the people interrogating/haranguing them get shown at any point?

Yep. Well, #2 seems to talk a lot, and other people on the captors side re shown. I don't know how many people speak . no audio analysis yet, little point. I have screen caps of five captors. Tomorrow. One looks fully caucasian (Russian/Chechen?) and carries an assault rifle. A machete-type blade is seen across the screen at one point.

I wish I could understand Arabic.

 

[little grey rabbit]

I don't think the "survivor" was really planned as a cover story, rather to create propaganda about Gadaffi sending African mercenaries to massacres democratically uprising protesters.

Deceit 1: "Muammar sent us". This creates the first narrative - Gadaffi is sending mercenaries to massacre peaceful demonstrators. They "confessed" and were summarily executed - as they deserved. Whether or not they were soldiers or mercenaries or just ordinary soldiers trying to do their job or just random Africans or a combination - who can say? The "survivor" is just trying to add more "proof" as in the twisted minds of the cameraman and friends this was really good stuff.

Intermission: Someone leaks the footage to the Government side and it is broadcast on TV. The media control center alarm bells ring - this looks horrific.

Deceit 2: Construct a 2nd narrative and claim that these were soldiers executed on Gadaffi's personal orders for refusing to fire on protesters.


Not that I guess that it makes any difference to the victims, but these people will never appear in any glossy publications of Amnesty or Human Rights Watch. Their only comment, should it come to their notice at all, would be an expression of regret that they weren't Dafurese - in which they could have been used in some excellent and highly successful fund raising campaigns.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Huh. For a holocaust-denying "troll" - as the sayings go - you keep showing a capability for saying things that make total sense to me (within the few spots we're discussing anything lately). It's true that "muammar sent us" (not even said on-screen, that we see, so poorly capitalized on if it was acting) does not, in itself, say "and then ordered us shot for refusing to shoot you guys." Not even what the mockumentarian narrator adduced from it,

These guys have been killed here. You can see the bullet shells strewn all over. He said from AzZawiyah, he said Mu’ammar sent him… Give him water. Alright alright, don’t give him too much, you might kill him.

clearly says that.

Deceit 2, as you call it, if it exists as a deceit, occurred somewhere prior to the announcement of the IFHR's conclusions. That's all I could say for sure.

Intermission: Someone leaks the footage to the Government side and it is broadcast on TV. The media control center alarm bells ring - this looks horrific.

How the state TV would get ahold of such a video as this, if it's what it seems, is a good question. Non-wiki-leaked to Tripoli makes some sense - someone conscientious enough to rip a copy for "their mosque's library," only to let the government see this so the world could see it. A few have now. Alternately, we have other methods of interception (capture of someone with a copy, unlikely, or interception upon internet transmission, etc.) for this this being Behind the Scenes of the al-Baida Massacre.

Otherwise, there are two main possibilities. And again, this deserves de-bunking or attempts. The alternatives I see, and some more details, will be in the next post.

 

[Caustic Logic]

So ... the alternatives to these two videos being before-and-after are this:

1 - A Gaddafi lie, faked to "explain" their al-Baida massacre as on the hands of barbaric Islamist rebels.
2 - It's a genuine public criticism of some soldier/merc types, unconnected to the al-Baida massacre (which could have happened in any number of ways, just by that).

If 1, it seems a masterful job to me - very well-acted and just consistent enough. But why bother? No one in the world deciding about the bombing targets has seen it or will likely be convinced by anything on Daffy Gaddafi's TV.

As for number 2, first I need to clarify the claim that the videos go together is perhaps explained in the newscast (must find a translator). But it's partly visible on-screen, and we can double-check it. I was going to upload those screen caps and just offer external links, but Photobucket isn't letting me. For now anyway, the video (Yotube link - again, graphic) - time stamps they used to say prisoners #6, 8 and 9 as I've got them here: #6 4:00, #9 4:07, #8 4:18.

The one they decided was #6 might have too much hair at the top (angles, off-center bald spot, etc.), buth otherwise is consistent. #9 is entirely consistent, but not a clear match - few would be that build and dressed the same, so it's a good guess. #8 by the more distinctive civilian striped sweater and otherwise apparent match is the strongest. All three combined, about 1/3 of those seen in the before video, amongst about 1/5 of the total victims reported, makes sense.

Now, for the captors/haraguers, and all those not on the couch, that can be glimpsed. #1 is the cameraman, and #2 someone I almost think is an Imam or something. See above. He seems to be directing things, deciding who speaks. He might be the only questioner. I'll check that later. The rest of them:

# 3 - masked, leans briefly on couch to the right of prisoner #9. Holding ... a cell phone?

#4 - quite Caucasian of a half-Russian look (?). Seems to be guarding, a pro. At one point steps over and says something to the prisoners in the left corner.

#5 - also apparently a guard, a pro of some type. Ethnicity and such, ambiguous. Has a certain sensitivity, maybe not 100% happy to be there.

#6 - this one is odd. Black, possibly female, possibly shrill, juts in at #9 briefly from low. Weraing ... something weird.

Someone is holding a machete at one point - from the side of the room (right), perhaps #3. It seems there are several other people in the room behind the camera, in a very social scene. Outside the window lattices can be seen it's night, and a crowd of people is watching from outside.

Alright then. Discuss.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound bossy. I just thought that with images to work from, people might take an interest in this story. I find it fascinating. What's up with everyone else (aside from LGR of course)? Is it boring? Too obvious and mundane? Too confusing? Eyes glazing over?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Youtube comments from an informed viewer:

Propaganda delivered by Libyan State TV, supposedly showing the revolutionaries maltreating Libyan soldiers, the first video shows an interrogation of Gaddafi soldiers by revolutionaries, I agree the questioning was haphazard and noisy, but they dont look abused, beaten, tied or maltreated. the 2nd video shows executed soldiers, which libyan state TV claims were executed by the revolutionaries, but in fact they were killed by pro-gaddafi troops for disobeying orders, the validity of this..(cont)

(cont) can be easily verified by watching many other videos that clearly demonstrate pro-gaddafi executions. The only video which I cannot defend is the hanging, the person in question should have been captured and had a fair trial, my only comment is, these incidents are very rare, and most videos show the protesters actually protecting the pro-gaddafi troops from angry mobs. The comments the "news reader" made at the end were false, she said that the interrogators asked their prisoners.(cont)

(cont) who their "emir" was, trying to invoke fear of islamists, in truth the interrogators asked who the commanding officer was "dobaat" then asked who is the boss "raees" then "they asked who is "emir", so to try to portray them as islamists is incorrect, she was also trying to insinuate that the Eastern part of libya were in a war against the western part of libya. In summary , this is the type of "news" that the people in tripoli are subjected to 24 hours a day.

So despite three of the massacred soldiers in the unrelated incident matching so well three in that "interrogation," this guy is sure the events are totally separate. And you can know this if you watch enough videos of other regime executions - they always have people in them who match other people in unrelated videos.

War? Ha! just protest and repression. Pack o lies, it is! Death to Gaddafi! Long live the Emirate of Somalia on the Mediterranean!

 

[Caustic Logic]

Just a quick update - here and elsewhere I've been met with questions about whether this video is of "130 soldiers/mercs," killed by whoever. I've deferred to the articles saying so, but I've now watched three different recordings of this set, and none of them show any other bodies nearby at all. There are 22 dead here, 23 counting the "dying soldier." I found an article from Time (mentioned by LGR above) that spoke with a captured mercenary among "roughly 200" held in an old school at Shehat, 5 miles east of al-Baida:

“Given their claim that there were once 325 of them — flown in from Libya's southern town of Sabha — the remaining men consider themselves lucky. Many were captured during fierce clashes between residents and Gaddafi's forces last week; in the ensuing chaos, a group of men from al-Baida executed 15 of the suspected mercenaries on Feb. 18 and 19 in front of the town's courthouse. They were hanged, says the country's former Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abd al-Jalil (who has quit and joined the revolution). It wasn't entirely planned, but the people here were enraged.

So now I'm leaning to app. 125-130 of them, in toto, killed in and around al-Baida the intense fighting and after, not all at this one site. Fifteen confirmed hanged elsewhere, some other incidents I haven't sorted out, and here are 22 more, executed by gunshots. 130 total or so, as IFHR said, and ... all killed by their commanding officers (who then melted away?) for refusing to shoot protesters? If that 130 does indeed include the fifteen hanged, we know the number's at least partly wrong. It's clear these 22 are included in that also, and if the video from al-Libya is connected as it seems, we have at least 37 of those 130 killed by the civilian protesters themselves.

 

[little grey rabbit]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound bossy. I just thought that with images to work from, people might take an interest in this story. I find it fascinating. What's up with everyone else (aside from LGR of course)? Is it boring? Too obvious and mundane? Too confusing? Eyes glazing over?

Its really not surprising. There are certain places on the internet where certain people gather and these certain people - no matter how noisy or contentious their disputes - have an agenda which they will not allow to be disturbed by actual facts.

I don't know if you remember the Iranian elections and the Death of Neda?
Press-TV did a short TV documentary that show it was a fake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEb4QHR4k9Y
I think this youtube is unanswerable really.

But the minute it came out I knew it was staged and using the arguments above and many others I tried to show (on a JREF-like forum) that it was an obvious fake. Like you find here with this obvious execution by the insurgents - complete and utter silence.

You could take this Press-TV video and send it to every journalist in the Western World and you would get the same response - as a complete and a total silence as if you were in Stalinist Russia or Goebbel's Germany.

So why be so surprised that no one seems at all interested in this execution of men with hands tied behind their back? Of course, if it had been possible to blame the Libyan Government the heavens could not have contained the outrage of the BBC, CNN, ABC, NYTimes, Reuters, AP, AFP, The Guardian et al.......

 

[dafydd]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound bossy. I just thought that with images to work from, people might take an interest in this story. I find it fascinating. What's up with everyone else (aside from LGR of course)? Is it boring? Too obvious and mundane? Too confusing? Eyes glazing over?

In don't care.

 

[dafydd]

Its really not surprising. There are certain places on the internet where certain people gather and these certain people - no matter how noisy or contentious their disputes - have an agenda which they will not allow to be disturbed by actual facts.

I don't know if you remember the Iranian elections and the Death of Neda?
Press-TV did a short TV documentary that show it was a fake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEb4QHR4k9Y
I think this youtube is unanswerable really.

But the minute it came out I knew it was staged and using the arguments above and many others I tried to show (on a JREF-like forum) that it was an obvious fake. Like you find here with this obvious execution by the insurgents - complete and utter silence.

You could take this Press-TV video and send it to every journalist in the Western World and you would get the same response - as a complete and a total silence as if you were in Stalinist Russia or Goebbel's Germany.

So why be so surprised that no one seems at all interested in this execution of men with hands tied behind their back? Of course, if it had been possible to blame the Libyan Government the heavens could not have contained the outrage of the BBC, CNN, ABC, NYTimes, Reuters, AP, AFP, The Guardian et al.......

Your Nazi heroes executed many people with and without their hands tied behind their backs.

 

[Caustic Logic]

In don't care.

Well thanks for saying so. I shan't pick on you for speaking up with what I guess is a pretty representative view. Gaddafi's forces are being bombed in the dozens or hundreds and his regime overthrown for a number of reported crimes like this, their responsibility for 130 murders of their own defecting soldiers in the al-Baida area. Even though the rebels killed probably all of them in cold blood. And we're handin over control of the country to those blaming-others Islamist, terrorist, war criminals.

"Boring! Bring on th col.'s death, I HATE that slimy little worm! In an inexplicably acute way, considering I've never met him and don't really know what evil he's ordered compared to just been accused of!"

LGR: Watched the video. I'm not convinced of the whole allegation, but it does look like she pours that blood on her own face. I'd rather not go into it any more here, though.

I made one more observation about the body match-up between al-Libya's video and the rebels' video of "another Gaddafi massacre." Again, prisoner #8 is undeniably in both videos. Same sweater, pants, skin, and gangly build. The corpse version has a notable hunched-back. And the prisoner of same description sits with a permanent slouch entirely consistent with such a defect. It's undeniable - at least two of these nine are not shown among the 22 dead (unless with changed clothes - the kid, #4 is one of those maybe spared), but at least this one, and as many as six of the others, are in both videos.

Here's my detailed article on it:
http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2011/03/behind-scenes-of-al-baida-massacre.html

 

[dafydd]

Well thanks for saying so. I shan't pick on you for speaking up with what I guess is a pretty representative view. Gaddafi's forces are being bombed in the dozens or hundreds and his regime overthrown for a number of reported crimes like this, their responsibility for 130 murders of their own defecting soldiers in the al-Baida area. Even though the rebels killed probably all of them in cold blood. And we're handin over control of the country to those blaming-others Islamist, terrorist, war criminals.

"Boring! Bring on th col.'s death, I HATE that slimy little worm! In an inexplicably acute way, considering I've never met him and don't really know what evil he's ordered compared to just been accused of!"

LGR: Watched the video. I'm not convinced of the whole allegation, but it does look like she pours that blood on her own face. I'd rather not go into it any more here, though.

I made one more observation about the body match-up between al-Libya's video and the rebels' video of "another Gaddafi massacre." Again, prisoner #8 is undeniably in both videos. Same sweater, pants, skin, and gangly build. The corpse version has a notable hunched-back. And the prisoner of same description sits with a permanent slouch entirely consistent with such a defect. It's undeniable - at least two of these nine are not shown among the 22 dead (unless with changed clothes - the kid, #4 is one of those maybe spared), but at least this one, and as many as six of the others, are in both videos.

Here's my detailed article on it:
http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2011/03/behind-scenes-of-al-baida-massacre.html

Does it worry you that you are cosying up to a Holocaust denying Jew hater? That is is the reason why nobody else is joining in.

 

[Rolfe]

Does it worry you that you are cosying up to a Holocaust denying Jew hater? That is is the reason why nobody else is joining in.

I think that is a profoundly misguided point of view. Caustic Logic started this thread, presenting his own case, to be judged on its own merits. For whatever reason, LGR chimed in.

Does this latter development make Caustic Logic's points invalid, per se?

LGR seems to change his position on everything and anything more often than he changes his socks. More often than not, he appears merely to be taking the line he thinks most likely to cause general outrage, for the sheer hell of it. If that doesn't work, he changes to a different position in the hope that will do the trick.

I don't really mind one way or the other. But on a personal note, it will be a very sad day indeed when I can't get people online hopping mad by saying "The Illuminati did it" or tell them about the One True Crematorium at Birkenau.

Well, I believe I can get people hopping mad.

This strikes me as a pretty honest confession of deliberate trolling, simply to get a reaction. Which is not against the FM, by the way. It can be quite amusing. Others do it too - I've seen Unloved Rebel playing the same game.

So whether LGR is indeed "a Holocaust-denying Jew hater" or not seems to be an entirely moot point to me. I've also seen him make quite perceptive and constructive points when he isn't in trolling mode.

So in my view, agree or disagree with Caustic Logic on the merits or otherwise of the arguments he's presenting. To dismiss these arguments purely on the grounds that a self-confessed troll whom you believe holds some repellent positions is also participating in the discussion is perverse.

Rolfe.