NTC wants more NATO bombs on Sirte

Demand for more NATO air strikes

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Evidence mounts of atrocities by Libyan “rebels”. By Patrick Martin

A series of reports from journalists on the ground in Tripoli have provided evidence of mass killings by the NATO-backed forces in the Libyan civil war. These reports, which appear in publications largely supportive of the US-NATO intervention to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, further expose the fraudulent claim that the imperialist war against Libya is driven by humanitarian motives and the desire to protect civilian lives.
The Washington Post carried a prominent report Saturday, headlined, “Revenge Killings Mount in Libya, Extrajudicial Attacks by Rebels Cast Shadow Over New Freedom.” The headline refers to the contradiction between the claims by the National Transitional Council (NTC), the new NATO-backed regime in Libya, as well as the Obama administration that what is taking place is a new birth of freedom in Libya and the reality of politically directed and in some cases racially motivated slaughter.
Post reporter Simon Denyer asserts that Gaddafi’s troops “executed scores or even hundreds of political prisoners this week, even as victorious rebel fighters appear to have carried out their own abuses.” He cites the testimony of Diana Eltahawy, Libya researcher for Amnesty International, who “described a record of abuse, torture and the extrajudicial killing of captured pro-Gaddafi fighters that has followed the rebels from east to west as they have taken over the country.”
The reporter himself saw five Gaddafi soldiers wounded and dying in a field hospital now patrolled by the “rebels,” without receiving food, water or medical attention, and 15 bodies, mainly of black Africans presumed to be Gaddafi supporters, left to rot in the sun outside the Bab al-Aziziyahcompound where much of Gaddafi’s family lived. According to Denyer, “not all of them looked like ordinary battlefield deaths. Two dead men lay face down on the grass, their hands bound behind their backs with plastic cuffs.”
McClatchy News Service reported the same gruesome scene: “The dead apparently had been pro-Gaddafi fighters, but they had not gone down fighting. Some had been shot inside their tents, possibly asleep, without shoes on. One had been shot inside an ambulance and another had been shot inside a field hospital, still hooked to an intravenous drip. Others had gunshot wounds in the back of their heads, fueling speculation of executions by rebel fighters.”
Patrick Cockburn of the British Independent described the same scene Sunday, under the headline, “Rebels Wreak Revenge on Dictator’s Men.” He wrote: “The rotting bodies of 30 men, almost all black and many handcuffed, slaughtered as they lay on stretchers and even in an ambulance in central Tripoli, are an ominous foretaste of what might be Libya’s future. The incoming regime makes pious statements about taking no revenge on pro-Gaddafi forces, but this stops short of protecting those who can be labeled mercenaries. Any Libyan with a black skin accused of fighting for the old regime may have a poor chance of survival.”
Amnesty International has confirmed that many of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa have been labeled “mercenaries” by the NTC forces, by virtue of their skin color, and subjected to imprisonment, torture and summary execution.
One account of rebel abuses comes from Alex Crawford of Sky News, a British broadcast network owned by Rupert Murdoch that has enthusiastically backed the “rebels.” The correspondent was embedded with the anti-Gaddafi forces and accompanied a unit that marched from Zawiya into Tripoli. “We report it as we see it,” she said. “We saw Gaddafi fighters who were tied up and executed. It’s war. This is what happens. Rebel retaliations here are really upsetting.”
The British news agency Reuters reported the finding of several mass graves in Tripoli, claiming they were evidence of “widespread summary killings during the battle for the Libyan capital.” While attributing the worst single killing, some 53 bodies found in a burned-out warehouse, to Gaddafi’s forces, the Reuters report continued, “Reports of cold-blooded killings by both sides have surfaced in the last few days, darkening the atmosphere in a city where many residents had greeted Gaddafi’s fall with joy.”
The Los Angeles Times on Sunday wrote of “the visceral violence of rebel forces hammering away at residential neighborhoods known to be strongholds of Kadafi supporters. Rebel fighters use artillery and antiaircraft guns in such districts, which include Abu Salim, Hadba and Salahadin. At one point this week, rebels were firing assault rifles into residential apartment blocks in Abu Salim, where they suspected a sniper was holed up.”
In other words, the NATO-backed forces are engaged in precisely the same indiscriminate firing of heavy weapons in residential neighborhoods that provided the original pretext for the NATO intervention, when Gaddafi ordered similar action by his own forces. The Times account ended by quoting a Tripoli taxi driver who told the newspaper, “I have a fear that one day we’ll be like Iraqis, wishing for the days of Muammar Gaddafi.”
The Independent, in its leading article Sunday, warned the National Transitional Council that the savagery in the streets of Tripoli would backfire politically. It was difficult enough for supporters of the intervention—like the newspaper’s own editorial page—when they could claim that Gaddafi was engaged in slaughtering civilians, but “it will become almost impossible if a shift in the balance of power unleashes mass executions.”
The British newspaper also identified Abdelhakim Belhadj, the newly appointed commander of the Tripoli Military Council, as a former mujaheddin who “had fought in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban and was an Islamist terror suspect interrogated by the CIA.” Belhadj was a founder of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group, which became the Libyan affiliate of Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks.
A chilling picture emerges of the new regime being consolidated in Tripoli. It is being consolidated in blood, with massacres of civilians in pro-Gaddafi neighborhoods as well as pogroms of African migrant workers, under the direction of an Al Qaeda ally who now takes his orders from NATO headquarters and the White House.
The crimes being committed by the NATO-backed NTC forces demonstrate the hypocrisy of the propaganda campaign spearheaded by the Obama administration and its accomplices in Britain and France to justify the military onslaught against oil-rich Libya in the name of “human rights” and preventing a bloodbath.

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From International Herald Tribune

The first issue of "Russian Riviera" is out!

Paul

Eva Nielsen

Стихи Бориса Парамонова

Стихи Бориса Парамонова. Литературовед в роли графомана. При этом не без влияния Бродского, Лосева, и даже Гандлевского, и т д. Может быть интересно другим литературоведам, как пример тайного корпоративного хобби. Лучше бы Парамонов продолжал писатъ о Гегеле и Лимонове. С другой стороны 30 лет в сонном пригороде НЙ, какая тут жизнь и какая поэзия... Впрочем будем снисходительны, тк всякий имеет право на слабость, даже если ничего другого нет.

PS. Все таки Ирак интересней Кавказа, даже если Кавказ литературнее...

One more reason to indite Condy Rice

joe henry

Lana

Birth of a human mouse

Studio shoot on Saturday

Orlando Figes and others

The latest scandal involving Orlando Figes is indicative of the overall poisonous atmosphere in the academic world. Figes was posting negative reviews of his peers books on Amazon.com. Not only Figes (or his wife who took the responsibility) acted mischievously, but they were also quite naive (or stupid whichever way you like) when executing their malice.

Figes’s on-line alias was linked to his name and job, so it took one of his victims 10 minutes to figure out who the perpetrator was.


Orlando Figes, who was once charatcterized as a leading British historian...

This maronic behavior is not an isolated case among the men (and women) who praise themselves to be the intellectiual elite of humanity. We all remeber Ruth Padel's anonimous letters about Derek Walcott's alleged sexual misconduct. These letters prevented Walcott, the Nobel Prize winner, to become Poetry Professor at Oxford. Padel got the job, but in the end emails' author's identity was discovered and Padel resigned.


Ruth Padel, an eager poet...

Here are the details.

This also reminded us of a story that happened a few years back in Paris when professor Paul Godt, editor of International Political Science Abstracts (a publication of the International Political Science Association) wrote an email to his coleague, detailing a vicious conspiracy against a colleague. A copy of this mail was found in the copying machine by a student...


Paul Godt, the man who tought he could preach "goodness"...

Spring at last

Early Morning Hair Cut on Rue de Rome

William Brui

William Brui, following the opening of Born in the USSR, Made in France exhibit in Paris.

Oan Kim at the Petite Poule Noire gallery in Paris

Highly recommended exhibit:



http://www.lapetitepoulenoire.fr

Oslo airport on Sunday

Mike Rimbaud's new album is coming out in April

Update on The Brave Little Tailor

The sinister story of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi who killed 7 CIA agents in Afghanistan may become the updated Arab version of Grimm Brothers' Brave Little Taylor tale. It also makes Ignatius/Scott's film Body of Lies look like an childish fantasy of omnipotence, meant to distract attention from the fact that both Jordanian secret service and the US/NATO intelligence apparatus in Afghanistan lack any solid sources. According to the latest US army report, US Army intelligence chiefs in Afghanistan find foreign newspaper articles about the country more useful than the information collected by their own soldiers in the field. According to Maj Gen Michael Flynn and two other intelligence advisers, the huge intelligence apparatus in Afghanistan is "only marginally relevant" to NATO's overall war plan because nearly all of its effort is spent finding Taliban fighters to kill rather than trying to understand the needs and grievances of ordinary Afghan civilians. No Shock and Awe will ever win counter-insurgency, not in Palestine, not in Afghanistan or eslewhere.

Adoration (as seen in KunstMeran)

1 January 2010, at around 6 PM, Monmartre

This man had been following me all day long. When I tried to photograph him, he covered his face.

Ничего не хочется.

Somnabulic Travellers

Per Platou in Paris

Magda (NY)

Yasumasa Morimura

The photo was selling 50.000 euro on Paris Photo 2009. Gazprom should have bought it (but alas, Russians have no stamina for this kind of things. Too complex...

Hungry Jew

The Wedding Day

Wedding

Claire

Saved from garbage

Anthropology and War

Finally, Mircea Eliad's had been vindicated:
Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship

SEPTEMBER

Boycott Arles

Perhaps it is time to consider the boycoytt of the Rencontres Internationales Photographique in Arles. Arles is one of the few cities in France where bull fighting is legal and promoted:
www.avignon-et-provence.com/bullfight-arles-camargue/bullfight-arles-camargue.htm
Its time to take a moral stand in this truly fascist form of entertainment.
Its time to act: www.anticorrida.com

Dean Johnson

Журнал Сноб

Только русские и арабы, с их гипертрофированным чувстом собственной исключительности и глубоким хроническим комплексом гламурной недооцененности остльным миром, могут издавать журналы "Сноб." В Лондоне, Париже или НЙ такое просто в голову никому не придет, разве что как элемент мультфильма, "Family Guy" или "South Park". Новый проект Питера Гриффина, журнал дла глобальных кохогцев под названием "Сноб"!

Our man in Tbilisi

In an interview with London's Independent two weeks ago, Mr. Saakashvili appeared distracted and disengaged. Then the reporter noticed his watch. It was a plastic Swatch called the BunnySutra. When you press the watch face, the different pink bunny figures at each hour assume lurid sexual positions. Mr. Saakashvili suddenly focused and delightedly demonstrated it to the reporter.

The Washington Times, August 5, 2009

Last Month

Письмо А.С. Пушкина П. А. Вяземскому

27 мая 1826 г. Из Пскова в Петербург

Ты прав, любимец муз, — воспользуюсь правами блудного зятя и грядущего барина и письмом улажу все дело. Должен ли я тебе что-нибудь или нет? отвечай. Не взял ли с тебя чего-нибудь мой человек, которого отослал я от себя за дурной тон и дурное поведение? Пора бы нам отослать и Булгарина, и «Благонамеренного», и Полевого, друга нашего. Теперь не до того, а ей-богу когда-нибудь примусь за журнал. Жаль мне, что с Катениным ты никак не ладишь. А для журнала — он находка. Читал я в газетах, что Lancelot в Петербурге, черт ли в нем? читал я также, что 30 словесников давали ему обед. Кто эти бессмертные? Считаю по пальцам и не досчитаюсь. Когда приедешь в Петербург, овладей этим Lancelot (которого я ни стишка не помню) и не пускай его по кабакам отечественной словесности. Мы в сношениях с иностранцами не имеем ни гордости, ни стыда — при англичанах дурачим Василья Львовича; пред M-me de Staël заставляем Милорадовича отличаться в мазурке. Русский барин кричит: мальчик! забавляй Гекторку (датского кобеля). Мы хохочем и переводим эти барские слова любопытному путешественнику. Все это попадает в его журнал и печатается в Европе — это мерзко. Я, конечно, презираю отечество мое с головы до ног — но мне досадно, если иностранец разделяет со мною это чувство. Ты, который не на привязи, как можешь ты оставаться в России? если царь даст мне слободу, то я месяца не останусь. Мы живем в печальном веке, но когда воображаю Лондон, чугунные дороги, паровые корабли, английские журналы или парижские театры и <бордели> — то мое глухое Михайловское наводит на меня тоску и бешенство. В 4-ой песне «Онегина» я изобразил свою жизнь; когда-нибудь прочтешь его и спросишь с милою улыбкой: где ж мой поэт? в нем дарование приметно — услышишь, милая, в ответ: он удрал в Париж и никогда в проклятую Русь не воротится — ай да умница.

27 мая.
Прощай.

Думаю, что ты уже в Петербурге, и это письмо туда отправится. Грустно мне, что не прощусь с Карамзиными — бог знает, свидимся ли когда-нибудь. Я теперь во Пскове, и молодой доктор спьяна сказал мне, что без операции я не дотяну до 30 лет. Незабавно умереть в Опоческом уезде.

Summer in Paris

Postcard from Marbella!