Libyan Crisis: Events, Causes and Facts

June 6/7 2011
edits July 2

I haven't watched it, but it's important enough to post instantly. Libya's government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, on his Youtube channel (still not pulled as a war  crime!) has uploaded at least two long videos in a series of the above title. Please share this!

Okay, it's two parts. about 30 minutes total, and in English.
Made by R. Breki Goheda, of Tripoli.
Part 1/2:


Part 2:


Just for the unique footage used in abundance, this video is well-worth watching if one is interested in this war. The narration is workable, but should have been re-done, at least in places - there are a lot of verbal type-os. It's better than my Arabic would be. The tone is pro-Gaddafi, with the style of state news, and most English-speakers will find it unconvincing just because of that. However, the facts as presented are in some cases verifiably true and in other case, we at least shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the view from Tripoli. A fair amount of detail is included, and it lines up with what I've been learning elsewhere as the nebulous, emergent, historical truth of the matter.

Part 1, around 6:15, shows the "al Baida massacre" aftermath and interrogation. The scene of the soldiers' capture, if not their execution, is given as happening at Labraq airport, near al Baida.

In essence, the video blames the violence on Islamic extremists who hijacked the peaceful protest - in some spots from the first day - and turned it into a civil war. And they are now enabled by the massive Western intervention of NATO.

It's claimed that contrary to the popular mythology, the government forces tried their best to not massacre civilians. I'm leaning that way myself seeing more and more video evidence, and the government's laxness seems to have been a huge factor in how so many cities and even military bases fell into rebel hands. It could well be argued they should have been more violent early on. Hundreds did indeed die, but on both sides, and nearly all at security bases far from the original protests, during attacks on these that eventually succeeded. A lot of detail is given here on how many total tanks (250) and other weapons fell into rebel hands, along with video of them playing with their new toys.

Besides the massive shooting of peaceful protesters, two other crucial claims are addressed - the bombing of protesters by aircraft, and the use of African mercenaries against them. Both are denied, if in a stale and unconvincing manner. Still, it's true - there's no credible evidence for either type of state crime. In fact, despite the huge importance of the charges, none of the these three main ones was ever verified in any way and thus remain, as Goheda pointedly notes, nothing but rumors.

And of course the UN security council resolutions 1970 and 1973, based on these rumors, opened the way to legal, economic, and military action against Libya. This is, of course, highly troubling now that we learn the rumors were all apparently false. More troubling yet is that the simple excuses were used shamelessly and without consequence or reproach, to muscle through a long-desired regime change agenda that will hand all of Libya to those same "armed gangs" and, more importantly, their US-educated, NATO-backed, free-marketeer puppets for plunder in the rebel leadership.