A Legitimate Target.

Select Thoughts on the Majer Massacre
August 12/13, 2011
last update Aug 24

First, for those who don't know, Majer is a small city just south of Zlitan in Western Libya. Zlitan in turn was a major objective for the rebels between their stronghold of Misrata and the capitol, Tripoli, to the west. NATO bombardment of government, and other, positions in and around Zlitan paved the way for a rebel advance. As always, NATO was protecting (certain, militant) civilians (from not being in control of all Libya), but sometimes, as in Majer, they wound up killing (non-militarized) civilians in the process.

The people responsible still cannot confirm, nor do they have no evidence for, any of the following being true.

Dr. Moussa Ibrahim:

Reporters taken to mass funeral in Libyan town, nearby hospital, CNN, August 10

Libyan government officials said the mass funeral witnessed by foreign journalists Tuesday in the village of Majer accounted for a fraction of the people killed by a series of deadly airstrikes late Monday night.
"Eighty-five Libyan civilians, including 33 children, 20 men, 32 women and we're still counting, were massacred last night in an intensive air raid by NATO on the town of Majer," declared the spokesman for Moammar Gadhafi's besieged government, Musa Ibrahim.
It is impossible for CNN to confirm the extent of the casualties, and whether or not they were all civilian.

No. One at least - very graphic video - seems to be in military clothing. Another blown to small bits (worse yet) is a grown male, at any rate. The others...

In an e-mail to CNN, NATO confirmed that aircraft bombed targets south of Zlitan Monday night. But a spokesman for the military alliance denied targeting civilians.
"NATO had very clear intelligence demonstrating that former farm buildings were being used as a staging point for pro-Gadhafi forces to conduct attacks against the people of Libya," wrote a public affairs officer with NATO's Operation Unified Protector, on condition of anonymity. "We do not have evidence of civilian casualties at this stage, although military casualties, including mercenaries, are very likely owing to the nature of the target."

Here's the evidence. Mercenaries?

A girl, injured physically but she'll be fine. Emotionally ... she lost someone, possibly several someones.


This one's just dead. Before that, she was just a baby.


Definitely dead, definitely not full grown, not likely to be fake.


But hey, you can't make a fucking omelette without breaking a few eggs, huh? The only way to protect civilians is to get rid of Gaddafi, and if that requires "pressure" that means sometimes killing 33 children, 20 men, 32 women, well ... such is the high cost of the type of freedom we require them to have there. Did they mention some mercenaries might've been killed too? Again for emphasis, Mecenaries - that's code for Gaddafi's faltering, and we're almost done here - just like everyone said back in February.
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Update Aug 17: At a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty article about NATO's lack of evidence, a former Libyan with contacts deep inside assures us, in a comment beneath, that NATO is totally right and the government is totally lying, plus murdering:

by: namour from: tunisia
August 11, 2011 12:25
Reply Hi ... my family lives in majer area of zliten i cntacted my family and told me that all dead are ghadafi forces including his son KHAMIS who surely died in this strike NO CIVILIANS Affected , they brought kidnapped families from MISURATA and shot them with tanks and brought their bodies to the nato bombarded scene plus extra dead bodies and they have done cosmetic work on children bodies by burning them what i have said i am sure of because houses hit from the front not from above.
so NATO carry on and GOD PLESS NATO AND ALL NATO COUNTRIES who are participating in protecting this people.
again thanx NATO officers.
by the way allllll libyans know this fact.

So there it is. Carry on in good conscience. Yes, there were dead bodies there, but a real live Libyan has assured you the cartoon version of Libya and of NATO's war that you all have in your heads is true. And the only answer to that is more bombs, says this person with family in Zliten (not Majer) who all feel safe under NATO's bombing of that area, and probably fear nothing more than that it should stop. If it's bad, Gaddafi did it, and yay! We win with good guy power! Says an online account!
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Update, Aug 24:
Amnesty International has called for an investigation, by NATO, of this alleged NATO war crime. Maybe once they can solace themselves with victory uninterrupted by the glaring fucking hypocricy of this war crime, they might then be willing to have a look, and admit some "errors."

A while back, on August 18, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) ran a thoughtful piece on this denied massacre.

Allegations of Libyan civilian deaths as a result of NATO bombing have often been covered in the corporate media as an opportunity to scoff at the Gadhafi regime's unconvincing propaganda (FAIR Blog, 6/9/11).

But dramatic new allegations that dozens of civilians were killed in Majer after NATO airstrikes on August 8 have been met with near-total media silence.

The bolded should be in quotes or something. Breaking the near silence, several articles are mentioned, including Reuters:

"There was no evidence of weapons at the farmhouses, but there were no bodies there, either. Nor was there blood."

No blood anywhere? Many bodies were charred and their blood cooked away. The third video below had pieces of human flesh being picked up lovingly by the wailing workers, with no blood visible or expected. One imagines the soldiers and "mercenaries" NATO thinks it killed, who just boiled a bit as they were blasted open like water balloons, would leave some blood around there somewhere. Civilians will do the same. Reuters was looking in the wrong spot.

FAIR notes how CNN did send correspondent Ivan Watson to cover the allegations. Despite earlier efforts to cast doubt on government claims, he conceded that in Majer anyways, "it does appear that at least some women and children were among those hurt in this deadly strike." The report also "included an interview with a Libyan who claimed that nine members of his family were killed in the attack, including his two-year old daughter," FAIR noted, as well as "a man who was burying his daughter." CNN opted to run this only on CNN international, largely bypassing domestic viewers and readers.

FAIR did take note of one other good article, from the BBC's Matthew Price, August 11, headlined "What really happened in Libya's Zlitan?" This said in part:

[NATO] confirmed it had hit the area, targeting four buildings and nine vehicles at the site between 23.33 on Monday and 02.34 on Tuesday.

The times for the strikes correspond with those given by people in the area.

Nato went on: "We monitored this military compound very carefully before striking."
"Our assessment, based on the level of destruction of the buildings, confirms the likelihood of military and mercenary casualties. The allegation of civilian casualties made by the Gaddafi regime was not corroborated by available factual information at the site."

Try telling that however to 15 year-old Salwa Jawoo. Her name was on some of the school books at the scene - I found her in Zliten hospital. Her face was scarred - she had a broken shoulder. 

She said she was sitting outside her home when the first missile struck. It was the second one that injured her. "There was no military camp. We were just living there. Why did they attack us?" she asked. 

"My mother died, and my two sisters," she added, with a sigh. A tear ran down her cheek as she spoke. Her grief was genuine.

More video of the dead, the living and angered, and those on the verge. It's plenty graphic, several dead babies and children.