I have learned that, far from being a bloody despot or a fool, Muammar Gaddafi was, and is, a courageous and visionary leader of the Libyan people. I learned this, of all places, from a broadcast embedded in the pages of an article in Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper. Elsewhere, the Australian has been feeding the public the lies used by NATO to justify its criminal war against the people of Libya. Viewing this video has caused me to realise what a tragic loss for all humankind it would be if Muammar Gaddafi were to perish at the hands of NATO and its TNC puppets.
Anybody with an inquiring and critical mind, access to the Internet, and sufficient time would long ago have seen through the deceit in the mainstream media's coverage of the Libyan conflict.
If Muammar Gaddafi's Government had been anywhere near as dictatorial and unpopular as has been claimed, there is no way that the Government could have lasted more than a few weeks against the massive material and financial support that the Transitional National Council (TNC) has received from NATO countries and the aerial surveillance and huge aerial and naval bombardment of Libya by NATO. Instead, the Libyan Government of Muammar Gaddafi survived for over seven months.
After these months of relentless war against the Libyan people, TNC had succeeded in conquering much Tripoli on the night of 22 August.
The survival of the Libyan Government for seven months against such overwhelming military might and in the face of such terrible hardship and tragedy is surely evidence of the strong support of the great majority Libyan people for their Government.
Libyans, loyal to Gaddafi are continuing to resist NATO and the TNC and it is still not clear if the rebels and NATO will emerge triumphant.
The barefaced CNN liars and the other mainstream newsmedia newsreporters on the ground in Libya intentionally failed to report massive demonstrations numbering at least hundreds of thousands almost every day in different cities of Libya.
Despite this, it was still possible - even for people sympathetic to Libya - to view Gaddafi as an erratic leader, whose poor judgement in past years had provided NATO with pretexts to invade Libya. The T-Shirt Gaddaffy Duck character, based upon an amalgamation of the Warner Brothers Daffy Duck cartoon character and Muammar Gaddaffy seemed to me to be not too far off the mark.
I believed this kind of cartoon representation of Gaddafi until about 24 hours ago, when I watched a YouTube broadcast A look at the Gaddafi era, embedded, of all places on a page of Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper which has, elsewhere, done so much to deceive public opinion about Muammar Gaddafi and Libya. The article was "More than six months of conflict in Libya," of 22 August. (It is also embedded below). As already noted elsewhere, the article does contain a useful chronology of the conflict.
Whilst it is difficult for me to date that YouTube broadcast, its content suggests that it may have been produced 2 years ago.
I was expecting the broadcast to depict Gaddafi essentially as he had been depicted elsewhere in the Murdoch newsmedia, as a brutal dictator with the blood of many thousands of Libyans and others on his hands, or, at best, deserving only ridicule.
To my astonishment, the broadcast has caused me now to view Muammar Gaddafi to be highly admirable and a true giant amongst today's world leaders.
I can't say if that was the intention of the producer, Deborah Lutterbeck, but the material contained in that broadcast, in addition to what I already knew of Gaddafi, has made me realise that he was, at the outset, a courageous and visionary leader of the Libyan people and remains that to this very day. His rule has greatly helped the people Libya and, indeed, all of humanity.
Whilst Western propagandists have been able,at times, to depict Gaddafi, at his age, as unstable and erratic, they could not have hoped to have done so to the much younger and handsome officer who deposed the former King Idris in a bloodless coup in 1969. That same young Gaddafi used his country's oil wealth for the benefit of poor Libyans and stood up for international justice on the world stage for decades.
In the whole 4 minute video, I could find only two things that could conceivably have been held against Gaddafi by anyone striving for a more just and peaceful world:
- Accusations by the US that he had ordered the bombing of a German night club frequented by US Marines in 1986
- Al-Megrahi, an employee of the Libyan Government, had been found guilty by a Scottish court for the bombing of the Pan AM flight 103 in the skies above Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 which had caused the deaths of 270 passengers
It has been shown that the latter was the result of a mistrial and the fabrication of evidence. For more information, please read The Framing of al-Megrahi by Gareth Peirce and readers' comments in the London Review of Books of 24 September 2009.
Transcript of YouTube broadcast, A Look at the Gaddafi Era
"Muammar Qaddafy first entered the world stage in September 1969 when he led junior army officers in toppling King Idris in a bloodless military coup. One of his first tasks was building up the armed forces, but he also spent billions improving living standards, making him popular with the poor.
Inspired by Arab nationalist sentiment, he abandoned ties with Western powers and pursued aims of uniting Arab countries, instigating the Arab Federation with Syria and Egypt in 1971 which soon broke down in argument and recrimination.
Gaddafi's relations with the West became increasingly strained, leading to accusations in 1986 that he sent agents to blow up a Berlin night club frequented by American marines. The US responded with air raids hitting one of Gaddafi's homes and killing his adopted daughter.
He poured money into projects like the great man-made river, a scheme to pipe water from desert wells to coastal communities, a project which Qaddafy described as the 8th wonder of the world, estimated to have cost about 20 billion dollars.
When Pan Am flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in February 1988, killing 270 people, Western intelligence agencies were quick to point the finger of blame at the Qaddafy regime. Former South African president, Nelson Mandela played a key role in persuading Qaddafy to surrender two Libyan Nationals suspected of involvement in the bombing. A specially convened Scottish court found (Abdel Basset Al-Magri) guilty of mass murder, sentencing him to 27 years in prison. He was later freed ahead of fulfilling the term on health grounds.
Gaddafi's quirky style was legendary, once pitching a tent in Cairo's presidential compound on a visit. He also ignored traditions of his conservative society, surrounding himself with women bodyguards toting assault rifles.
He frequently criticised Arab leaders with attacking Saudi Arabia in 2003 for hosting thousands of US troops since the 1991 Gulf War.
Later, in 2003, he caught the world by surprise, announcing plans to abandon Libya's weapons of mass destruction program. The announcement drew swift praise from London and Washington and an end to international isolation with the US and the UK ending a broad trade embargo and resuming full diplomatic relations.
In June 2009 Qaddafy arrived in Rome for a 4 day visit, his first visit to Libya's former colonial ruler, where he was welcomed by Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
In 2009 in his first visit to the US since taking power 40 years ago, Qaddafy accused major powers on the UN security council of betraying the principles of the UN Charter. Qaddafy never held an official state position and was known simply as "Brother leader and guide of the revolution."
Postscript: The YouTube broadcast now also includes content transcription of the content. The date of the post, which included transcribed text, is 22 Aug 2011 which actually precedes the date of this article. I think I recall either transcribing it myself or else asking another candobetter contributor to transcribe it for me. I don't recall copying the text from YouTube, yet the respective dates of the publication of the transcriptions suggest that that is what happenedl To have manually typed text that had already been typed elsewhere on the World Wide Web would have to be a pointless waste of effort. All the same, it is good that the above text is also on the same page as the broadcast. That considerably adds to YouTube's value. Whilst I rarely listen to a YouTube broadcast more than once, I often revisit pages of text pages I have read as it takes considerably less time and effort to find and make use of the useful text than to again watch and listen to the whole broadcast to get to the parts of the broadcast of most interest. Let's hope that more YouTube broadcasts include transcriptions. 15 December 2011
Comments
Sheila Newman
Thu, 2011-08-25 05:01
Permalink
Gaddafi led OPEC;NATO not so credible
Geoffrey Taylor
Thu, 2011-08-25 11:26
Permalink
Time: How former coloniser stands to gain from NATO conquest
An article of Time magazine Bye-Bye, Gaddafi: How Italy Will Profit from the New Libyan Regime brazenly reveals what the war against Libyan people by the NATO Afrika Korps was really about: an attempt by Libya's former Italian colonisers togother with other Europen colonisers of Africa -- The UK France, and Germany -- to resume its past theft of Libyan wealth that was ended by the end of Italian colonialism and well and truly ended by Gaddafy in 1973
Geoffrey Taylor
Sun, 2011-08-28 08:17
Permalink
BBC caught out lying about crowds celebrating in Tripoli
This BrassCheck TV broadcast shows a crowd of Indians waving Indian flags presented by BBC World News as crowds of Libyans celebrating the recent 'liberation' of Tripoli. If this was an isolated incident it would be just possible to put it down to a stupid mistake behind the scenes, however as the BBC's coverage since the start of the conflict over seven months a go has been a tissue of lies, designed to demonise the Libyan Government and conceal the unpalatable truth about the TNC 'rebels', it was far more likely to be the result of a rush by the BBC to present footage of Libyans celebrating the conquest of Tripoli by the TNC where none existed. Another piece of film footage (which I can't find now) showing crowds celebrating the 'liberation' of Tripoli has been shown to be clearly a place other than Green Square in Tripoli and therefore must have been staged.
Real footage of crowds showing at least hundreds of thousands of Libyans and at one demonstration over a million Libyans, demonstrating in support of Muammar Gaddafi has been systemeticaly kept from the eyes of viewers of the BBC and the other mainstream newsmedia. One of many examples of films of huge pro-Gaddafi rallies suppressed by the mainstream (and most of the 'left') newsmedia is the YouTube Broadcast HUGE PRO GADDAFI RALLY in Tripoli - Raw Footage at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWzNhk3zv4U .
Sheila Newman
Mon, 2011-08-29 00:42
Permalink
More on mass media and Libya misreporting
Geoffrey Taylor
Tue, 2011-08-30 00:50
Permalink
Accusations of murder of 150 by Libyan loyalists
Editorial comment: The allegations that Libyan Loyalists have committed atrocities against unarmed opponents had been addressed in Cynthia McKinney's excellent speech in print republished here with the YouTube broadcast embedded: "In times of war, both sides commit [atrocities] but whatever government forces did pale compared to NATO's savagery and its hired assassins."
The same newsmedia which has been filled with barefaced lies about Libya since at least March this year is now reporting a gruesome discovery of charred bodies of those it claims were murdered by Libyan Loyalists. In the reports I have viewed so, the numbers claimed to have been murdered are 50 and 150. (One other radio news report made the grim and spectacular claim that as many as 50,000 opponents of Government of Muammar Gaddiffi had gone missing, but I have yet to see further news about that claim.)
Although the scale of that crime seems considerably smaller that the totality of crime so far committed against Libya (and vastly smaller than crimes already committed against Iraq, Libya and citizens of the US), it is hard to conceive of circumstances where the killing of so many unarmed opponents of Colonel Gaddaffi on the one occasion would be justified. Just possibly, Loyalist Libyans faced with their country about to by over-run and ruled by NATO and its flunkys, after having endured from them, over six months of unprovoked aerial and naval bombardment and terrorism, in desperation killed known supporters of the TNC/NATO whilst they were unarmed.
Whatever the truth behind these claims it should be brought into the open. Let's hope that the writers at Global Research will soon bring more light onto this issue.
Accusations that Gaddaffi was close to previous US Government engaged in criminal wars against Afghanistan, Iraq
One other story which seems to contradict the recent highly favourable impression I have gained of Muammar Gaddafi is the Global Research story WikiLeaks cables expose Washington’s close ties to Gaddafi. Another is claims of Muammar Gaddaffii's apparent fondness for the US Secretary of State under the criminal former US President George W Bush, Condoleezza Rice who notoriously lied about the 9/11 false flag terrorist attack.
Further editorial comment: The story alleging Gaddaffi's infatuation with liar and former US Head of State Condoleezza Rice attracted comments, nearly all of which were, at best, ill-informed, but one, near the end, which is of value, follows:
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2011-09-20 18:04
Permalink
Content of YouTube broadcasts should be transcribed
Add comment