Kristof: Libyan woman telling of rape and beatings makes the case for our humanitarian intervention

[jefferson_dem]

http://twitter.com/NickKristof/statuses/51726738346090496


Eman al-Obeidy displayed a broad bruise on her face, a large scar on her upper thigh, several narrow and deep scratch marks lower on her leg, and marks that seemed to come from binding around her hands and feet.

Libyan Woman Struggles to Tell Media of Her Rape
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

TRIPOLI, Libya — A Libyan woman burst into the hotel housing the foreign press in Tripoli on Saturday morning in an attempt to tell journalists that she had been raped and beaten by members of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s militia. After struggling for nearly an hour to resist removal by Colonel Qaddafi’s security forces, she was dragged away from the hotel screaming.

“They say that we are all Libyans and we are one people,” said the woman, who gave her name as Eman al-Obeidy, barging in during breakfast at the hotel dining room. “But look at what the Qaddafi men did to me.” She displayed a broad bruise on her face, a large scar on her upper thigh, several narrow and deep scratch marks lower on her leg, and marks that seemed to come from binding around her hands and feet.

She said she had been raped by 15 men. “I was tied up, and they defecated and urinated on me,” she said. “They violated my honor.”

She pleaded for friends she said were still in custody. “They are still there, they are still there,” she said. “As soon as I leave here, they are going to take me to jail.”

For the members of the foreign news media here at the invitation of the government of Colonel Qaddafi — and largely confined to the Rixos Hotel except for official outings — the episode was a vivid reminder of the brutality of the Libyan government and the presence of its security forces even among the hotel staff. People in hotel uniforms, who just hours before had been serving coffee and clearing plates, grabbed table knives and rushed to physically restrain the woman and to hold back the journalists.

<SNIP>

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/world/middleeast/27tripoli.html?_r=1

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. Some other country should intervene...

...then we could feel good about such things being prevented and for having saved money.

Either is good by itself, but together, they're great.

[jefferson_dem]

2. Watch the horrifying video

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/03/26/world/africa/100000000745659/libyan-woman-struggles-to-tell-her-story.html

[Cali_Democrat]

3. I agree with Kristof. The case is rock solid. When we're done with Libya, let's attack Sudan...

http://www.sudantribune.com/Sudanese-female-activist-claims-to,38100

Sudanese female activist claims to be gang-raped by security men

February 24, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – A Sudanese female activist has appeared bare-faced in a Youtube video and claimed that she was raped by three members of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS).

The 24-year-old Safiya Eshaq, a member of an anti-government youth group known as Grififna, said she was kidnapped, assaulted and gang-raped by plain-clothed security men on February 13th, nearly two weeks after she participated in anti-government protests.

Then maybe we can have round 2 in Somalia. Lots of gang rapes there.

[jefferson_dem]

4. Love the (il)logic.

Since we can't help everyone, don't help anyone.

Quaint.

Muammar's thugs thank you.

[Cali_Democrat]

5. I'm definitely a supporter or Muammar's thugs

Just like how I supported Saddam and his henchman.

[jefferson_dem]

6. Never said you were a supporter.

...only that your "do it all, everywhere or don't do anything" sarcasm is lame.

[Cali_Democrat]

7. Saddam actually wrote me a thank you note also.

So did the Taliban.

Muammaar and his thugs are just the latest to thank me for my services.

[former9thward]

8. Why can't we help everyone?

A few missiles would easily take out Syrian government. Why not do it if we are going to intervene in Libya? In fact just the threat would probably be enough to do the job. Or are there good dictators and bad dictators in your view depending on how compliant they are with U.S. interests?

[jefferson_dem]

11. Do you honestly not realize how stupid the "one size fits all" foreign policy approach sounds?

Perhaps you were more comfortable with the globe that had all nation-states led by "evil doers" highlighted in bright yellow under the previous POTUS.

[former9thward]

12. Do you honestly not realize how stupid it is to say Libya is different than Iraq?

And please spare us the UN 'made us do it' crap. The UN had nothing to do with our actions in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Were they proper? We have no right to intervene in civil wars. If you think we do go enlist.

[totodeinhere]

14. In the first place not everyone can enlist since our armed forces have

statutory limits on how many can enlist. This your "go enlist" line of reasoning is disingenuous.

There is no "UN 'made us do it' crap." Unlike in the case of Iraq, this action was sanctioned by the UNSC and it is legal under international law.

[jefferson_dem]

17. Ah, the "If you think we do go enlist" argument.

The last refuge of scoundrels. :thumbsdown:

[former9thward]

19. You need to work on your paraphrasing of quotes.

I notice you did not address the main part of my post. Not surprised.

[Union Scribe]

18. Why don't you care about the women elsewhere?

[jefferson_dem]

21. Why don't you care about women anywhere?

[Cali_Democrat]

23. That poster will start caring once Obama starts caring

His/her position will be articulated at that point.

[VoteProgressive]

26. I would ignore the OP if I were you. He is biased in his postings. nt

[VoteProgressive]

25. How naive are you? Do you realize how many women are raped in other countries....

I have not been here long but your logic is that "if Obama does it it must be OK".

It amazes me you had the guts to use rape as a reason to attack Libya.

How many other countries is this occurring where you have posted and wanted to attack them? Please provide links.

Wow, sad you use rape to justify Obama attacking them but ignore rape elsewhere.

[timo]

9. its a tragedy to be sure!!

hardly a country in the world where something exactly like this or worse does not exist.....lets freaking bomb them ALL!!!!!

[jefferson_dem]

10. Nah...

Obviously, we can't free the entire world of sin ... so why bother trying to stop the whimsical slaughtering rampage of one murderous tyrant?

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Benghazi+gaddafi+slaughter&aq=f

After all, the Steelers lost the Superbowl, ke$ha had to cancel a few japanese tour dates, and it's raining tonight in the ATL!

[jenmito]

13. K&R. And Libya was BEGGING us to do what we're doing. They're THANKING us. n/t

[Runework]

15. hmm

In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."83

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."84

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony. If Nayirah's outrageous lie had been exposed at the time it was told, it might have at least caused some in Congress and the news media to soberly reevaluate the extent to which they were being skillfully manipulated to support military action

[jefferson_dem]

16. Right-o. I'm sure this woman totally concocted this story... She was never raped or dragged away.

It's all a set-up. After all, it looks sooooo staged... http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/03/26/world/africa/100000000745659/libyan-woman-struggles-to-tell-her-story.html

Oh, welcome to DU! :hi:

[kenny blankenship]

27. All the Libyan security goons who came out of the woodwork, brandishing knives, guns

throwing reporters around, snatching cameras and confiscating digital media, throwing a bag over the woman's head and bundling her off in a car were CIA plants. I mean, obviously, they were planted there in the hotel to make Gaddafy's regime look like a thuggish paranoid police state with a great deal to hide. But we know the truth must be something different.

[Runework]

29. you dont wage war based on individual incidents

whether real or fake...if you think there isn't propaganda going on in this (as in every single military action in human history), well...btw you realize the prostitution (ie gang rape) of little boys is going on in Afghanistan, by our allies?



and ...why wouldnt ANY nation have a right to bomb the US, based on crap that has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan? Need I list what I'm talking about?


rape rooms were used to justify the war against saddam . Ill just have to assume all of you supported bush's little adventure too

[jenmito]

20. And your implication has WHAT to do with my post? n/t

[Sky Masterson]

22. We had a chance/coupon to stop a whole lot of innocents from being killed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwWwOeZqz6M
If all of this was headed my way ,and all I had to protect everything that I love were civilian protesters..I would prey/beg/wish/hope for help from anywhere and when I heard the explosions in the distance instead of murderers and rapist and executioners coming to my door,I may actually appreciate it and I might think a little differently of Americans.

[VoteProgressive]

24. So we only worry about Rapes in the Middle East? Where Oil is? nt

[Ramulux]

28. That is one fucking stupid article

Oh my god, someone got raped! We must invade and destroy Libya with our military might! This Kristof guy is a clown, I shudder to think what he would want us to do if he ever found out about all the atrocities that have been going on in N. Korea for decades. So a woman gets raped and that is reason enough to invade Libya, but N. Koreans die in work camps by the thousands every year and we practically pretend like that country doesn't exist.

The hypocrisy among these pro-war people is insane. I dont fucking care how many women get raped in Libya its not our fucking business or responsibility to save them. Why dont people understand that we are not in charge of the world and all the people in it?