This woman was in a roomful of big, well fed men. Look at the physical difference between them and the libyan ‘policeman’.

Not one stepped forward to help her, shield or protect her from the likelihood of a state-sanctioned murder.

This is the ultimate expression of the press’s much vaunted neutrality.

It is at least as shameful in its own way as the performance of the Libyans.

This incident displays the consistent lack of morality and empathy that is standard operating procedure for the western press. It also explains the frequent errors and false assertions.

Here’s an account by an amoral and unempathetic western journalist describing the actions of other amoral and unempathetic western journalists:

The Financial Times correspondent, Charles Clover, who had just learned that he was to be summarily deported, bravely challenged the minders and the hotel staff, demanding they back off and leave Ms al-Obeidi alone.

For this Mr Clover was roughly manhandled, pushed and thrown to the floor and kicked. Another government minder, who had previously tried to interfere with our filming, punched me in the face and pushed me backwards over a chair.

I landed on my back, only to have another scuffle break out above me as the CNN crew grappled with other minders who were attempting to seize their camera.

The camera smashed and broke into pieces and the minders grabbed the memory cards.

The reporter who I’ve quoted also wrote that one of the minders was seen drawing his gun and one of the waitresses was armed with a knife.

Can’t fault the journalists for this one. The lived to tell the tell, which is the best thing they can do for the woman. No way they could have changed the outcome anyhow, at best they would only have delayed it with mere minutes.

I also think that glibly saying “Sometimes war is the answer” is appallingly simple-minded.

Committing the most powerful military on the planet to action, firing hundreds of cruise missiles, and dropping thousands of bombs — because this woman has been raped?

Is this how we should respond to rape? Every rape? Everywhere? Always?

Think these things thru, please, before you rush to push the War Button. War is inherently destructive, not redemptive.

None of this depends on the woman actually telling the truth, just a willingness to endure the consequences.

And how, pray tell, do you do that, especially if the consequences may involve an execution?

If you are against U.S. involvement, you know I can agree with that; the U.S. had better back out of this mess. But to say that this woman’s abuse never happened? Get some perspective.

But I have to agree this video feels pretty Wag The Dog. I struggle to think of something that would be better suited to dissuade critics of US war actions in Libya. Even the way it’s mentioned that the Qaddafi thugs have alcohol- like it’s calibrated to discredit those people in the eyes of strict Muslims too.

This nothing new… for instance about the first Iraq war most people remembers the testimony of Nayirah on the “babies on incubators killed by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait” and on the second war with Colin Powell holding a vial of anthrax and showing pictures of Iraqi biological-lab trucks… and all of it came to be pure fabrications.

War actions? You mean “US time-limited, scope-limited military actions.” :)

Is this true? Maybe, but I doubt it. Certainly the emotionalism of the woman’s claims have prevented the journalists from questioning it.

Maybe she’ll do better next time. There are serious first-world problems that we need to be commenting on, and this fiasco is merely wasting precious bandwidth.

Did u guyz know that that chick from Kuwait lied during the first Gulf War? It’s totally relevant because it was in my derailment script.

1. Are all the reporters in on in the deception too? If so who at the meeting. Give names and details please.

2. Are the bruises and cuts simply a product of cosmetics? If so provide evidence that this is the case here. How do you tell the difference?

Speculation is not welcome. What I would like you to consider is the possibility that a women was actually gang raped and had other brutalities visited upon her. The speculations I am seeing here about this incident seem nothing more than gossamer thin informed by political prejudices.

The journalists involved are in Tripoli, in a “hotel” which is run by the Qaddafi regime in order to isolate the journos from the general public. Every staffer in that hotel is a Libyan agent. Their one job is to manage what the journalists hear.

As for the “nice balls, bitches” crap – again, read before speaking. The journos had a very brief window to record her statements before Qaddafi’s thugs tackled her, and as soon as that started, there was a guy with a gun between her and them. The journos were thrown on the ground, beaten up, and their equipment smashed. Easy to talk from behind your Mr. Pib on another continent, guy. And to second DoctressJulia – not cool to pull out “bitches” in defense of a rape victim.

I’m saying it would not sacrifice an agent on a mission like this.

I’m sorry if I’m singling you, but your comment reminds me of a lot of things I’ve been reading in the last week, and it reeks of ignorance.

I’ve got the feeling that a lot of people became aware of the Libyan crisis when the intervention begun and they quickly slotted the facts into their comfortable pre-existing mental categories. So you see skepticism, claims that “it’s for the oil”, Gaddafi apologists, knee-jerk accusations of imperialism, etc. etc.

The thing is, I’ve been following this story since it began on February 15, and your points don’t make sense at all, because if you’d cared to look a month ago you would’ve seen the videos, smuggled into Egypt on pen drives because the Internet had been shut down, of soldiers shooting the protesters in Benghazi.

And later you could’ve seen videos of dead loyalists, killed by the rebels and by the air strikes, and of interrogations of said loyalists (they’re not nice to see, I should say, there have been violations of human rights on both sides). And you would’ve seen dead civilians, bombed houses in Benghazi and Zawyia, militias shooting at protesters in Tajoura, Zwuara and Zawya, wounded men in the hospitals, ambulances hit by bullets.

And you could’ve read the reports of the handful of foreign journalist who were arrested and saw tortured detainees in the regime’s jails.

The only thing I’ve yet to see is proof of the civilian casualties in Tripoli, because the international journalists aren’t allowed out of the hotel alone, and in more than a week the government couldn’t find the time to bring them to any of supposed civilian targets hit by the air strikes.

Nothing phoney about that.

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iman_al-Obeidi

Regarding the suggestion that it was a human failure that the reporters didn’t swarm the guards… it would have been great if some of the reporters had been heroic enough to brave knives and guns to try to save this woman, but I’m not sure that it is a horrible human failure to avoid risking death for it, particularly considering the very real questions about her veracity. We can expect people to be human, but if we expected everyone to be heroic the word would lose its meaning. So I can understand how, in the moment, the journalists might decide that the most powerful weapons they had were their cameras.

That was CharlesS first comment ever on BoingBoing.

I think I can tell who the PsyOps guy is on this thread.

RogerWilco is right. Sometimes war *is* the best response.

http://feb17.info/general/video-eman-el-obeidis-cousin-speaks-out-translated/sin-speaks-out-translated

For those who really care, the most updated info is on Twitter and you can read updates with the hashtags #Feb17 #WhereIsEmanAlObeidi #Libya or follow @ChangeInLibya

Apologies to any who may have been offended. I’m not in Libya; I don’t know what happened. Being rather gullible, I have believed much that I shouldn’t have. I tend to err on the side of skepticism these days.

Give me a break, James!

Well right on, thanks for sharing that, Your posts have really moved the conversation forward, since we were just dying to know that nuanced positions are too fucking much for a man such as yourself to respectfully respectfully. Also, the whining about being picked on for blowing hot ait, very attractive.

Really, go back and check, which part of your point wasn’t about you being the center of the universe?