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cmplxgal commented on the blog post Syrian Protesters Defy Murderous Assad Regime, Return to Streets
Two recent commentaries by people who have actually traveled to Syria suggest that the truth is somewhat different than that reported in the mainstream press of massive governmental violence against protestors. I am not quite sure what is actually going on, but I do think the matter is quite a bit more complex than it might appear. I suggest people check out:
–Robin
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cmplxgal commented on the blog post US Floats Sanctions for Syria
David, once again you write about “the massacre of Benghazi that was halted by coalition airstrikes.” There was no impending massacre–this is a false statement that you continue to repeat. We know what Khadafy said: that he would show “no mercy or compassion” for those who fight, but that people “who throw their weapons away” would not be harmed. This clearly threatened only the rebels involved in armed violence against the state–not civilians. And of course the Libyan government–like any government–is going to respond militarily to an armed uprising. Do you think the U.S. government would not?
–Robin
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cmplxgal commented on the blog post Besieged Misurata Residents Seek NATO Ground Troops for Libya
There has been no massacre in Misrata, nor will there be one–just as there would not have been a massacre in Benghazi. The “rebels” are repeating the same charade (“he’s coming to kill us all”) as the one that brought the UN resolution, and it is irresponsible for you to promote it. There have been no massacres in the several coastal cities that Libyan government forces have taken or re-taken in the back-and-forth struggle with the rebels.
An April 10 statement by Human Rights Watch reported that, of 949 injured people, exactly 22 were women and eight were children. This is not the stuff of massacres. Rather, it is urban warfare, which is inherently bloody and nasty.
Or look at the April 14 op-ed by Alan J. Kuperman in the Boston Globe, which argues that “President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya.”
This is not to say that war is not awful. It is. But the word “massacre” is thrown around much too easily in today’s discourse.
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cmplxgal commented on the diary post Breaking News on the Goldstone Report in Advance of FDL Horowitz Book Salon by wendydavis.
Judge Goldstone’s op-ed is quite curious. There is almost no new evidence, yet he wants to radically alter his conclusions? The fact that Israel is investigating itself, even if true, does not undermine the Goldstone report’s conclusions about (1) what happened and (2) why it happened. Now, any new information revealed by those investigations might [...]
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