Everything You Think You Know About Libya and Gaddafi is Wrong (or almost).
As ever, a fascinating post from Adam Curtis over on his blog. Not quite a Everything You Think You Know is Wrong one, but not that far off. The subject's Libya and Gaddafi, and how almost everything we were told at one time or another turns out not to be true or distinctly hazy. Some you'll probably be aware of: the evidence of Libyan responsibility for Lockerbie is shaky in the extreme, Arthur Scargill and the NUM were smeared vis-a-vis their supposed acceptance of Libyan money, and how quickly we shifted from (allegedly) funding a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group assassination attempt on Gaddafi's life to "rendering" one of their leaders back to the country to be tortured.
What I didn't know was that Libya's supposed WMD programme Gaddafi willing gave up was almost as non-existent as Iraq's, or the full facts of the sequence of events that led to Libya being targeted by Reagan in 1986. Something Curtis doesn't dwell on is that in spite of documents emerging implicating our good selves in the rendition of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, nothing has been produced since the fall of Gaddafi to prove beyond all doubt that Libya was responsible for the downing of Flight 103, or indeed to cast more light on the murder of Yvonne Fletcher. Notably, Gaddafi's director of military intelligence was sent back to Libya rather than any of the other states or courts where he's wanted, while Moussa Koussa was allowed to skip off to Qatar, never to be seen again.
And there's a clip of Vanessa Redgrave calling for a revolution. What more do you want?
(P.S. To follow along these somewhat conspiratorial lines, Anna Raccoon doubts the veracity of Jimmy Savile's alleged activities at Duncroft (while not denying in the slightest that he almost certainly did abuse teenage girls elsewhere), having been a pupil there herself in the 60s. Could it be, after everything, that Peter Rippon was right to can Newsnight's report but for the wrong reasons?)
What I didn't know was that Libya's supposed WMD programme Gaddafi willing gave up was almost as non-existent as Iraq's, or the full facts of the sequence of events that led to Libya being targeted by Reagan in 1986. Something Curtis doesn't dwell on is that in spite of documents emerging implicating our good selves in the rendition of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, nothing has been produced since the fall of Gaddafi to prove beyond all doubt that Libya was responsible for the downing of Flight 103, or indeed to cast more light on the murder of Yvonne Fletcher. Notably, Gaddafi's director of military intelligence was sent back to Libya rather than any of the other states or courts where he's wanted, while Moussa Koussa was allowed to skip off to Qatar, never to be seen again.
And there's a clip of Vanessa Redgrave calling for a revolution. What more do you want?
(P.S. To follow along these somewhat conspiratorial lines, Anna Raccoon doubts the veracity of Jimmy Savile's alleged activities at Duncroft (while not denying in the slightest that he almost certainly did abuse teenage girls elsewhere), having been a pupil there herself in the 60s. Could it be, after everything, that Peter Rippon was right to can Newsnight's report but for the wrong reasons?)
Labels: Adam Curtis, Arab spring, Gaddafi, lazy blogging, Libya, links
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