Peti oktobar na bliskom istoku i arapskom svetu

[Tutankamon]

Stiže im 1000 pancira od Engleza

[angern]

Stiže im 1000 pancira od Engleza

Kad ih NATO bombarduje da lakše podnesu.

[najgori]

Stiže im 1000 pancira od Engleza

hehe. panciri imaju rok trajanja. bas me zanima da li im salju nove pancire.

[Roger Sanchez]

No freedom for foreign press at Tripoli's Rixos hotel

The call sometimes comes in the middle of the night. Pack your bags, you are being deported. Or: we would like to discuss an error in your story – now. Or even: we have news about your visa inquiry. One evening, a list of 25 names was posted in the hotel lobby. The following journalists will be leaving tomorrow. No reason, no discernible pattern. The next morning, all were reprieved. Bags were unpacked, travel arrangements unpicked.This is part of life as a foreign journalist under virtual house arrest at the five-star Rixos hotel in Tripoli, where maddening soft pop plays on an endless loop, portraits of the Brother Leader hang in the lobby, and armed men stand guard on the gate to prevent reporters slipping out. It is a world of rumour, paranoia, mistrust, manipulation, frustration and interrupted sleep. North Korea with palm trees was how one of our number described it.For two months, the Rixos has been the exclusive preserve of the foreign media, here to try to report on what is happening in Libya's civil war in what the regime insists is the pro-Gaddafi west of the country.But we are forbidden from leaving the hotel without a marafiq, the Arabic word for companion – a genial euphemism for minder. The BBC and al-Jazeera websites cannot be accessed, although their TV channels are available. One minder favours long, intense conversations with journalists about the virtues and magnanimity of "the Guide", akaMuammar Gaddafi. Everywhere we go on government-organised trips "spontaneous" demonstrations of ardent Gaddafi loyalists erupt. One journalist wakes each morning with the ubiquitous chant of "Allah, Muammar, Libya we bas [that's all we need]" ringing inside her head.How long have you been here, when are you leaving and what's happening are the most common questions we ask one another. There is no routine or pattern to the days. Ask a minder if an organised trip is likely to depart, and he will shrug and say: "Maybe." Hours can slip by waiting for something that never materialises.The camaraderie among the foreign press corps is occasionally punctuated by small explosions of frustration and competition. "I've been doing this job for 20 fucking years," a reporter yelled at a cameraman in a scrum at Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound the other night. "It doesn't show," came the instant putdown.The mutual support between journalists came perilously close to collapse last week when the government minders said they would take a small number on a trip to Misrata, the city in the west of Libya that has seen sustained fighting for several weeks. An unseemly scramble to get a place on one of the two minibuses ensued. Reporters and TV teams pleaded to be included; some tried to force their way past the minders on the bus doors, others clambered through the vehicles' windows. Yet, in a spirit of solidarity, those left behind thrust flak jackets through the windows for colleagues without body armour as the buses moved off.The following day, another trip to Misrata was laid on. It was a 10‑hour round journey during which we saw precisely nothing apart from a few columns of black smoke in the distance. The minders decided to take a long detour on the way back, citing danger on the main highway. "Bullshit," muttered one journalist. "Shut the fuck up!" the minder shouted. We got back to the Rixos after midnight – at which point a press conference was announced.Late-night press briefings are a feature of life here. This week, one began at 1.30am. A TV cameraman filmed the event in his hotel bathrobe. Another night, I had just got into bed hoping for an early night when the familiar ding-dong of the public address system disturbed the peace of my room. "Good evening everyone," the announcements usually begin. "To all journalists: there will be a press conference in 10 minutes/half an hour/an hour/now." We are never told the subject or the speaker, and they never start on time.Government officials regularly berate us for our lack of professionalism, objectivity, accuracy. To be lectured on journalistic ethics when we are not allowed to move around freely or talk to unauthorised Libyans is rich in irony."Some of the media are not as truthful as they should have been in reporting the reality of events in Libya," the minister for social affairs, Ibrahim al-Sharif, told us this week. "This is not as harmful to Libya as it is to those media organisations. We are hopeful you will get accurate information to the people of America, Britain and France." Oh, how we would like to.Another official told me the government would only issue visas henceforth to journalists who are proven to be "neutral". He singled out the British and American press and broadcasters as "biased".Rumours and speculation abound. One journalist refused to eat hot food during his stay, believing it was spiked with sedatives. Others nurse suspicions about how the minders manage to stay awake virtually round the clock. Is there a team in the basement listening to our phone calls and monitoring our emails? Is it possible to escape through the kitchen? Are the waiting and cleaning staff spies? Why do some people's computers suddenly lose internet connection when others remain online? Who is that guy who keeps photographing us at press conferences? Why have scores of hideous paintings been hung on the hotel walls in the past few days?Mindful of the tightened budgets of their news organisations, many journalists try to contain their soaring hotel bills by skipping meals. One who regularly dined on cream crackers and peanut butter in his room found, upon checkout, that the hotel had charged him for lunch and dinner every day, regardless. After 15 minutes of fruitless argument, he gave up and paid. At the Hotel Rixos, it's easy to lose the will to fight back.

[angern]

[Bane5]

Misrata je danas dozivela verovatno najjace raketiranje/granatiranje od pocetka sukoba i opsade.Mozemo da licitiramo da li su u pitanju desetine ili stotine raketa ispaljene iz visecevnih bacaca, ali sigurno je da su tek u manjem broju pale na prostor luke, a veci deo je pogodio stambeni kvart najblizi luci. Broj poginulih se za sada ne zna, barata se cifrom od 23-je poginulih ukljucujuci i 4 egipcana (radnici koji su smesteni u kampu nedaleko od luke u nadi da ce ih neko evakuisati iz grada).U potpunoj nemogucnosti da slome odbranu Misrate, primenjen je recept ocajnika. Unistava se ono sto je ostalo od grada i to potpuno nasumicno (visecevni bacaci nemaju neku posebnu preciznost narocito kada ih koristite na gradske cetvrti sto je vec samo po sebi bezumlje).

[Roger Sanchez]

Ništa ti ne znaš, bane. Gaddafijeve rakete, budući domaće, po definiciji ne nagrđuju zemlju, ne ruše gradove i ne ubijaju ljude. To radi samo invazorska municija kojoj treba pasoš.

[Muwan]

Dapače, opšte je poznato da invaziona municija blagotvorno deluje na disajne puteve te pospešuje metabolizam i opšti imunitet civila na terenu.

The U.S. military first denied that it has used white phosphorus as an anti-personnel weapon in Fallujah, but later retracted that denial, and admitted to using the incendiary in the city as an offensive weapon. Reports following the events of November 2004 have alleged war crimes, human rights abuses, and a massacre by U.S. personnel, including indiscriminate violence against civilians and children. This point of view is presented in the 2005 documentary film, Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre. In 2010, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, a leading medical journal, published a study which shows that the rates of cancer, infant mortality and leukaemia exceed those reported in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

.Postoje dokumentarci u kojima su snimljeni komandanti koji svojim oficirima pred polazak u borbu saopštavaju da nema nikakvih civila, ljudskih prava i sličnih gluposti. U urbanim operacijama, cilj je ostati živ i poraziti neprijatelja što teško ide jedno sa drugim ako se odluči za viteški pristup ličnog čišćenja svake kuće uz dobru proveru stanja pre dejstvovanja. Mnogo je popularnija i nažalost efikasnija metoda nivelisanja kompletnog naselja, što su na jednakom nivou izvele i zle bradonje u Vukovaru i dobre demokrate u Faludži. Teoriju po kojoj civilima mnogo više znači kada postradaju od demokratskog belog fosfora nego od diktatorskog VBR-a, ne bih previše komentarisao.

[Roger Sanchez]

Ne uvodim ja Faluđe u priču, nego eto mislim da je vrhunska uvreda za 1 čovjeka i građanina da ti ruše kuću i ubijaju oružjem za čiju nabavku su tebi i tvojoj djeci uzimali od usta. Ako se ti ne slažeš, široka ti Misrata.

[Muwan]

Vrhunska je uvreda za 1 čovjeka i građanina da ga bilo ko ubija iz bilo kog razloga, a pogotovo zbog toga što podržava ovog a ne onog. Da li to čine odredi smrti od vrata do vrata, ili VBR-ovi koji su plaćeni iz budžeta, potpuno je sporedan detalj.

[Bane5]

ja cu po stoti put podvuci da uvek kad govorim, govorim o konkretnom slucaju. ono sto je zanimljivo za danasnji dan je da je danas 25-godisnjica od reganovog napada na libiju.regan:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waLJii_RrXsvojno objasnjenje operacije "el dorado kanyon" 14.4.1986.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgqDT2mlENonesto zabelezenih snimaka sa terena nakon bombardovanja 14.4.1986.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiBOz45nBzcdeo cnn-ovog izvestaja sa lica mesta 1986.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWjmHJri59Iizvestaj abc-ja:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdKs36aAq50Koincidencija ili ne, mozda kao podsecanje Gadafija na taj dan, a mozda kao odgovor na ovaj napad na Misratu, a najverovatnije oboje, danas je Tripoli napadnut avionima jace nego ranije. Pogodjen je i kompleks u Baz Azaziji gde je Gadafijev HQ.

[Roger Sanchez]

Uopće nije. Jel bi tebi bilo svejedno jel™ te nožem bocnuo član familije ili slučajni prolaznik?

[Muwan]

Verovatno mi ne bi bilo svejedno ali, niti su pripadnici Gadafijevih brigada članovi familija civila koji stradaju u Misrati, niti su ovi što ih šatro štite slučajni prolaznici.Ako me pitaš da li bi mi bilo svejedno da me npr. u Srbiji raketiraju neki divljaci pod komandom nekog šumadijskog vojvode ili da me belim fosforom i kasetnim bombama zaspu demokratski marinci u sklopu obračuna protiv tog istog vojvode, odgovor glasi: da, bilo bi mi svejedno. I jedne i druge zabole za mene i sve druge civile, i jedni i drugi su puni junaka koji ratuju po principu: "Satri sve što se miče". Ne vidim neku bitnu razliku.

Edited April 14, 2011 by beowl

[Roger Sanchez]

Moram konstatirati da međunas glede toga postoje nepomirljive razlike na emotivnom planu, vjerojatno uslijed različitih životno-historijskih iskustava. Bojim se da ćemo ostati u nesporazumu.

[angern]

Libijce bombarduje i NATO i Gadafi. Razlika je što NATO posle bombardovanja daje i izjavu da nema šta da se izvinjava.Što se tiče "zaštite", da su u Misrati Amerikanci i Britanci i da ih Gadafi napada, da li bi NATO primenjivao istu tehniku zaštite Misrate kao sada?NATO-u je bliži Gadafi, zato ga tako kilavo i napada. Tako je kilavo vršio i neke druge intervencije iz sličnih razloga.