La presse-Système US et la situation libyenne

La presse-Système US et la situation libyenne

Pour compléter notre Bloc-Notes du 29 août 2011 sur “le système de la communication dans la crise libyenne”, nous citons et commentons ce texte de WSWS.org du 29 août 2011. Il rapporte d’une façon très instructive des réactions de la presse US sur la situation en Libye, notamment les actes de représailles commis par les rebelles.

Nous remarquions dans notre Bloc Notes combien cette guerre en Libye est perçue par les USA comme n’étant pas “leur” guère. Cela s’exprime moins dans la réduction du “volume” d’informations (tout de même, notable réduction) que dans la tonalité différente. Du coup, la couverture des événements est débarrassée à un certain degré des pressions que les médias-Système s’imposent à eux-mêmes pour être conformes à la politique du Système dans sa dimension nationale, américaniste dans ce cas. (Où l’on voit que la censure-Système est bien, d’abord, une autocensure, ce qui implique une subversion des psychologies.) La presse-Système US est donc beaucoup plus ouverte sur la vérité de la situation et ne ménage pas les détails montrant le comportement des rebelles. Nous avons choisi ici les extraits concernant cette presse US, laissant les réactions de la presse britannique (également traitée dans l’article) que nous avons déjà souvent mentionnées.

«A series of reports from journalists on the ground in Tripoli have provided evidence of mass killings by the NATO-backed forces in the Libyan civil war. These reports, which appear in publications largely supportive of the US-NATO intervention to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, further expose the fraudulent claim that the imperialist war against Libya is driven by humanitarian motives and the desire to protect civilian lives.

»The Washington Post carried a prominent report Saturday, headlined, “Revenge Killings Mount in Libya, Extrajudicial Attacks by Rebels Cast Shadow Over New Freedom.” The headline refers to the contradiction between the claims by the National Transitional Council (NTC), the new NATO-backed regime in Libya, as well as the Obama administration that what is taking place is a new birth of freedom in Libya and the reality of politically directed and in some cases racially motivated slaughter.

»Post reporter Simon Denyer asserts that Gaddafi’s troops “executed scores or even hundreds of political prisoners this week, even as victorious rebel fighters appear to have carried out their own abuses.” He cites the testimony of Diana Eltahawy, Libya researcher for Amnesty International, who “described a record of abuse, torture and the extrajudicial killing of captured pro-Gaddafi fighters that has followed the rebels from east to west as they have taken over the country.”

»The reporter himself saw five Gaddafi soldiers wounded and dying in a field hospital now patrolled by the “rebels,” without receiving food, water or medical attention, and 15 bodies, mainly of black Africans presumed to be Gaddafi supporters, left to rot in the sun outside the Bab al-Aziziyah compound where much of Gaddafi’s family lived. According to Denyer, “not all of them looked like ordinary battlefield deaths. Two dead men lay face down on the grass, their hands bound behind their backs with plastic cuffs.”

»McClatchy News Service reported the same gruesome scene: “The dead apparently had been pro-Gaddafi fighters, but they had not gone down fighting. Some had been shot inside their tents, possibly asleep, without shoes on. One had been shot inside an ambulance and another had been shot inside a field hospital, still hooked to an intravenous drip. Others had gunshot wounds in the back of their heads, fueling speculation of executions by rebel fighters.” […]

»The Los Angeles Times on Sunday wrote of “the visceral violence of rebel forces hammering away at residential neighborhoods known to be strongholds of Kadafi supporters. Rebel fighters use artillery and antiaircraft guns in such districts, which include Abu Salim, Hadba and Salahadin. At one point this week, rebels were firing assault rifles into residential apartment blocks in Abu Salim, where they suspected a sniper was holed up.”

»In other words, the NATO-backed forces are engaged in precisely the same indiscriminate firing of heavy weapons in residential neighborhoods that provided the original pretext for the NATO intervention, when Gaddafi ordered similar action by his own forces. The Times account ended by quoting a Tripoli taxi driver who told the newspaper, “I have a fear that one day we’ll be like Iraqis, wishing for the days of Muammar Gaddafi.”

dedefensa.org