Regarding Libya

My son's friend since he was about 10 years old has become a video documentarian over the past years. They are both in their mid 30s now and both have bachelors degrees in science. My son's friend spent about 9 or 10 weeks in Libya and I got to speak with him last night about his experiences. He told me since he has been back in California has spoken at a meeting at the West Coast United Nations regarding his experiences there in Benghazi, Libya. I was happy to see a western educated person capable of giving a more detailed summary of what is happening in Libya than you might find in any news outlets. The first thing he told me is that unlike the rest of Africa, Libya doesn't really have tribal problems (at least that is what everyone he talked to in Benghazi, Libya told him during his time there). He also said that none of the U.S. networks is very respected in the middle East now. The least respected because of its polarized rightest position is Fox News which wasn't a surprise to me. However, I was surprised that even CNN except for Fareed Zacharia isn't very well respected in the middle east either. He said that over the last 10 years aljazeera network is now the most respected by all elements (left, center and right) in the middle east and even in Europe than any of the U.S. networks at this time. I was very concerned about U.S. news organizations because of this. Because if all U.S. news networks aren't believed anymore then where are we?


He also mentioned that even U.S. and some European reporters were not allowed to say what was really going on in Libya because of pressure from their networks.


This also concerned me. However, on a purely economic level I'm sure that news is manipulated because of worries around the present economic downturns the last few years in the western world and possibly even worldwide.


He was also talking to me about how when antiaircraft guns were used on Benghazi by shooting them parallel to the ground the people in Benghazi that were hit were basically just arms and heads left with the rest liquified except for their legs. At that point since these were peaceful demonstrators that were shot with antiaircraft fire this way the police sided with the demonstrators and passed out guns and ammunition to fight Qaddhafi's troops and mercenaries who were massacring Benghazi peaceful demonstrators. One man, he said,  filled his car with gasoline cans and dynamite and drove into the Qaddhafi Troops and blew a lot of them up. Another man he said, hopped on a Bulldozer and drove through a wall so that some of the people being blown apart by antiaircraft fire parallel to the ground could escape through the breech in the wall  there in Benghazi. These two men, one who died and one who lived driving the Bulldozer, along with the police of Benghazi arming the citizenry allowed  them to begin to push back Qaddhafi's troops along with French Fighter planes who blew up tanks with missiles that melted through the tanks and blew the turrets off. My sons friend saw many many tanks with the turrets blown off in this way from fighter jet missiles and the remains of the crews both mercenary and regular Libyan troops under Qaddhafi. The efforts of the citizens from Benghazi moving  eastward came organically and became successful when NATO decided to become involved to prevent Qaddhafi from massacring anymore civilians. However, as everyone knows worldwide preventing civilian deaths under these circumstances will be very haphazard until a new permanent regime based more on human rights than the last one rules over all of Libya. Hopefully, the people of Syria can form a new government  that actually represents their needs and wants and human rights too. It appears now that civilian armies from the east are moving closer and closer to Tripoli every day now.

It appears also according to my son's friend that many good reporters from western networks are moving to  aljazeera  because the rights of middle eastern people in general seem to be protected by this news source worldwide now. If you are from one of these middle eastern countries now affected and are living here in the United States, Europe or around the world if you want more useful information about your country beyond what you are getting here is the aljazeera site that might be useful for you. It is my hope that Western networks like CNN and all the others will become more respected as they were in past years as an unbiased source of the news worldwide.


But for now, this appears to be the best source of what is happening in the middle east right now.

AJE - Al Jazeera English