The Penis as a Weapon of War by Tess Lawrence
"War, children It''s just a shot away, it''s just a shot away." Gimme Shelter
The great thing about the penis as a weapon of war is that it weighs only a few ounces, fits in the palm of your hand and it doesn''t matter if you''re firing blanks.
As a piece of military hardware it falls into the category of an IED-inbuilt explosive device.
Historically, it remains the most enduring alpha weapon of choice in conflict and revenge of any kind, outliving and outperforming crude and sophisticated armoury alike in terms of impact and intimidation.
It needs little maintenance and is aroused by group bonding habits and tribal participation and stimulated in equal measure by those teasing triplets of war; power, sex and violence.
However, it is not totally reliant on peer to peer activity. It responds well to self-administration and gratification. Onan the Invincible, you might say.
It is the uber form of sexual terrorism, biological and physiological warfare. Nothing comes near it.
It is indiscriminate in its penetratory capacity and is the least prejudicial of all artillery.
It is singularly egalitarian. It does not differentiate between religion, race, culture, sex, age or indeed, species.
Its victims are drawn from as many walks of life and circumstance as its perpetrators.
Like landmines, radioactive waste and cluster bombs, it inflicts residual, physical as well as psychological damage upon both civilian and enemy populations, corroding global, national, community and familial relationships.
It spoils and soils the fragile landscape and ecology of the human family and its networking infrastructures and complexion.
It is immune to decontaminants and unthreatened by counter insurgents.
Once regarded as the main province of the male of the species, its methodologies are being increasingly deployed by female mimics, rebirthing Freudian penis envy theorists.
In its benign state, it is harmless enough and functions as a useful apparatus to eliminate distilled toxins.
But when erect and fully loaded it is capable of spearing babies, children, women and men whether alive, dead or dying and does so by entering every natural orifice found on the body as well as those wounds and entry points created by artificial and unnatural means.
Its paradoxical menace lies in the fact that the penis is the instrument of jealousy, manhood, lust, affection, love and propagation of the species whilst at the same time it serves as an instrument of rape and defilement and the provocation of deaths of another kind.
Its impact far exceeds its size.
It provides more economic value, dollar for dollar, than any other type of organised or even disorganised, war machine.
It excels as a standalone act of war and military tactical device, with the capacity to trigger an overwhelming emotional response to what, when stripped down to basics, constitutes a relatively simple physical act of insertion and trespass.
With the chamber contents travelling at approximately 20 miles per hour or 30 feet per second, once it penetrates the target, it explodes into millions of fragments. Those fragments remain forever domicile within the target and give rise to immediate infection in the recipient organism.
They are never excreted from the body as are other accumulated trace elements of injury and hurt.
Whilst the mobility and motility variants of its powerful discharge is of little importance to its primary function or ballistic attributes, it can and often does regenerate itself within its host victim; an important consideration in terms of deploying stigmata and imposing humiliation upon the enemy.
It makes a lethal weapon out of a male; of a son, brother, father, husband, uncle or grandfather—sometimes all these amount to the composition of a single man. A hydra-headed avatar. A weapon of micro destruction with macro implications.
It is an experienced proponent of chemical warfare. It spreads disease, venereal, venal and cerebral.
It is a curiosity that in contemporary scenario, men who in otherwise social happenstance may be loath to defecate or masturbate in front of one another, in a mass rape scenario have no such inhibitions with either.
"Rape, murder It''s just a shot away, it''s just a shot away" Gimme Shelter
Take the case of the distraught and dishevelled Iman al-Obeidi, who burst into the restaurant at Tripoli''s Rixos Al Nasr Hotel and international notoriety the other morning on March 26, a mere 18 days after International Women''s Day, asserting to the assembled international media that she''d been gang raped, urinated and defecated upon by whiskey swilling Gaddafi troops after she and her brother-in-law were stopped at a checkpoint and hauled out of the car for questioning.
What is more, she said her rapists filmed the entire sordid episode.
Homo-erotica implicit in pack rape
An erection alone does not a screen hero make. But the homo-erotica implicit and explicit in pack rape apparently does.
And heroes look beauteous to one another smeared in testosterone and cowardice. It is a beauty harboured in the eyes of the beholden.
Looking bruised and bloodied and displaying scratches and wounds on her face, legs, wrists and ankles, the sobbing thirty-something woman was immediately set upon by Gaddafi''s intelligence operatives, disguised as hotel workers.
Despite gallant efforts to intervene and protect her – by the likes of journalists Charles Clover of The Financial Times and Channel Four''s Jonathan Miller and others – in an unedifying display of the brutality of the Gaddafi regime, the distressed and protesting woman was taken away by security police and at the time of going to press has not been seen since.
We do not know if she is still alive.
For their trouble, Clover and Miller were beaten up by Gaddafi''s thugs and Clover subsequently chucked out of the country.
A Qatar based Libyan TV channel recently featured two voice-only phone interviews with al-Obeidi, although there is ongoing debate about their veracity and to the best of my knowledge no credible spectrographic voice identification tests have been completed.
To my untrained ear, the second interview sounds more like al-Obeidi than the first. There is always the danger of a contrived cut and paste compilation of course.
It should be noted that in the Rixos melee, one of the female waiter/operatives drew a knife and a male drew a gun; standard operational cutlery equipment for Gaddafi''s undercover kitchen tipstaff.
In a futile attempt to suppress and prohibit footage of this incident reaching the outside world, some cameras and other media equipment were destroyed by the undercover Gaddafi spies/security who, according to informants, now effectively oversee the luxurious Rixos Hotel that ironically celebrated its first anniversary in March, oblivious to the hubris of the Ides and despite being named for one of the ancients who founded the desiccated city of Perge.
In fairness, it is likely its Turkey-based hoteliers have no say in the hotel''s current activities. Gaddafi blew out the candles on their birthday cake.
Further, it is likely that Gaddafi family members have a compulsory stake in the Rixos; as well as free room service. So Rixos group Chairman Fettah Tamince, like others doing business in Libya, is commercially stymied in this regard.
Some of Iman al-Obeidi''s supporters are calling for a boycott on the Rixos. That may be counterproductive. It was after all, the site where a light was shone upon a great darkness.
The prime objective of the Gaddafi regime in embedding foreign media in the Rixos, a convenient ten kilometres or so from the airport, is to monitor and censor all ingoing and outgoing media traffic and informations, rather than to turn down your sheets and leave a mint-flavoured praline nestled on your pillow on cold Libyan nights.
That motive also includes identifying any informants or helpers, or ''traitors'' to the Gaddafi regime, who might be aligned with Libya''s struggling civilian home guard and who might be feeding information to the media.
And then killing them or their family members. Or kidnapping them and keeping them hostage. Or making them disappear.
Or raping them. And torturing them in other ways. Or mutilating them and chopping off limbs. Or using their bodies as sandbags and decoys. Or pretending that the corpses are entirely the result of NATO strikes. And stacking them up for a photo shopportunity, so it looks like they are collateral damage.
Some journalists complained that they were virtual prisoners at the Rixos. At the time of the al-Obeidi incident, like the guests at the Hotel California, it seemed that they could never leave of their own accord.
Gaddafi doesn''t want foreign media to travel without his spin doctors and minders — and press are certainly neither formerly encouraged nor permitted to travel unencumbered around Planet Gaddafi; ostensibly for their own protection.
"Journalists....we''re under virtual house arrest"
In an interview with Australian Mark Colvin on ABC radio on March 28, the experienced and much respected journalist, Jonathan Miller, gave us an important insight into the vice-like grip Gaddafi''s propaganda unit has in the foreign media lockdown in Tripoli:
"We''ve been severely restricted. It has been a nightmare in terms of being able to tell this story properly."Journalists have been stopped. Most recently last night I tried to leave the hotel with my TV crew to just walk down the road and we were arrested at the gate and brought back to the hotel.
"I mean it''s that bad. We''re under virtual house arrest."
It was later conceded by Gaddafi''s apologists that security staff had mishandled the ''rape woman'' incident and ought not to have drawn their weapons. Sounds like they use the same PR machine as Sarah Palin.
Even if Iman al-Obeidi is lying and part of a staged propaganda hoax, Gaddafi''s ''front of house'' personnel goofed.
It is a given that all phone calls are tapped and all activities within the Rixos filmed by the Gaddafi regime.
The world owes a lot to Iman (also Eman) al-Obeidi. She single-handedly and most succinctly did what others have been trying to do for weeks. She laid bare to the world, the abject miserable cruelty, misogyny and duplicity of the Gaddafi regime towards its own people.
In doing so, this young woman martyred herself to history for the sake of her country''s future and the plight of women everywhere.
Iman is an occupant in a world riddled with obvious hypocrisy, where a woman who is not a virgin is vilified and a man who is a virgin, is ridiculed.
And let us not kid ourselves that such thinking is confined to Libya or even the Middle East. Sexual assault and violence towards women is so prevalent an international sport it might as well be considered for Olympics status.
Daily, in the so-called West, our Courts, hospital emergency centres, refuges and homes bear testimony to this ugly reality. It is not surprising that women and men around the world have expressed both their concern and solidarity for Iman al-Obeidi and posted messages on Facebook support sites.
The initial Libyan Government''s response to the woman''s outburst came from spokesman Moussa Ibrahim who actually kept a straight face when he decried al-Obeidi as being drunk and mentally challenged.
Not a single journalist present has described al-Obeidi this way. That she was a human being in distress, and in fear for her life, was palpable; even to the rest of us watching television thousands of heartmiles away.
Jonathan Miller pulled no punches telling Mark Colvin and the world about what had happened at the Rixos and what Moussa had said about Iman al-Obeidi.
"The government spokesman who''s a very eloquent man in English and who has relentlessly defended the indefensible, first of all started alleging that she was drunk, then that she was possibly mentally unbalanced — and he never reined in from any of those statements."
Later, Ibrahim, displaying no symptoms of the benefit of a university education in Britain, recanted his claim about Iman''s mental condition and said she had been found to be sane. No mention was made of his own master''s dubious grip on reality.
The notion that even if al-Obeida was indeed drunk and mentally ill, her claims were no less admissible, escapes the likes of Ibrahim.
When Ibrahim''s ridiculous claims were met with incredulous scorn by journalists, he then proceeded to take some of them aside individually to confide to them that she was not a lawyer as claimed, but a prostitute.
Iman''s reputation trashed by Gaddafi stooge: international cunnulingua franca
Don''t you just love the reference to international sexual cunnulingua franca? That ''ol trick. Trash the slut''s reputation.
It was a claim Moussa was later to deny in public.
Thankfully, Miller confirmed this in his forthright interview with Colvin.
"Yesterday morning he (Moussa) began to brief journalists privately that she was a prostitute, that she was a woman of easy virtue who had gone out seeking paid sex and that at least (at) one of these checkpoints where she''d gone, she''d got into a bit of trouble, which is why it was being dealt with as a criminal matter."
Mark Colvin: "How have the journalists been reacting to that sort of briefing?"
Jonathan Miller:
"Well, the media...have lost any respect that they may ever have had for this man and last night there was a very hostile news conference in which we challenged him about this because he was unwilling...with the assembled cameras from all over the world...live on Libyan television...unwilling to repeat these allegations."....we challenged him to do so, but he refused and said ''It is now a legal matter. It would be inappropriate for me to do so.''
"But we said, ''Hang on a sec, do you now retract the statements that you made that she may have been a prostitute or that she was a prostitute?''
"And he stormed out. He left the room.
"..he says ''Why are you focusing on an issue which is just one tiny, little story when thousands of Libyans are being bombed illegally and immorally by the Western crusader alliance?''
"...the Government doesn''t seem to understand that for journalists here who have been unable to get out of this hotel, not only was it a case of the story coming to us and we glimpsed this brutality, but it became a very symbolic story absolutely illustrating in a nutshell what Libyans have had to put up with in this country in terms of this brutal, tyrannical regime which has ruled them for 41 years."
So what if Iman al-Obeidi was a prostitute Ibrahim Moussa? So what if any of us are prostitutes? That doesn''t mean her claims are less credible of worthy of being tested, than someone who is not a prostitute.
Goodness Gracious Minnie the Moussa, you sound as if you''d get on really famously with an Australian judge I recall, who gave a rapist a lesser sentence because his victim was a prostitute. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge. Know wot I mean?
I recall another Australian judge who said that if a woman wanted to avoid being raped she simply had to keep her legs together. Why didn''t Iman think of that?
Such attitudes prevail throughout the world to varying degrees.
"Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'' Our very street today Burns like a red coal carpet Mad bull lost its way" Gimme Shelter
During the course of the day and the ensuing days of the ''rape woman'' incident, the interplay between the foreign press and Gaddafi''s stooges resembled the kill foreplay between the Mongoose and the Snake.
The macabre charade continued. One minute Moussa said the media could have access to Iman. Then not.
Journalists asked Libya''s Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim if they could see her. He said maybe. It never happened.
Moussa koussa packs suit and clean underwear — poised to defect
Why was it up to Libya''s Deputy Foreign Minister to make such a statement you might well ask?
Because the Foreign Minister, former Libyan Intelligence Chief and political chameleon, Mr Moussa Koussa had already packed a suitcase and clean underwear and was poised to board a private jet in Tunisia, organised by British Intelligence and bound for Britain and the joys of defection.
And not since Rudolf Hess broke his ankle while parachuting into Scotland on May 10, 1941 has there been a defection of such legal and ethical paradox.
Mr Koussa''s arrival at Farnborough airport, home of the famous air show, provoked immediate speculation about whether he will be handed over to the Scottish authorities for questioning over any role he may have had in the notorious 1988 Lockerbie Bombing.
The Scots have already put in their bid to the Brits.
And then there''s the subsequent 2009 early release on compassionate grounds, from a Scottish prison, of the only person found guilty of the 270 murders, and imprisoned in 2001 for the Lockerbie atrocity—one Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
The latter was supposedly dying from terminal prostate cancer and had only three months to live.
It is said he blackmailed Gaddafi into negotiating his early release, under pain of exposing the Colonel''s role in the bombing.
Political forensics 101: Gaddafi''s oily fingerprints are all over doomed Pan Am Flight 103
You don''t have to have majored in Political Forensics 101 to know that Gaddafi''s oily fingerprints are all over doomed Pan Am Flight 103.
Al-Megrahi continues to play out the longest drawn out imminent death scene in contemporary political theatrics.
Koussa and his Colonel are also persons of interest in the death four years earlier, of 25 year old English Policewoman Yvonne Fletcher whose sad fate it was to guard the Libyan Embassy in St James Square on April 17, 1984.
In cruel portent of Libya today, WPC Fletcher and her colleagues had been despatched to the Embassy to keep an eye on dissidents from the Libyan National Salvation Front who were gathering in protest against Colonel Gaddafi''s execution of two student protestors in Libya.
Shots were fired into the crowd of protestors, wounding 11 of them including the policewoman. Fletcher was to die of stomach wounds about an hour after being rushed to hospital. The episode resulted in an 11 day police siege.
It was later confirmed that the shots that killed the popular policewoman came from sub-machine guns fired from the Embassy''s upper windows.
The pane of glass that is diplomatic immunity never shattered, unlike the shards that fell upon Yvonne Fletcher''s family, friends and colleagues and that, to this day, are still being picked from their collective wounds and the nation''s psyche.
The world can never say it had no warning of the capabilities of Gaddafi or his regime — or deny its knowledge and understanding of his political agility and ability to continuously insinuate his will and brutality into the political and diplomatic firewalls erected by allegedly ''civilised'' and ''sophisticated'' regimes such as our own decaying pillars of democracy.
The West and other pressure points of the political compass so often gave tacit and informed consent to Gaddafi and his delinquent conduct, by turning its gaze from his murderous atrocities.
For the sake of political and monetary expediencies, it accorded similar concessions to other dictatorial and hardline regimes in North and East Africa and the Middle East and today we harvest the rotting fruits of a banquet once set in glorious abundance and plenty and from whose table the once fawning guests have now fled.
There are many rocks that need to be overturned in all of these lurid matters. It remains to be seen if Justice will crawl out from under any of them.
Late last year, cables released by WikiLeaks confirmed that the British Government was fearful of the consequences of Gaddafi''s threats and thuggish behaviour if al-Megrahi was not released.
So if the British Government is scared of Gaddafi, then little wonder that Iman and her family members, supporters and Libyan citizens in general, have reason to be fearful, despite their defiance. There is much to be fearful about.
In what seemed an unlikely and clumsy rapprochement to save face in the international light of Iman al-Obeidi''s allegations, journalists were informed that five men had been arrested, one of them reputedly the son of a high-ranking officer. Others were told only four men had been arrested.
But then we were told that the accused men had lodged a complaint against Iman al-Obeidi and she was to be charged with defamation.
Amnesty International''s Malcolm Smart, Director for the Middle East and North Africa put it plainly and impatiently on March 31.
"It is simply outrageous that Eman al-Obeidi is now being targeted by the very officials whom she has accused, with the apparent approval of the Libyan authorities."This looks to be nothing but an attempt at face-saving by the government. Instead of carrying out this smear campaign, they should release her and independently investigate her allegations.
"Eman al-Obeidi''s case is alarming also because of the signal it sends to other women who may be subject to rape or other sexual violence, and who may now fear to come forward and disclose what has been done to them."
Minnie the Moussa said that Iman al-Obeida was being held at Libyan National Intelligence HQ. Not good. Other rumours said she was being held at Gaddafi''s own Bab al-Aziziyah complex.
Moussa said she was safe and doing well. Not good.
He said she was being provided with legal aid. Not good. He said she would be available for interview in a couple of days. Still not happened yet.
Moussa complained that al-Obeidi refused a Gaddafi Government medical examination. As if.
"Ooh, a storm is threat''ning My very life today If I don''t get some shelter Oh yeah, I''m gonna fade away" Gimme Shelter
We are told that on March 27, Iman''s mother was contacted by Gaddafi''s spin djinns and asked to convey a bribe to her daughter of a new home, money and anything she wished for — on the proviso she changed her story.
It is reported that al-Obeidi rejected the offer saying she would rather die.
Libya''s INC supports Iman al-Obeidi — condemns ''Gaddafi''s thugs''
That day, a group of her supporters protested in the streets of Benghazi.
The same day, Dr Ali Abdul Aziz Al Isawi, the Foreign Secretary of Libya''s Interim National Council issued a forceful press release demanding that Iman be released.
He condemned the...
"...brutal and horrifying treatment and violence committed against our sister Eman Al-Obeidi. Her ordeal both during her detention and the violence committed against her by Gaddafi''s thugs at the Rixos Hotel...in front of the word''s media was criminal, barbaric, and an unpardonable violence against her dignity, the dignity of the Libyan people, and all of humanity."We also demand the immediate release of all children, women and men kidnapped and arrested by Gaddafi and his regime. Thousands of innocent civilians have been forcibly kidnapped and arrested by Gaddafi, his thugs and mercenaries. They must all be released now. We shall pursue every infringement of human dignity and human rights, and every act of violence and brutality against the innocent people of Libya to Libyan courts and the International Criminal Court and use all legal mechanisms at our disposal to bring the perpetrators to local and international justice.
"We also demand the immediate release of all Libyan and foreign journalists and media personnel held by Gaddafi and his regime."
In a plea not to forsake Libya, Dr Al-Isawi urged...
"...all foreign journalists to continue to hold true, and witness, to their media vocation and expose the lies, deception and crimes against humanity committed by the Gaddafi regime, his thugs and mercenaries. We urge all journalists and their agencies to put pressure on the Libyan regime to stop restraining the foreign press at the Rixos Hotel and allow them freedom to travel and report."We urge the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to immediately issue international arrest warrants against Gaddafi, his family, and all associates who are guilty of War Crimes. The world has now witnessed incontrovertible evidence of the level of brutality committed by Gaddafi and his security apparatus across the Libyan country, sufficient for the International Criminal Court now to act to save innocent civilians.
"We promise no respite for Gaddafi, his thugs and mercenaries, who for 42 years have systematically terrorised, kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed the innocent children, women and men of Libya."
On March 30, in sight of The White House, whose incumbent has just announced he''s a contender for another term in office, a group of women protested in Pennsylvania Avenue too.
It is still unclear if al-Obeida had been released at some stage-and was then re-arrested.
She has now become a problematic symbol of the subjugation and oppression the Gaddafi regime continues to impose upon its citizens, and especially women.
Iman - international symbol of the oppression of women
Let me add to that. Iman is an international symbol of the international subjugation and oppression of women. And of the role of the penis as a weapon in war/conflict.
Supporters of the INCL and Iman al-Obeidi told me that they do not expect foreign journalists to keep a 24/7 watch on her story, given that they''ve got wars within wars to cover in Libya but they hope they will keep pressing the Gaddafi Government for the opportunity to meet with Iman in person – as promised – and to be able to speak freely with her and to get a clear picture of what happened to her.
In Libya, as in numerous parts of this sometimes unjust world, women are blamed and punished for the crimes of perpetrators; whether they are raped and gang banged by invading armies or marauding looters; raped by strangers or raped by people they know and hate—or even people they know and love.
So many women kill themselves if they''ve been violated. Or resort to disfiguring themselves—setting themselves alight and taking poison.
We are worried about all the other women and children – and men – in Libya who have been raped, imprisoned and tortured — and who will never get the opportunity to gate-crash an international press conference to highlight their case.
Other people as well as Iman were detained at the checkpoint that night — and their whereabouts are still unknown. Grave fears are held for their safety.
"Mmm, the floods is threat''ning My very life today Gimme, gimme shelter Or I''m gonna fade away" Gimme Shelter
There is no question that the penis is being used as a weapon of war in Libya. Raping and pillaging make amiable bedfellows for rewarding mercenaries in particular.
Viagra freebies for Gaddafi mercenaries
Gaddafi''s gift bags to the well-blooded veterans from his own army — and those he''s imported from the likes of Chad, Niger, Mali, Zimbabwe and Liberia and Sudan, include big wads of cash as well as freebies like Viagra and superfluous condoms. As if.
It makes a mockery of Gaddafi''s own insipid manifesto. In Part Three of The Green Book, in the section entitled The Social Basis of The Third Universal Theory and headlined ''Woman'' he opines:
"It is an undisputed fact that both man and woman are human beings. It follows, as a self-evident fact, that woman and man are equal as human beings."Discrimination against woman by man is a flagrant act of oppression without justification for woman eats and drinks as man eats and drinks; woman loves and hates as man loves and hates; woman thinks, learns and comprehends as man thinks, learns and comprehends.
"Woman, like man, needs shelter, clothing and transportation; woman feels hunger and thirst as man feels hunger and thirst; woman lives and dies as man lives and dies."
No mention in made in Muammar''s observations of the rituals and performance of the penis as a weapon of war and its correlation to Woman. Nor of the benefits to Woman of being urinated and defecated upon. Nor of the benefits of rape and pack rape to Woman.
In a preamble for downloading material from Gaddafi''s ''Green Charter Movement'' the contradictions between these Gaddafi sanctioned writings (some say he actually wrote all three parts of The Green Book — others say his children did) and how he actually treats his fellow citizens, is breathtaking in its hypocritical farce.
Par example:
"Most people, even those who are not in positions of power, are not innocent. Simply by unquestioningly taking news and education at face value, or not caring about current and historical events, by working in a company and not taking responsibility for the effects of our actions on nature and other fellow humans, by seeing injustice around us and staying quiet, all this and more helps those in power to become even more powerful."
And then there''s this:
“All it takes for evil to succeed is for good (wo)man to do nothing.”
I kid you not. The rest of the preamble ramble seems to have disappeared off the Gaddafi Government''s
But here''s another section that might interest you:
"At one time or another in life, when we face something that concerns us directly or someone close to us, or a particular issue we feel strongly about, we turn to action."Maybe letters are written, a protest march, a boycott or a complaint. Maybe more forceful action is taken according to the strength of feeling."
Muammar, ain''t that the truth. Who helped you write this fine document? Rumsfeld? Cheney?
Blair? Dubya? Sounds a lot like Dubya to me. Certainly it''s penned by someone who''s in your kind of headspace.
Listen up. Your coterie is crumbling. Your people are clocking up their frequent flyer points, so frequent are their defections.
Gaddafi - where is our sister, Iman?
"I tell you love, sister It''s just a kiss away, it''s just a kiss away It''s just a kiss away, it''s just a kiss away It''s just a kiss away, kiss away, kiss away" Gimme Shelter
Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi please tell us—where is our sister Iman al-Obeidi?
If you are truly unafraid of her power, release her.
You have raped and plundered your own country and you have sanctioned your men to rape Libya''s daughters with impunity.
If you continue to do nothing, then you might as well have assisted those 15 cowards to hold Iman down as they raped her and defecated and urinated upon her.
Certainly, your media goons tried in vain to stifle her public screams for help at the Rixos.
It is true that Iman has become a metaphor for Libya itself. And of what you and your tyrannical government have done to both of them. And unto others like them.
You cannot shame either. You have brought shame upon yourself by treating Iman so shabbily and authorising attempts to sully her reputation.
No doubt you will get yet another medal struck to pin onto your ludicrous uniform, to celebrate the brave, glorious and victorious pack rape of Iman al-Obeidi.
No doubt, you will share this victory with the 15 rapists, and pin facsimile medals on their courageous chests yourself.
I wish I could turn back time for this unarmed young woman, who had the moral fortitude to single-handedly take on a despot and his army and win both the battle and the war.
Iman al-Obeidi endured what thousands of women endure on a daily basis in military, civilian and domestic conflict.
On March 26, 20ll Iman al-Obeidi took a hit for womanity.
