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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to feel shocked at the coverage of Gaddafi's death?

267 replies

IvySedaiballs · 20/10/2011 18:56

I don't think she should have been killed like that. IMO he should have been captured, tried and then hanges or whatever. they had him, alive. apparently he was begging for mercy.
now he is dead and can not answer for his vile crimes.

none of the newscoverage that I have seen has addressed this, everyone is just celebrating. yes, he was a bad man, but this doesn't sit right with me.

also, showing pictures of hos dead body body on the six pm news?!

OP posts:
MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll · 21/10/2011 00:28

what's4tea But I am not in Libya. I am in the UK. I am not IN a war zone....I know these thigns are happening but showing dead bodies in that manner is NOT ok....people feel nothing anymore.

People walk past others who are hurt or being hurt in the street...because we are desensitized.

gaelicsheep · 21/10/2011 00:31

Too right.

MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll · 21/10/2011 00:34

I would be interested to know who of the people on here who think it is acceptable to see bodies in the news that are covered in gore, also think games like Black OPs are fine.

wannaBe · 21/10/2011 00:36

It is not sensorship to not broadcast graphic images on the 6:00 news. By that token where do you draw the line? Perhaps the papers should publish the picture of Joanna Yeates' dead body alongside the headlines about the trial? Or perhaps we should have pictures of car crash victims in order to accurately talk about the horrors of road deaths? After all I might want to see them! so to not allow me to is sensorship, no? no didn't think so.

MrsMilton · 21/10/2011 00:38

I find it hard to rejoice in the savage death of another human being, no matter how much of an evil, murdering despot they may have been in life.

Isn't that what marks us out from them?

MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll · 21/10/2011 00:41

Well that's what will be next if this kind of thing goes on wannabe in the USA they have cameras on the scene of crimes right away...

I also want to know where this whole "Ah yes...but IS he really dead?" attitude came from that people use as a justification for seeing the bodies of people like this?

Where did this lack of trust come from?

gaelicsheep · 21/10/2011 00:44

wannaBe - I thought we still had a nine o'clock watershed? Four letter words are bleeped out of films, I get a warning of disturbing scenes before watching a programme cunningly titled "The Body Farm", yet they can broadcast scenes of a very real and brutal death at children's tea time?

MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll · 21/10/2011 00:46

Yes...and have it on the front of the online paper.

Wrong.

wannaBe · 21/10/2011 00:48

well perhaps we should see it. After all, perhaps we can only become aware of the evil in the world if we are subjected to the pictures of murder victims and the victims of road deaths. Perhaps we can only become aware of the evils of alcohol/drug abuse if we are shown the victims of those who have died of overdoses. Maybe we should take it one further, perhaps we can only become aware of the horrors of paedophilia if we are shown the same images that they are accessing.

A horrific image doesn't become less horrific if the person was evil; if an innocent man was killed in exactly the same shocking way and his picture was broadcast on the news people would be outraged and rightly so. Nobody would be saying "it's the news, if you don't like it, turn it off." The mere story, with a picture of him alive, would be enough.

So be honest - do people want to see the graphic images of Gaddafi because we feel that without them it would not be a news story? Or is it because you want to rejoyce in the killing of another human being?

wannaBe · 21/10/2011 00:51

yes exactly gs. And it's not just the online papers - it's the real papers. I can leave my television switched off; I can prevent ds from accessing online papers or from seeing them if I were to access them. But I cannot avoid the supermarket/news stand/other places where newspapers are sold and are on public display.

MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll · 21/10/2011 00:51

Exactly wannbe people say they want "proof"...but why? Since when did we totally not trust the millitary? The journalists who brave danger to report back to us?

We don't need to see the horror...

begonyabampot · 21/10/2011 00:55

Maybe we need to see more of what really happens in awful situations as we tend to be really shielded from what it all really means. I clicked on a link by accident once and it was a photo of a man in a busy blown up street in somewhere like Gaza or Iraq holding up the torso of a blown to pieces young child - it was horrendous and has stayed with me bringing some of the horrors these people are facing much more than reading a report in the news.

Agree that it shouldn't be be gratuous though ( like the Jackson corpse pic) and people should be warned as to what will be shown so they can choose not to see these upsetting images or their children.

wannaBe · 21/10/2011 00:59

yes exactly mumbling. tbh I can see why there would need to be official confirmation of his death in this instance since the rebels have announced the deaths of most of his children at least once only for them to appear alive and well in some other country or in the town square calling to their followers.

But we the general public still don't need to see the images...

UnlikelyAmazonian · 21/10/2011 01:11

"we the general public" ?

I am the general public too thanks, and I don't mind seeing the news and pictures. Therefore, as another member of 'the general public' I strongly disagree with you. Or do I not count? In which case, in your general public head, am I a member of the ungeneral public? Alien faction embedded silently within the General Public? The living dead? A small burrowing creature that should be gassed at birth?

dramatrauma · 21/10/2011 01:49

Why should 'the general public' (which apparently doesn't include Amazon and I) be protected from what happened? He died horribly, after the UK took part in a military operation to oust him from power. I don't get why we shouldn't all see the grisly result.

And why don't I believe journalists and the military without proof? Are you serious? News International, Andy Coulson, extraordinary rendition ... and where exactly were the WMD? Your faith is touching, but some of us don't share it. And with good cause.

screamingbohemian · 21/10/2011 02:11

I think the purpose of a trial is to establish guilt or innocence

There is no question that Qaddafi was reponsible for the deaths and torture of thousands of innocent people, both in Libya and in West Africa and Europe through his sponsorship of terrorists and warlords.

A trial for him would have been a farce, as we saw with the trials of Saddam and Milosevic. What possible defence could he have had?

Anyway, legally, he was currently an insurgent commander and therefore outside the protection of much of the laws of war. It is not automatic that you can surrender and be covered under the Geneva Conventions -- you have to participate in war as a lawful combatant (e.g., wear a uniform, not target civilians, etc.)

Yes, realistically, he should have been able to surrender without being shot. But personally, I'm really not that bothered about it. He was a madman and a genocidal maniac and I believe he got the end he deserved.

kipperandtiger · 21/10/2011 02:27

Yes, it was all a bit much. No reason why they couldn't have said "tune in at 10" or do a special bulletin at 9 to see the visual footage. He's dead, people can all wait another 3 or 4 hours to watch gory pictures. It's not going to change the reality of his death! If you can't wait to see gory footage there's always the web. It spoils an adult's coffee break too, never mind the children's tea!
On another note, given Gaddafi's track record, it was always going to be unlikely that he would get a civilised, private death!

TheBeast · 21/10/2011 04:54

Saddam Hussain got a trial but was not allowed to bring into evidence his former dealings with the West. There was no guarantee that any judge (especially not in the Hague) would have disallowed such evidence by Bin Laden and/or Gaddafi, so it may have been very convenient for Western leaders for Bin Laden and Gaddaffi to have been killed in this way, in the fog of war?

EdithWeston · 21/10/2011 07:13

MumblingBody - I regularly post against CoD for children, and I do not think any of this footage should have been shown in UK before the watershed, nor should it have been on the homepage of major outlets (of they want it there, then put it on a clickable link), nor on front page of newspapers.

This is not about the actions in Libya, but our standards.

We condemned Iraq for parading bodies of coalition soldiers, and said it was a breach of the Geneva Convention. We should stick to our standards. In UK, there was no need to demonstrate that he was really dead, or to show the maiming of someone who may not have been dead at that point.

The BBC is now reporting in terms of "serious questions about the time of the capture". The realisation that they have showed at 6pm the trophy footage of the actual beating to death of a captive cannot be comfortable for them.

Iggly · 21/10/2011 07:39

Agree with Edith

I really cannot see any justification for showing this. It's a creep towards more and more sensationalist reporting as people get desensitised and want more. I have had to stop reading the J Yeates coverage because it's just so graphic. Not necessary IMO. For those who want to see it, go and have a search online if you must satisfy your lust for gore.

MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll · 21/10/2011 08:03

Amazon what on earth are you talking about? Small burrowing creature indeed!

As Edith said, it was shown before the watershed and I do NOT want my children or in fact ANY children seeing that nor do I was to see it myself.

As many have said, if a proportion of the general public "need" to see "proof" then they could have been provided with a clickale link or a special bulletin.

NinkyNonker · 21/10/2011 08:10

A genocidal maniac the UK was quite cosy with up until last year...

EdithWeston · 21/10/2011 08:17

NinkyNonker - yes - if you look back to about 2006 you will indeed find a level of rapprochement with Libya generally and between the then PM and Gadaffi personally which would now seem shocking (if sensationalised) and definitely illl-advised.

The coalition did not follow that policy, and it seems our actions (with the French) have been important in bringing the end of the regime.

BTW: I've just seen John Simpson on BBC criticising the showing of what he described a lynching.

CaveMum · 21/10/2011 08:21

Has no one heard the phrase "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer"?

It's a fact of life that governments sometimes have to make nice with unsavoury sorts. If you isolate these regimes they become even more dangerous as monitoring becomes difficult.

To throw in another cliche, sometimes it is a case of better the devil you know.

On the subject of his death, news reports now say he was captured alive and was killed in crossfire between his supporters and the rebels.

crazygracieuk · 21/10/2011 08:36

Is there still a watershed? What time does it end and what is the suggested age? Is it for all channels? I ask because daytime TV includes Jeremy Kyle (talk of drugs, domestic violence, sex), 70s police programmes complete with lots of fighting, Sex and the City, Soaps like Eastenders, X factor....

I get my news from the radio and Question Time these days. I am interested in current affairs and find the images too hard to digest. I can understand why anyone linked to Gaddafi and his actions would want to see him dead and stripped of dignity but I have managed to avoid the images so far and have no desire to see them.

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