Remember Iman al-Obeidi? March 26th was a routine day in the Libyan War. NATO was bombing Libyan military installations and, for its part, the Libyan military was attacking rebel fighters. Most of the world understood that Muammar Qaddafi was no democrat nor was he a threat to global peace. Once again, as in Iraq, the West was attacking a secular Arab dictator in the name of preventing the spread of world jihad. But by late March, the thrill was gone. The allied attacks had become, frankly, mundane. Another day, another ton of ordinance.
And then rushing in from the Arab streets, Iman al-Obeidi appeared. Al-Obeidi appeared at Tripoli’s Rixos Hotel, a gathering place for foreign journalists, and began screaming that she had been raped and tortured by Libyan soldiers. She grabbed the attention of the world, and became something of a cover girl for CNN.
I emphasize that I lack independent knowledge of whether her story, horrific as it is, is true or false. If I were a real commentator – rather than one who plays one on the Internet – my lack of knowledge could be a hurdle. But, then, as I think of it, none of the foreign journalists, even those who sponsored her story, has much more knowledge than I. How would one know? The correspondents at the Rixos have the drama of her presence, but others are as blind as I am.
The history of war is a history both of atrocity and of atrocity stories. The latter, all too common, are used to gin up public support for battle, creating an intense and potent hatred for a demonic foe. They create an enemy so vile that the deaths of our own soldiers are justified. The separation of true and false proves difficult to ascertain, even when the atrocity stories falsely accuse actual bad guys. It wasn’t so long ago – the first Gulf War actually – that Americans were told the grisly and chilling account of Saddam’s troops unplugging the isolettes of premature babies in Kuwait City. We later learned that it never happened. The story was propaganda through and through, the heady work of masters of the tall tale. Even the Nazis were falsely accused by their enemies – no Jewish soap or lampshades – although there were enough actual dismal atrocities to make the rounds.
So when I watched Ms. Al-Obeidi rush into the journalist scrum, I felt the glorious frisson of doubt. A tingling of suspicion. I noticed that as she was screaming, she was seated. Typically those who are emotionally unconstrained – hysterical – will stand and shout, but not Ms. Al-Obeidi who was seated as if she had ordered a glass of mint tea. But perhaps skepticism has the best of me. I have been accused of an overabundance of incredulity. It comes with the territory for those who examine hearsay. Like so many dramatic rumors, as I describe in The Global Grapevine, the story seemed too good to be false. It was just the kind of story that deserves our doubt. As rumor scholars starting with Gordon Allport and Tamotsu Shibutani emphasize, rumors emerge from a nexus of importance, ambiguity, and the absence of critical ability. It appears that Ms. Al-Obeidi is a Libyan law school graduate, a sophisticated young woman, who alleged that she was attacked and serially raped by fifteen thuggish Libyan soldiers. Were this not sufficient to boil our blood, she claims that they also urinated and defecated on her, and she showed nasty bruises, scars, and scratches. The story if true suggests that these soldiers have much to answer for. Her account plays off the very real history of rape in times of war. But its piquant drama also allows one to wonder whether it was a performance designed to capture the world’s attention.
After her tale, she was hustled off by Libyan authorities, who claimed that she was mentally ill, a thief, or a prostitute. These security forces were surely the least effective advocates for their own virtue until Anthony Weiner tweeted himself to prominence. In time the Libyan government freed her, and she was interviewed by CNN, the Associated Press, and National Public Radio where she graphically described her torture. Eventually she landed in Tunisia, Qatar, back to rebel-controlled Libya, Romania, and finally on June 4th, Hillary Clinton granted her asylum in the United States, where she has remained quiet.
I stop short of proclaiming that some black-op intelligence service stands behind her. If I learned this tomorrow, I would not be shocked, but today I have no evidence. What I do have evidence of is the fact that when nations go to war, they search for the worst crimes imaginable with which to demonize their enemies, a point that the great communications theorist Harold Lasswell emphasized. As Lasswell pointed out, “Not bombs nor bread, but words, pictures, songs, parades, and many similar devices are the typical means of making propaganda.” It is all in the image. The history of military conflicts is replete with atrocity stories. Nations create a practical epistemology to permit them to do what they wish, bringing along their citizens. Defecating on a bright, young rape victim – the rare Arab professional woman – seems to be such a claim to heat the soul of revenge and to justify mounting attacks.
It is said that if you give a boy a hammer everything becomes a nail. If you give a scholar of falsehoods an atrocity, it becomes a rumor. But, in truth, nails and rumors are real. And if you give generals authority to fight, they find wars that have no need to be fought.
When I first heard Ms. Al-Obeidi’s story I was horrified. Having participated in The New School’s production of The Vagina Monologues this past April, stories of systematic rape perpetrated during times of war were still fresh in my memory. However, these were not merely “stories,” but rather testimony that had been gathered in interviews with real women by the play’s creator Eve Ensler. What is striking about Ms. Al-Obeidi’s case is that she brings the stories of atrocities of war that have been committed on women to the light of day, not a darkened theater.
Great post in many ways, as it highlights the idea that righteous credulity is often necessary to justify atrocities, as the war in Iraq also shows.
But in this particular case let me try to be suspicious of Qaddafi, for a moment. After all, his record of human rights violations, detention, torture and disappearances, is known to friends and foes and everyone in between. In a normal country, Iman al-Obeidi’s accusations would have granted an investigation sponsored by the government, third parties involved, human rights orgs included, medical and psychiatric examinations, DNA testing and so on. Let us imagine that her accusations are false. This would have been an opportunity for Qaddafi to show that he, and not her, is the actual victim. On the other hand, let us imagine that she was in fact raped and tortured. The investigation would indict the soldiers thus presenting an image of Qaddafi that that would counter the image of Qaddafi-the-monster used to justify the invasion. But his government refused to investigate, quite as a matter of course. After the allegations were made, they forcibly dragged and detained al-Obeidi (in front of the cameras), and then threatened her with jail. I have no evidence for or against her claims either. But it seems to me that it is more reasonable to be suspicious of Qaddafi, not because he is a bad guy (which he is), but because he is an intelligent guy who would not have wasted the opportunity to launch a widely publicized investigation, particularly if he thought that the accusations were false.
Do you remember the poor dissident Cuban “poet” tortured in Castro’s dungeons to the point of putting him on a wheel chair for the rest of his life? Savvy Castro launched a widely publicized investigation, eventually managing to film the “tortured poet” leaving his wheel chair to do a little calisthenics on the side, happily jumping up and down to stretch those legs. Castro won that one. The CIA’s special operations team lost. The operation backfired.
On the other hand, Qaddafi has used tortured routinely, as documented by AI, etc. Shocking as they are, Iman al-Obeidi’s allegations are not particularly surprising.
That lies have previously been disseminated by governments, including our own, to drum up support for military ventures is a well documented fact, and in the case of the young woman discussed, we certainly do not know for sure whether her story is factual or not. Perhaps it is propaganda as Western governments attempt to find a human face for their war. The timing may certainly make it suspicious to some, but it certainly is plausible that she was actually raped, and due to the volume of journalists in Libya at the time, and volume of media attention in genereal, her story was picked up on in a flash. It would be an exercise in futility for us to try to determine culpability. However, I agree with Iris, that that would essentially be beside the point; whether the woman was raped or not should not be a factor in the justification of war on Libya. Should not be that is, but unfortunately public opinion could in fact turn on such an incident.