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.