Wednesday, April 15, 2015

From Leeton to Libya

The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday led with a report on the accused killer of Leeton High school teacher Stephanie Scott. In it we learned that the accused:

"[Vincent] Stanford maintained a secret online life, hiding behind fantasy characters to indulge his obsession with computer games, violent videos and neo-Nazi propaganda." (Secret life of accused killer, Rachel Olding & Nick Ralston, 14/4/15)

None of which, as you'd expect in a case such as this, would have come as much of a surprise. One item, however, further into the piece, did. I've rendered it here in bold:

"In between the dozens of Stargate video clips that he 'liked' on YouTube, he also liked pro-Nazi clips, clips supporting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and clips about the 2011 military science fiction shooter game, Gears of War 3."

Clips supporting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi... Really?

So, taking these words at face value, we're expected to believe that, in addition to being a closet neo-Nazi obsessed with tales of "violent galactic warfare," Stanford had a soft spot for Colonel Gaddafi, as opposed to, say, the NATO air raids that brought his regime down and sealed his fate.

Are we seriously to believe that he took time out from "indulging" his aforementioned "obsessions" to admire the fact that Libya under Gaddafi ranked No. 1 in Africa on the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Index in 2010? Or is it more likely that he merely 'liked' the Israeli-made video parody of Gaddafi that went viral in 2011?*

If so, who is responsible for the words "supporting Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi," which distort the truth of the matter by introducing into it an element of gratuitous Arabophobia?

[* The so-called 'Zenga Zenga Song'. See my 14/3/15 post If Only We Had Gaddafi to Kick Around Some More.]

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