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TRIPOLI, LibyaIn a shattered villa south of the Libyan capital that serves as his field headquarters, a middle-aged militia commander named Mohammed al-Darrat, an engineer in another life, fretted over incoming ordnance. These were not just any artillery shells, he explained during a lull in the fighting late last month: They homed on their target through a laser designation from a ground spotter. The projectiles had forced him to move his headquarters more than three times in the last several weeks. And they were just one of several worrying upgrades to the arsenal of his foes in this latest phase of Libyas ongoing civil war, which started on April 4, when a septuagenarian Libyan general named Khalifa Haftar launched an assault to topple the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

Ostensibly undertaken to rid the capital of militias, the campaign by Haftars self-styled Libyan National Army (also called the Libyan Arab Armed Forces, a coalition of regular units and militias) was in fact a baldfaced grab for power and wealth. The United Nations envoy to Libya has said it sounded more like a coup. As it unfolded, al-Darrat and other militia leaders from Tripoli and its environs set aside their differences to confront the incursion. They were joined by fighters from across the country: On the front lines recently, I met militiamen from the eastern city of Benghazi and ethnic Tuareg from Libyas deep south. The war that ensued started as a grinding, largely stalemated fight that blended aging Soviet artillery and state-of-the-art drones, piloted by personnel from the United Arab Emirates, which backs Haftar, and Turkey, which supports the GNA.

But the deck was shuffled in early September, which saw the arrival to the Tripoli front of yet another foreign meddlermore than 100 Russian mercenaries from the so-called Wagner Group early that month, joined, in recent weeks, by hundreds of additional fighters, whove inflicted an uptick in casualties among al-Darrat and his men. The Libyan commander bemoaned the apparent improvement in the precision of the ever present armed drones that destroy his vehicles at will, day or night, constricting his movements and forcing him to hunker down for hours on end. There is a seemingly endless supply of mortars that rain down. Russian anti-tank missiles, the dreaded Kornets, snake between sand berms to incinerate their target with a devastating accuracy.

And then there are the Russian snipers. Their shots to the chest and head, al-Darrat says, reveal a professionalism hes never seen before, accounting for 30 percent of the deaths in his unit. One of these marksmen had recently killed a 23-year-old fighter, whose body still lay on the battlefield. al-Darrat and his men plotted for hours one morning about how to retrieve it using ropes or armored cars: It lay directly in the path of snipers, whod already wounded a soldier in a previous recovery attempt, with an anti-materiel rifle. The mission seemed all the more urgent because the dead mans father was imploring al-Darrat to return his corpse.

All this may sound like good news to Haftar, who, for the first time, could conceivably take Tripoli. But the battlefield advantages that come with Russian aid may carry costs. On Nov. 14, the U.S. State Department issued its most forceful condemnation yet of his war, singling out his militia by name and asserting that his alliance with Russian mercenaries is a dangerous breach of Libyan sovereignty. In tandem, the U.S. Congress is growing considerably more concerned about the wars effect on civilians and its boon to Russian influence in the region. Bipartisan legislation is pending in both the House and Senate that would place sanctions on the Russian contractors and their enablers.

Together, these moves represent an encouraging departure from months of U.S. ambivalence about the latest twist in the Libyan civil war. The disastrous wait and see policy stemmed from a phone call by U.S. President Donald Trump to Haftar in mid-April, in which he endorsed the generals attack as being in line with U.S. counterterrorism goals. Beyond its boost to Haftars war, thephone call was confounding because most of Americas counterterrorism activity inwesternLibya has been conducted with the militia commanders whom Haftar is now fighting. al-Darrat is one of them. In 2016, I had joined him as he led militiamen in a battle against the Islamic State in its stronghold in the central city of Sirte. Back then, he had U.S. intelligence and airstrikes to help him. But now he questions Washingtons commitment to its old allies.

He doubts that the State Departments Nov. 14 statement and Congresss increased scrutiny will mark a constructive shift in U.S. policy. Not much will change from America, he told me the day after the announcement, in the weary tone of a hardened soldier. And theyre going to attack tonight, he predicted of Haftars forces, in a defiant retort to Washingtons admonitions. And sure enough, at the front after dusk, two missiles from an Emirati drone streaked across the sky. Hearing the low-pitched hum of another, we ducked under some foliage until it was out of earshot.

The next morning, there was a volley of mortars and machine gun fire from Haftars positions, only several hundred yards away, to dodge.

They hit us under a tree! A fighter ran up to tell al-Darrat. We had to fall back!

Deal with the enemy! the commander exhorted his men. But the young mans belt-fed machine gun had jammed.

Fighters dashed back-and-forth, and mutual accusations were shouted into walkie-talkiesYou didnt cover my flank! The toll of this relentless violencethe results of Haftars recent technological edgewas etched on the faces of these combatants: It was a stark difference from when I met them this summer, when they were flush with a boisterous confidence.

Several days later, in the midst of another barrage, one of al-Darrats fighters radioed back to an operations room and begged for artillery support, which had been severely degraded by Haftars strikes.

Theres two or three of us dying here every day, the fighter pleaded. If you dont give us artillery, Im going home.

It wasnt an empty threat: al-Darrat later acknowledged that some of his men have left the front and done just that. Hes asked for reinforcements from other parts of the Tripoli battlefield, but they arent coming, he said, because this section of the front is known for producing a lot of martyrs. But thats only part of the story: An undercurrent of distrust runs deep among the disparate armed groups in and around the capital, which are unified mostly by a shared enmity toward Haftar.

Meanwhile, the damage that Haftars war is inflicting on Libyas political unity and social fabric is becoming more severe as each day passes. It is probably irreparable. Driving through Tripoli after a visit with al-Darrats forces, the evidence is everywhere. More than 140,000 people have been displaced in and around the capital because of the fighting. The beleaguered Tripoli government, the GNAnever a paragon of service deliveryis failing in even basic functions of governance and incurring the wrath of citizens. Some of the corrupt militias that nominally ally themselves to this government are growing more brazen because of the war.

Civilian deaths are mounting, the result of reckless airstrikes by Haftar-aligned jets and drones that have drawn little distinction between military and nonmilitary targets. The horrific results were apparent one cloudless afternoon. In a verdant area south of the capital sat a biscuit factory that had been struck just hours before by Emirati drones flying on behalf of Haftars forces. Smoldering vehicles lay wrecked next to an alfalfa field where panicked workers had fled the factory. Impact craters, ringed by stains of blood, charred clothes, and scraps of human flesh, were all around. Field hospital staff reported that 10 civilians had died and dozens were wounded. The United Nations envoy to Libya has called the strike a possible war crime. This scene of carnage has been repeated with impunity countless times, against hospitals, a migrant detention center, and ordinary homes.

If ever there were a moment for more resolute U.S. diplomacy on Libya, it is now. A modestly positive sign of that happening occurred last week, when a high-level U.S. delegation, including a senior White House official, met with Haftar at an undisclosed location to reportedly urge a halt to the fighting. But its far from enough. The Libyan general has a history of using such meetings with diplomats to bide for time while he advances on the groundand of interpreting anodyne U.S. utterances as a yellow light. And right now, with battlefield momentum in his favor, he has little incentive to stand down, especially if his foreign patrons continue to egg him on. Beyond applying stronger, unequivocal pressure on Haftar, then, and in addition to opposing Russian interference, the United States must convince the United Arab Emirates, Haftars most powerful Arab ally, to stop its direct military intervention and return to dialogue. Doing so doesnt mean taking sides or giving unconditional endorsement to the problematic GNAwhich, tragically, a U.N.-brokered process prior to Haftars April 4 attack was intended to replace. Rather, it is about averting an imminent humanitarian catastrophe and a longer-term conflictboth of which could be exploited by Russia, which may position itself as a fresh power broker.

Contrary to the propaganda of Haftars backers, the collapse of the GNA cordon in southern Tripoli and a push into downtown areas, abetted by a brutal Russian ground campaign and Emirati air power, will not produce a quick victory. Instead, bloody block-by-block street fighting is likely to ensue, especially in neighborhoods and enclaves long opposed to the generals project: Militiamen from some of them recently told me that they would fight to the death. If he takes power, the militia firmament in Tripolitania will not disappear but will continue, albeit reconfigured, rebranded, and under Haftars loose authoritya co-option strategy hes employed toward armed groups elsewhere in Libya. And Haftars style of governancecurrently marked by the stoking of communal tensions in the south and economic predation and repression in the eastwill not foster much-needed unity but will force his opponents into an protracted insurgency. That conflict could indirectly give new life to weakened radical groups like the Islamic State or inspire some new jihadi mutation opposed to the tyrant in Tripolian ironic twist given the counterterrorism narrative that Haftar has long sold to the world.

Read more from the original source:
With the Help of Russian Fighters, Libya's Haftar Could Take Tripoli - Foreign Policy

And the story of a trip by a combined Bohemians/St Patrick's Athletic side to Libya in 1989 has made it to the small screen, a documentary, In League With Gaddafi, being shown on RT1 tonight.

At the heart of the gripping tale was a simple game of football, a 1-1 draw between that Bohs/Pats XI and club side Al Ahly in Benghazi played in front of a crowd estimated at 50,000.

But around the trip there was a political row over the visit due to Libya's funding of the IRA, a link with the beef industry, a run-in (and near arrest) with the Libyan police over a late-night drinking den, that bag full of cash, and confusion, a lot of confusion.

One of the most confused parties were the Libyans themselves as they, somehow, thought the game was against the senior Ireland side which had played at Euro '88 just months earlier, and instead they got a squad combined of little-known League of Ireland footballers.

Some of the Irish party are convinced they met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the game, even though that didn't happen.

Kevin Brannigan, the documentary maker, recalls how local media there wondered why Ronnie Whelan wasn't a member of the party which landed in Libya.

The game had its roots in the FAI Cup, as both of the clubs were knocked out at the first-round stage. With a free weekend, the clubs were approached about a trip to Libya, a chance to boost their coffers.

"We were offered a fee which was quite attractive because it was going to pay a couple of weeks' wages which was really important to us," Brian Kerr, joint manager of the side, along with Billy Young, recalls.

"But it also gave the players the opportunity to get some international experience in a totally different environment."

Getting paid was a problem: the Bohs/Pats party were given cash as they were about to leave but instead of payment in dollars they received Libyan dinars, effectively worthless outside of the country.

The money was, eventually, changed, in the short-term Bohs and Pats were able to pay wages, but long-term, memories of a trip of a lifetime were built.

In League With Gaddafi, RT 1, tonight, 9.35.

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See the article here:
Jaunt to Gaddafi's Libya was the trip of a lifetime for a combined St Pat's-Bohs side - Independent.ie

Until the middle of this year, long-suffering refugees in war-torn Libya called the UN Refugee Agencys gathering and departure facility (GDF) in Tripoli the hotel because it was the best place they had been in years.

Water, food, everything is available, extolled a Sudanese man in his early 20s, who stayed there at the beginning of 2019 and is now in Sweden. Its not a hotel but people call it a hotel because they find it suitable for living.

Dear, when you leave a detention centre maybe youll call it paradise, he said, referring to the government-aligned detention centres in which human rights abuses are regularly documented.

In the past week, more than 100 refugees and asylum seekers have agreed to leave the facility after UNHCR staff said they will withdraw food and refuse to process evacuation cases for anyone left inside.

There is a shortage of food, said one Eritrean who took the money on offer roughly 100 to leave the centre. Humanitarian organisations . . . (do) not mind or care about us. What is the (point) of staying at (the) GDF? I take (a) risk on my (belief in) God.

Many of those inside the GDF have already tried to get to Europe, but were intercepted on the Mediterranean Sea by the EU-supported Libyan coast guard. Initially, the GDF was supposed to be an alternative to the detention centres roughly 6,000 are locked up in, where diseases and abuse are rife, and some refugees go months or years without seeing sunlight.

The GDF was opened to much fanfare one year ago. It was funded by the EU to the tune of 2.1 million and was supposed to have capacity to protect 1,000 refugees. Over the past few months, though, UNHCR staff say the capacity has dropped to 600 and it is severely overcrowded.

UNHCR staff say they have become unable to manage it and food provision will stop by the end of December. Among those sheltering in the GDF are hundreds of survivors of the July Tajoura detention centre bombing, in which at least 53 refugees and migrants were killed, though witnesses say the real death toll was much higher.

Refugees say they will be in danger if made fend for themselves in Tripoli. Some havent been outside or alone in years, and risk being kidnapped again by traffickers or exploited by militants, they say.

Conditions in Libya remain extremely challenging and fighting is intensifying, said Charlie Yaxley, a UNHCR spokesman, in an email to The Irish Times. This has impacted everybody inside the country, including ordinary Libyan civilians, some 600,000 foreign workers, around 40,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as our own staff. Despite these significant challenges, we remain committed to providing assistance to refugees in Libya.

The situation in recent weeks has drastically changed in the GDF due to overcrowding, he said. The protection concerns that have arisen as a result has led to us to reassess our role and to strengthen our assistance in urban areas.

Original post:
EU-funded alternative to detention centres fails in Libya - The Irish Times

About a month ago, 450 Eritreans were let out of the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, and marched through the streets. They knew that nothing would protect them in a city bursting with human traffickers. Many locals look for refugees to buy and sell into slave labor or prostitution or the Africans might be sold to traffickers of human organs, or be locked in a storeroom and tortured until someone pays a ransom.

So the Eritreans marched for hours to the Gathering and Departure Facility of the UNHCR refugee agency, hoping to join refugees who had already found new homes in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Refugees at the UNHCR facility receive treatment and food until their departure.

The detainees who left Abu Salim knew this, so they stood outside the fence that surrounds the UNHCR compound and begged to be let in but they were told there was no room.

They spent the following day, their first outside the prison, at the fence. The UNHCR staffers, most of them locals partly because Libya strictly limits the United Nations authority in the country told them they had to return to prison. Two days later they were allowed to enter the compound, but there wasnt enough room, so they were told to sleep outside.

Only a few months earlier, the United Nations had declared that conditions in Libyas detention facilities were unacceptable and the detainees should be evacuated. Still, new groups of refugees are being sent to the detention camps after being seized by the authorities along the Libyan coast or out at sea.

In the past year, refugees have ramped up their efforts on social media, including videos showing their prison conditions. Despite the harsh images from inside prisons including Zintan, Zawiya and Qasr bin Ghashir, there has been no noticeable change in the refugees plight.

And last week, The Guardian reported on a plan to suspend food supplies to the Tripoli Gathering and Departure Facility from January 1 not only for the refugees sleeping in the yard but also for anyone who arrived before them, including dozens of people with tuberculosis. A leaked document mentions a directive to UN staff to hide this fact until mid-December. A staff member told The Guardian that the move was meant to starve out the new arrivals from the compound.

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The paper said it asked whether denying food to former Abu Salim detainees in the facility was a deliberate policy on UNHCRs part, but this email and further requests for comment went unanswered.

Kenan Malik, a columnist for The Observer a sister paper of The Guardian wrote over the weekend: The UNHCRs actions, if the reports are true, are scandalous. They are also unsurprising. Starving refugees out of a place of safety is a fair metaphor for western policy towards unwanted migrants. Malik likened the move to a hospital that finds its patients so burdensome that it denies them medical care. A homeless hostel that turfs its residents out on the streets.

Charlie Yaxley, a spokesman for the UNHCR, told The Associated Press over the weekend, The situation is very difficult, and we do not have the resources, because the center in Tripoli is at about twice its capacity, with some 1,200 migrants.

The UNHCR asked the unregistered refugees to leave the facility and receive an assistance package that includes cash for two months, underwritten by the European Union. In the meantime, the refugees remain in the yard of the Gathering and Departure Facility weighing their next move, if they can fathom one.

As a resident of the yard told Haaretz, Were living without support, without food and without any possibility of evacuation.

These people, of course, have no intention to return to prison. Another refugee who left Abu Salim after spending a year or so there is Abraham (not his real name). On WhatsApp he told me that the beating of prisoners there is a matter of routine. Prison guards have tried to harass women many times; the prisoners had to be on their guard and try to smuggle the women out. From October 2018, the prison staff stopped providing food. The detainees had to look out for themselves.

Another refugee, who spent several months in the prison, explained how they obtained food. We would ask our families in Eritrea for money for food. They would send cash via agents. The money passed through Sudan and Libya, with the agents along the way taking their share in fees, he said.

Sudanese detainees would leave the prison they were the only ones who knew Arabic to meet the final agent who had arrived in the city, to receive the money from him, buy food with it and then return to the prison. The money didnt always arrive. Sometimes it was stolen or would disappear. Even when it did come, it wasnt enough to feed 450 people, so we were always hungry. Some of our families sold their property. My parents sold the house in order to feed me.

Not long ago, their situation deteriorated further. The prison guards wanted to lock the cell and confiscate our cellphones, Abraham said. They also threatened that they would shut off the water and prevent Doctors Without Borders from entering. We objected. We knew that without telephones, without medical care, in a locked cell, our situation would decline even further. He said the prison warden told them: These are the conditions here. You dont want to be here? Then leave and look for food outside.

And so it was that hundreds of detainees left, little by little, including women and children, tuberculosis sufferers and a few who had developed severe psychological problems. Every so often someone in prison went crazy and his friends would try to get him under control, Abraham said. One of them got into the prisons sewage system one night, got stuck there and died. Its not clear how he got in there.

Although the prison warden himself opened the gate, the refugees didnt really feel they were free. They knew what they could expect outside starvation or abduction, two experiences they had already endured on their way to Libya.

Lost at sea

For years, Libya has been a way station for refugees from Eritrea and other African countries, including Somalia and Sudan, on their way to Europe. The smugglers crowded, flimsy boats sometimes run aground or sink in the middle of the sea. These vessels have become a symbol of the European refugee crisis.

Some countries have adopted an iron fist policy toward the refugees. Italy says rescuing them from the sea and bringing them to the Italian coast is illegal, and rescuers have been charged with human trafficking. In 2017, the EU began supplying the Libyan coast guard with funding and sophisticated locating devices to let it send refugee boats back to Libya.

Columnist Malik wrote about this as well: Central to the EUs strategy over the past decade has been the outsourcing of immigration control, paying countries from Libya to Sudan, from Niger to Turkey, to deter potential migrants to Europe. In this process a new form of imperialism is emerging, whereby rich nations, in the name of protecting their borders from migrants, trample all over the borders of poorer neighbours.

He added: Nor does the EU particularly worry about whom its partners lock up, so long as they lock up potential migrants to Europe. In the Sahel [region of Africa], 80% of migration is not to Europe but is regional, involving people who for decades have moved around an area in which borders are naturally porous. Militias and security forces dont care to sift through different kinds of migrants, so all become targets for the new kidnap and detention industry. The result is the disruption of traditional trade routes, growing economic instability and rising discontent feeding the desire for migration.

The EU turns a blind eye to the treatment of detainees, too. European governments are not just aware of the torture, sexual abuse and extortion to which detainees are subject but also, in the words of Amnesty Internationals John Dalhuisen, complicit in these abuses. The whole point of outsourcing is to pay others to do Europes dirty work. The more hostile the climate for migrants in countries such as Libya or Niger, the more effective the policy of keeping migrants away from Europe.

Niger, Italy and Rwanda

About 6,000 refugees currently live in detention facilities in Libya. With the increased media coverage, the Libyans tried to expel some of them; some were sent to Niger, where they await resettlement. But this move was suspended because no immigration quotas were offered in Europe.

In April, the UNHCR restarted the evacuations, and 163 refugees were sent to Niger. About two months later another 149 were evacuated from Zawiya and Zintan to Italy. Then smaller groups were transferred to Rwanda. Last Thursday, for example, 117 refugees were sent there. Still, its still unclear how much longer the Rwanda plan will continue, how many refugees will be evacuated under its aegis and whether a solution has really been found for thousands of refugees all told.

A dictatorship has been in power in Eritrea for over two decades, headed by President Isaias Afwerki. Even though the country isnt at war, its citizens must perform military service that begins at age 17 and can continue to age 50. Their service includes a wide variety of labor like construction work, road paving, fishing and mining. But there is no pay aside from pocket change from the military. This system has been recognized around the world as slavery. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are limited, and many people are imprisoned and/or disappear.

The regime is known for its long arm, even abroad, including spying on refugees in their new countries, and the abuse of human rights activists, whom it has deported. In that respect, Eritrea is one of the largest refugee exporters in the world; around 15 percent of its citizens now live abroad. Many of them pass through Libya in their attempt to reach Europe; they represent a large portion of the detainee population there.

I began corresponding with refugees from Eritrea as early as the first week they were brought into the compound of the Gathering and Departure Facility. They speak to anyone willing to hear. Many of them are sick and hungry, and their access to the internet is spotty. Once every few days I tried to learn if they were receiving any food, and they always said no. One time they received a few cookies from the UN staffers, and also bread that was contributed by veteran refugees at the compound out of their own meager rations.

Most of the food was given to the 50 tuberculosis patients; the others sit in the yard and wait. We were told that they had to give us food, but the days pass and that isnt happening, Abraham said.

A number of them are suffering from the effects of hunger swollen feet, diabetes, a skeletal appearance. A few days ago, a month after they entered the compound, Abraham announced: Weve been told to leave the facility. Weve been told that if we dont cooperate, well have no chance to be included in any relocation plan out of Libya.

They were given two options either return to the Abu Salim prison, which refuses to feed them, or go to the Gurji neighborhood, where the community center is coping poorly and barely offers any remedy to the few refugees there. Gurji was a magic word offering a nonexistent solution.

After being interviewed by the UNHCR, some of the migrants Ethiopians, Somalis and Eritreans found out that they werent entitled to refugee status. They say no one told them why. A situation has come about where even in Libya, Eritrean refugees are afraid to talk about the situation in Eritrea or criticize the regime, Abraham said.

Theyre seeing that not everyone receives refugee status. They fear that some of them will be deported back to Eritrea. And anyone whos deported there could be imprisoned, undergo torture and give information about his brothers in Libya. So everyone is being cautious around each other.

*

The UNHCR said in response that the claim about starving refugees "is totally inaccurate. The facility was set up as a transit centre a safe place for vulnerable refugees, who we had managed to get released from detention, pending evacuation to third countries.

"Since July, approximately 900 new people (including those held in Tajoura and Abu Salim, as well as some from the urban community) have gained entrance in the GDF/its transit area, hoping they could get on flights out of Libya. However, given the small number of resettlement places that are available worldwide, we have to prioritise the most vulnerable and 'at risk' cases, and these individuals had not been previously identified as priorities.

"Their presence has, unfortunately, meant that the centre is vastly overcrowded and this has impacted the provision of services. There are also women and unaccompanied children in detention, whom we cannot release and transfer now to the GDF because it is overcrowded.

"We have been trying to find solutions since the new arrivals in July. We have told people, who are free to leave at any time, thatwe can provide outside at our Community Day Centre: cash assistance, relief items, medical referrals and protection interviews.

"We will maintain basic services at the centre, including health and sanitation, but we are phasing out catering next year, as we are offering individuals the urban assistance package, which includes cash that they can use for food and shelter".

Link:
Refugees in Libya hoped for help from the UN. Instead, they were abandoned - Haaretz

Dont get me wrong: Its not like its the first time.

I mean, seriously, Ive gotten used to right-wingers mangling my words to suit their purposes, and attempting to smear me: either as an anti-white extremist (because even though Im white, my Jewishness supposedly leads me to secretly seek the destruction of Aryan stock), or as one who is militantly anti-Christian.

And this they seek to demonstrate, typically, by digging up tweets or Facebook posts and presenting them either out of context or dishonestly representing what those statements say, hoping that those who see their version of things wont investigate my actual comments and think for themselves.

It is a particularly pernicious kind of fake news, and it is modern currency for reactionaries, especially internet savvy younger ones who tend to take a slash-and-burn approach to their politics, and have learned these methods from the likes of the Breitbart gang and James OKeefe.

Fortunately, I have the time to reply and demonstrate the depths of their duplicity. And doing so here will serve not only to make clear the disingenuousness of the smears in this particular instance, but will also serve to demonstrate the way in which right-wing media goes about its business: namely, lying in the service of their cause.

The latest smear comes from an outfit composed of student writers, one of whom either attended my presentation at Harvard this week, or watched it on the livestream provided by the school as part of their 10th annual diversity dialogue series.

If this person was in the room when I spoke, I had no idea, because he naturally never sought me out to ask questions, or seek clarification on my views, or challenge anything I had said. Likewise, if he watched the stream he never reached out via e-mail or social media to ask me about my comments. Because thats not the style for the right. They dont want clarification. They dont want accuracy. They hide in the shadows and rather than engage, they launch sneak attacks.

In this case, a sneak attack the headline for which was as follows:

Fascinating.

Needless to say, and before beginning work on this piece, I made sure to reassure my Christian wife, Christian daughters, and Christian mother that I meant them no harm and to please carry on. I wasnt able to reach my Christian best friend of 45 years to put his mind at ease, because he lives on the West Coast and it was too early. Hopefully he hasnt since seen the headline and determined that Ive just been faking it all along, waiting for the day when I could lead him and his family to jail for their faith.

But as I read the hit-piece I realized what the author had done. He had created a click-baity headline that bore no relationship to anything I had actually said. And he had apparently spent the better part of the previous 48 hours digging through years of Tweets and Facebook posts just to find a few nuggets he could pull entirely out of context to frame his story and justify said headline. Good work if you can get it, I suppose.

Before getting to the part about locking Christians up, the piece mentions that among my anti-Christian repertoire, are previous comments in which I referred to such as Jeezoids and fascists, and insisted that people who believe in a God of hell/damnation deserve to be mocked viciously and run out of the public square.

Pretty heady stuff, to be sure. But when you click the links you discover that the interpretation of my comments is, needless to say, lacking a degree of candor.

Have I used the term Jeezoids before to describe Christians? No, not Christians writ large. I dont believe most Christians are extremists, or the kinds of fundamentalists who resemble cult members. But those who do? Oh sure, those folks qualify as the kind of robots-for-Christ who merit the designation. One can still feel that the term is mean-spirited I suppose, or unkind. But to suggest I am applying it to the whole or even most of Christendom is simply a lie.

Indeed, there were two places in which this particular troll uncovered my use of the term, and exploring the context of both makes clear his dishonesty. The first was here:

Please note the context of this comment, which was in reply to an absurd and truly despicable tweet equating the treatment of Christians in America to the treatment of blacks under Jim Crow. And who had offered this vile analogy? Why, Bryan Fischer, of course formerly of the American Family Association: a notoriously bigoted anti-gay group, which ultimately fired Fischer for being such a bigot that even they couldnt keep him on anymore.

To call Fischer and his ilk Jeezoids is not bigoted, or even hyperbolic. It is accurate. To call him a Christian would be to slur millions of actual Christians who find his views repellent. That would be the true calumny.

Among other things, Fischer has said that we need an underground railroad to rescue children from same-sex households, that homosexual conduct should be criminalized, that discriminating against LGBTQ folks is not only acceptable but morally required, that practicing homosexuals should be banned from public office, that gays are to blame for the Nazi Holocaust, that First Amendment religious freedoms only apply to Christians, and that Islam is Satanic.

These are not the views of Christians writ large. They are not the things being taught in mainline Protestant churches, or in most Catholic churches, or in the Episcopal church to which my wife and daughters belong. They arent even accurate reflections of what all evangelicals and more conservative Christians believe. They are the bigoted and extremist positions of a sub-set of Christianity, no more reflective of it than the ISIS cult is reflective of the larger universe of Islam.

To call these kinds of Christians Jeezoids is not to mock Jesus, but to mock them for so clearly straying from the teachings of Jesus. They are the ones who by their bigotry mock the one they claim to be their savior. Not me.

The second usage of Jeezoids was here:

And once again, this was specifically in regard to a group of anti-abortion extremists who had engaged in deliberately deceptive smears against Planned Parenthood, and then violated multiple court orders during the investigation of their dishonest campaign against the family planning group. These people whose actions were exposed as lies, thereby in violation of one of those Commandments handed to Moses and which people like this insist others should live by are not representative of Christians. My use of the term Jeezoids to describe them was a way of distinguishing them from Christians. Any remotely honest person would be capable of discerning this basic truth.

As for the claim that I have called Christians fascists, again, this is not a term I have used, or would use, to describe Christians as a group. But it certainly applies to the above kinds of so-called Christians, and it is quite obviously that group to whom I was referring.

As for my desire to mock and run from the public square those who believe in a God of hellfire and damnation, let us go to the receipts in this case a couple of tweets from 2012:

Once again, the author demonstrated no interest in the context of the comment, but context matters. I was not making some rando suggestion that people who believe in God should be mocked or shut down, or institutionalized. I was responding to comments made by the Rev. Franklin Graham, who suggested in the wake of Barack Obamas re-election that God may need to basically destroy America as punishment for this grave sin and the nation having turned away from God. To believe in that kind of God one who would damn a nation for re-electing the black guy whose views you disagree with is to believe in unicorns, and especially vile ones at that.

Plenty of people who believe in a deity reject that image of God. Plenty of people who believe in a creator reject the notion that this creator is one who both loves the world so much, for instance, that he would give his only Son to redeem it but also possesses the kind of hate that would allow him to condemn to eternal damnation those who dont follow that Son as their personal savior.

As much as it might shock conservative Christians, their particularistic conception of God is not universal, even among Christians. They clearly have a hard time accepting this as one can see by the recent attacks on Pete Buttigieg by Rev. Graham and others but that doesnt make it any less true.

The only people I am critiquing here, and suggesting we should mock (or perhaps have committed, which I dont really support doing, actually) are those who believe in this vengeful, abusive God who operates more like a jealous and battering husband than a loving creator. Yes, for them mockery. Yes, for them, we should marginalize them entirely in the public square in the name of reason and logic and human decency. They can believe as they wish of course. And we can make fun of their inanity. And should. Daily. Loudly.

As someone who was regularly terrorized by this bunch as a child because they saw it as their duty to tell me, as a Jew, that I was destined for a lake of fire along with all my Jewish ancestors mockery is relatively mild retribution, and utterly deserved.

Now, to the locking Christians up thing.

Once again, lets look at what I really said. As youll see below, the allegation being made against me here is dishonest on two levels: first, because it ignores the very particular group of people I was criticizing, and second, because it conveniently leaves off the latter part of the Facebook post. Which is sort of important because it is in that portion of the post that I make it clear I really dont support locking up (as in mental hospitals) people who are Christians, or believers of any kind. In other words, if one reads the entire post, one can see I wasnt serious. I was trolling right wingers and they took the bait. Because they are the snowflakes they have warned us about.

Now to the post. First, the version provided by the right-wing rag:

Hmm, sounds pretty provocative; pretty intolerant, pretty much as if maybe the headline was right after all, right? Maybe I really do think Christians should be locked up.

But no. First, again, context. I was referring specifically to the kind of so-called Christians typified by the likes of Michelle Bachmann. And in the piece to which I was specifically responding, Bachmann suggested God might actually destroy America over the issue of marriage equality.

Of course. Because even though God wasnt sufficiently pissed over the sin of slavery, segregation, mass lynching, or campaigns of genocide against indigenous peoples at least not angry enough to destroy America over them the gays getting to wed thing has really pushed him over the edge. Mmm-k.

So yes, I was saying this kind of thinking is deranged. It is a sign of mental illness or a particular kind of cognitive dysfunction. I say that not to stigmatize mental illness by the way. I suffer from anxiety and depression so Im nothing if not sympathetic. But I believe people who are mentally ill need treatment of some kind, just like people with other types of illnesses should get the same. I dont think, for instance, that Michelle Bachmann can simply pray the insanity away. Thats not how this works.

I believe that if you are basing your morality on the ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah a story that you show no indication of understanding, as it was actually not about homosexuality at all then yes, you are unworthy of being taken seriously. You are not well. You need help. But do I actually believe you should be locked up in a rubber room? Nah, which you can easily see from the next part of the post, which the writer in this case cleverly did not include in the screen shot:

Its right there. I dont believe lunatics like this should be locked up.

I do say they must be politically destroyed, and yes, thats a strong word for defeated, but thats what it means.

I also note that they should be allowed to believe and worship as they choose but they should have no influence on the rules and norms of a pluralistic society. In other words, and per the context of the post in the first place, their religious beliefs about marriage are fine for the way they choose to live their lives. If they dont want a gay marriage then they neednt have one. But to impose their Biblical views on the rest of us is to establish their religion as tantamount to state policy, which violates the First Amendments religious freedom clause.

You dont have to like the tone of my original post here. Honestly, I dont either and in retrospect could have said it differently, and should have. It was four years ago, and although Ive occasionally slipped into such tone since, I am really trying to be gentler in my presentation, not only for strategic reasons but also for reasons of simply being kinder.

That said, and however one feels about how I made the points here, I simply did not say what I am accused of saying. And I surely did not apply even the things I did say to all or most Christians, or believers in God.

That these things could have been clarified for the writer who saw it as his duty to expose me as a hateful bigot is obvious. He could have raised his hand and asked a question about them were he in the room. He could have approached me afterwards at the book-signing, and asked about them there. Or, if he watched the livestream he could have e-mailed me to inquire about the comments, and whether I stood by them, or what I meant by them.

But he did none of these things. Because to him, and the right-wing media world he serves, clarification and discussion serve no purpose. It is all gotcha, all the time. All about the take-down. All about the manufactured outrage. All about posing as victims of leftist hatred while flacking for those who regularly dispense real hatred against LGBTQ folks among others as seen in the above examples.

Its a shame I even have to waste time responding to such nonsense. But in a world where lies can travel around the globe in the click of a button and where certain unstable people will believe those lies and threaten those about whom the lies are told one cannot allow such vicious slanders and misrepresentations to stand. I certainly will not.

But by all means, keep bearing false witness fellas. And dont let that pesky 9th Commandment get in the way.

Im an antiracism educator/author. I Facebook & tweet @timjacobwise, podcast at Speak Out With Tim Wise & post bonus content at patreon.com/speakoutwithtimwise

This post was previously published on Medium and is republished here with permission from the author.

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Anatomy of a Smear - The Good Men Project