Rixos Hotel, Sister to the Corinthia, Home of Gaddafi’s “Bought and Paid For Journalists” Suffers “Decline in Service”

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor

———————

Update note:  Journalists “freed” today….all in good health.

Dozens of western “journalists” and “others” are being held prisoner by Gaddafi loyalists in the Rixos Hotel, adjacent to the Gaddafi compound, taken by NTC forces yesterday.  Some are real journalists but others are highly paid “guests” of Gaddafi, brought into the country to “seed” propaganda into the news and when that proved too difficult, to flood conspiracy websites with wild stories of NATO atrocities.  

(48 hours old – memorable interview)

 

They are now held prisoner, but, in fact, they were always prisoners, prisoners in gilded cages, free to peddle press releases as news, free to eat and drink like kings, as long as they served their masters.  Conjecture?  Not according to the NTC (National Transitional Council) who now claims to hold the files on this dark page of journalistic betrayal.

5 Star dining is now bread and water.  The daily “press and shoe shine” is now an AK 47 in the face or the threat of a rifle butt.  Cynthia McKinney is said to be among those being held by Gaddafi forces. From Huffington Post:

About 35 foreigners–including journalists and politicians–have been holed up inside Tripoli’s Rixos hotel and barred from leaving for the past five days.

On Wednesday, one of the journalists, the BBC’s Matthew Price, spoke to the “Today” program’s Evan Davis on Radio 4. “This is day five now of what you may be able to call the siege of the Rixos hotel,” he said. “It’s a desperate situation.” Price said things had “deteriorated massively overnight” after it became clear that the guards and pro-Gaddafi soldiers who are keeping the journalists inside the hotel were not going to let them leave. He described “gunmen roaming around the corridors” and “snipers on the roof” and reported that a cameraman for British network ITN had had an AK47 pulled on him when he attempted to leave the building.

He also said that food and water were both running out.  (BBC report:  Low Audio Quality)

[youtube UxfUOasTPLE]

One day prior to the assault on Tripoli by rebel forces, aided by Gaddafi’s own security team and militia, the same militia Franklin Lamb said was prepared to “fight to the death” for Gaddafi, a series of documents were delivered to the NTC (National Transitional Council).

These documents outlined payments made to journalists and other purported “activists” who were actually paid agents of Colonel Gaddafi, rewriting his press releases and passing them on as “journalism.”  The documents show payments, some made to “charitable organizations” and other front groups of up to $15,000 per day.

These “journalists,” including many bloggers of the “alternative media” in the United States, were sent “talking points.”  These were the themes that were to be repeated:

• “Rebel forces” were, in actuality, “Al Qaeda” cells.  This outlandish fabrication is one of the clearest signs differentiating honest reporting errors and paid disinformation and propaganda.
• Rebels forming a “Central Bank.”  This is another fairy story, an imaginary “Jewish plot” by the Rothschilds, oddly in real life close friends of the Gaddafi family, part of secret plan to rob Libya of any funds not already looted by Gaddafi and his brood.
• Rebels are all “CIA trained” (and Al Qaeda too…as this contradictory claims often are made by the same sources).  If anything, the seesaw aspect of these last few days demonstrate one thing above all, rebel forces are neither trained by anyone nor seemingly armed either, as the primary target of their “looting” has been small arms and ammunition, something a CIA trained army is unlikely to lack.
• Rebel leaders had announced plans to “recognize the State of Israel.”  This one was debunked early on but got big play for a week or two.
• Rebels are under the control of western oil companies.  The facts, of course are different.  Oil production in Libya was turned over to Haliburton and affiliates years ago as part of a deal cut with Bush with BP and British arms companies such as BAE getting massive contracts from Gaddafi who agreed to join the Bush/Blair “War on Terror” as a full partner.  300 American companies in varying aspects of oil and gas were brought into Libya years ago, all affiliated with Bush and the GOP.
• NATO attacks exclusively target civilians including Libya’s new water project, particularly the “Brega” concrete pipe plant.  (Gaddafi’s video below)  The truth, the project itself was never attacked although one portion of a pipe plant reported to be storing missiles was damaged as video shows.  However, when Gaddafi showed up with dozens of unscathed new GRAD rocket launchers and began firing SCUD missiles at Libyan cities after weeks of NATO air attacks aided by advanced satellite reconnaissance,  the idea that Gaddafi may have been hiding advanced weapons in “high value propaganda targets” became more than a “good guess.”
• [youtube lTM1gLu4Vkc]
• Demonstrations in Tripoli, attended by tens of thousands, were reported to be “spontaneous” and “voluntary” by Gaddafi “mouth pieces.”  Reports received from Tripoli, real people not staying in 5 star hotels, differ.  They told of buses arriving at schools and factories, people taken to demonstrations at gun point, of threats made against families and those who refused being executed and having family members murdered.  These false reports are, perhaps, the most heinous made, demonstrating full complicity and collusion in very real crimes against humanity.  Why has Gaddafi fled a city with 2 million “supporters” based on an “invasion” by a few dozen “Al Qaeda” rebels?
• Attacking the story of Israeli mercenaries, hired from across Africa, a story broken by Haaretz, a Tel Aviv news service, fighting for Gaddafi, was high on the “talking point” list.  However, endless videos and photos of Gaddafi prisoners made the truth clear.  Gaddafi never got the 50,000 African mercenaries he tried to hire but he did get thousands supplied by friends in Israel.  Until NATO closed the door on this traffic, every armed thug in Africa was brought into Libya, just as Israeli papers reported.  Photos of prisoners and wounded, checks of passports, or simple observation made it obvious.  Captured prisoners were African, Chad, Cameroon or, most curious of all, Northern Nigerians from the Boko Harum terrorist group, who are, according to US source, “Al Qaeda.”

These are but a few of the wild tales and conspiracy theories flooding the internet, getting equal play on both left wing and right wing websites.  The real question is why target “alternative media” at all?  Why is it worthwhile?

The answer goes back to last year and Wikileaks.  The mainstream media, early on, bought into Julian Assange and his Wikileaks empire, or so it seemed.  Before the onset of winter, however, Assange had been exposed as having ties to, not only Israeli intelligence but was shown to be in full partnership with the New York Times and other media outlets he had sworn to oppose.  They were and had been his partners from day one, not in leaking classified information but rather in censoring information damaging to Israel and planting phony stories to create an atmosphere supporting a war on Iran and strained relations with Pakistan.

[youtube 7TheJPboU4c]

Wikileaks and Julian Assange were also tasked with suppressing revelations about the 9/11 conspiracy, revelations that had moved from “theory” to fact.

[youtube hZEvA8BCoBw]

As 9/11 research increasingly closed in on Israel as complicit in the 9/11 attacks, it became clear that alternative media websites, known to support both 9/11 Truth and the Palestinian struggle for human rights, curiously abandoned their positions, siding instead with the mainstream media and Israel.

As with the Gaddafi issue today, Wikileaks demonstrated two positions taken by the majority of “alternative news” websites:

• Direct control by intelligence agencies using alternative media as “controlled opposition” and
• Media “whores” selling their “opinions” to the highest bidder

From VT, this interview with Dr. Alan Sabrosky on Israel’s role in 9/11:

[youtube CR-bUmCjv5s]

Wikileaks has built the alternative media into a force.  When conflicting conspiracies regarding Assange and Israel became major news, restrictions on such reporting, long dubbed “third rail issues, the death of any career as Helen Thomas can testify to, pushed mainstream media to the side.

With the alternative media, in some ways a collection of “larger than life” characters, believed by many to risk their lives, subject to assassination attempts and endless “black helicopter” government conspiracies, how did it go wrong?  How many “heroic defenders of journalistic freedom” are, in fact, highly paid “gatekeepers” of the controlled opposition.

[Editor Note: The post ops analysis of the media shilling on the Libyan Revolution will be providing VT many teaching opportunities for exposing who was who. The phonies lay back in the weeds in their chosen ideological target nests, sticking to their audience tested material to build readership. The Left has their ‘progressive’ smokescreen, and the Right has their ‘defending our culture against those that hate it’ silliness.

As live street interviews are pouring in from the Tripoli people, their intense joy of finally being free after 42 years. The most memorable was the young lady who was saying that if she died the next day after Gaddafi is captured she would still be happy to have lived one day of freedom.

To all the progressives out there that shilled for Gadaffi, especially the ones who got paid for it….eternal shame on you. We are coming for you…VT and the free Libyan people who will have something to say about your horrific conduct. They may be calling for no retribution in Libya, but I have not signed on. It’s time to begin the hunt for those that were working undercover…so they are not allowed to just moved on to the next game.  Jim W. Dean, editor]

“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it
ourselves.”
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

• Gordon’s Archives:  2008-2015
• Gordon’s Archives:  2016-2022