by Zoë Pollock
Alex Thomson files a harrowing dispatch from a hospital in the Abu Salim district in Tripoli:
Piles of surgical dressings, bloody sheets and half-empty blood bags were all around us, oozing fluids onto the ground. … Inside, it is not a hospital but a mortuary – or something for which there is no word. Stretchers and beds are stained with fluids and blood, some still dripping on the floor. In one room a picture of Colonel Gaddafi smiles down on at least 23 more corpses shoved onto trolleys at all angles. There is no language for the stench. You fear even to breathe in here.
Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons visited the hospital for a video report. On a related note, Hitchens draws a comparison to Ian Kershaw's new book on the final days of the Third Reich:
One of the most chilling and nauseating aspects of the story is the number of brave Germans who were murdered by the Nazi regime even after it had technically ceased to exist. … The continuing slaughter of those who will be needed in the rebuilding of Libya and Syria will not be countenanced.
(Photo: Dead bodies lie in beds in the general hospital in the Abu Salim neighborhood of Tripoli, on August 26, 2011. The putrefying bodies of around 80 people were found. By Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images.)
The Dish 