Libya is imploding (1 Viewer)

[Mark Davis]

I was as big of a supporter of spreading democracy as anyone and also thought spreading it to the Middle East would help empower the people and lead to more stability.

As these situations have evolved in the last 20+ years I have done a great deal more reading about our founding fathers and especially many of the political philosophers and thinkers they read to develop the foundational parts of our government. Many of the historical political thinkers believed a democratic republic the best form of government but you had to have a "civil" society for it to succeed. The masses need to behave in a "civil" manner or democracy may be worse than a dictatorship. Seems many of these original thinkers analyzed human nature and history pretty accurately. I think that is the biggest mistake that has been made (especially by Bush (Iraq) but more recently by Obama) the spreading of democracy only works if basic civil interactions are the norm for that society and culture.

This is true. But its not the same kind of mistake. Bush chose to invade Iraq, destabilizing a stable regime.

In the cases of Egypt, Libya, and Syria, it was not Obama who created the crisis. Each of these states had a major revolt. Our decision was either to support those revolts, or take no action. Unlike Iraq, we did not attempt to create a democracy; we supported the revolts and hoped for democracy to come. Those critical of Obama and Hillary's decision making have yet to provide good alternatives.

Hoping for democracy in those revolts was foolish at best. The best option is what happened in Egypt, when the military seized power. The Egyptian military was a strong enough force and had enough respect among the people for it to succeed. That's not the case in the other countries.

No politician wants to admit it, but we were better off with Saddam, Assad, and Gadhafi. They are all three terrible people, but from a US standpoint, none was a threat to us. Saddam was contained, Gadhafi had given up his nuclear program, and Assad was busy trying to cover his own back. The Russians and Iranians might have helped Assad crush the rebellion had everyone kind of turned the other way to start with. It's not pretty nor tasteful, but it might have been practical. His father did it years prior and everyone decided they didn't want to see it happen again. It's truly a decision of the lesser of two evils though. If you like Assad, you'll really love who will follow if he topples. The most brutal and ruthless will be the group to rise to power. Military dictators aren't nice people, but unlike religious zealots, they can be bargained with because of self-interest.

Hopefully we are finally realizing that democracy as we envision it simply isn't an option, at least in present times, in that region. There are too many sectarian differences and scores to settle when power shifts for that to occur.

 

[timschochet]

You may be absolutely right. But again we did not choose to overthrow any of those guys. We chose to help movements which in all probability would have succeeded without our help anyhow.

 

[Mark Davis]

You may be absolutely right. But again we did not choose to overthrow any of those guys. We chose to help movements which in all probability would have succeeded without our help anyhow.

We chose to overthrow Saddam, the US directly did that. Foolishly we didn't see a power vacuum, the Shia being the majority after Sunni rule all that time and what that would mean in sectarian strife. The US wanted to think it could build a democracy there. The problem was never winning a military victory over the Iraqi army, but the mess you would be left with after it.

We chose to aid in Gadhafi's overthrow with air assets, likely I agree he may have gone down either way. But we did fire cruise missiles and the French bombed Libyan army assets. Without that, I don't know if we can say for sure.

We have also said repeatedly that Assad needs to go and helped bring international pressure on him. I'd argue while you might find isolated instances of Assad using chemical weapons that he would have used any means at his disposal earlier had he not been under threat. At this point he's not in a position to gain ground, earlier on he may could have put an end to it. We haven't directly fought Assad, but we took steps to try and pressure him to not do certain things early on in that uprising. The way it's turned out, I'd argue we would be better off if Assad had wiped them out. I just got through listening to Sen. James Lankford on CNN saying one of the problems is Assad is still there. Really? Who does he think is going to control the half of the country that Assad's forces currently controls if he were to collapse?

So of the 3, 1 we directly created, and the other 2 we at least have aided to some extent.

 

[timschochet]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

The what could have been: Mossadegh, Diem/Ho, Batista.

 

[timschochet]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

The what could have been: Mossadegh, Diem/Ho, Batista.

We didn't help overthrow Batista. We watched it happen, then tried to reverse it.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

The what could have been: Mossadegh, Diem/Ho, Batista.

We didn't help overthrow Batista. We watched it happen, then tried to reverse it.

I realize that, I'm just saying those would be the modern US's top-3 do-overs.

 

[cstu]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

My view is to let democracy happen, regardless of the consequences.

The only way for people to understand democracy is to experience it. They sure aren't going to learn about it under the iron fist of a dictator.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Libya says 'uncatchable' veteran militant killed in U.S. strikeTRIPOLI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A veteran Islamist militant blamed for a deadly attack on an Algerian gas field and who ran smuggling routes across North Africa has been killed in a U.S. air strike inside Libya, Libya's government said on Sunday.

The recognized government said the strike had killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian militant who became a major figure in insurgencies across North Africa and the Saharan border region and was dubbed "The Uncatchable" by the French military.

The U.S. military confirmed Belmokhtar had been targeted in Saturday night's air strike but did not say if he was killed.

The Pentagon was continuing to assess the results of the operation, spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said in a statement.

Libya's internationally recognized government, which sits in the eastern town of Bayda, said the U.S strike had killed Belmokhtar at a gathering with other militant leaders, who it did not name.

Libyan officials gave no further details about the area of the strike. But Libyan military sources said an air strike on a farmhouse on Saturday in Ajdabiya city near Benghazi had killed seven members of the Ansar al Sharia militant group who had been meeting there.

ELUSIVE 'GANGSTER-JIHADIST'


Belmokhtar earned a reputation as one of the most elusive jihadi leaders in the region. He has been reported killed several times, including in 2013 when he was believed to have died in fighting in Mali.

If confirmed, the death of Belmokhtar - who was blamed for orchestrating the 2013 attack on Algeria's In Amenas gas field in which 40 oil workers died, and for several foreign kidnappings - would be a major strike against al Qaeda-tied groups in the region.

Once associated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's Algerian leadership, Belmokhtar broke from the group but remained tied to al Qaeda's central leadership even after forming his own group "Those who sign in Blood".

The one-eyed veteran of Afghanistan and Algeria's own 1990s Islamist war had long been a major figure in Saharan smuggling, hostage-taking, arms trafficking and insurgencies, including the conflict in Mali.

Linked to a string of kidnappings of foreigners in North Africa in the past decade, Belmokhtar, who was born in Algeria in 1972, earned a reputation as one of the most important "gangster-jihadists" of the Sahara.

He also gained prominence as a supplier of arms to Islamist groups and as a trafficker of cigarettes, which gained him the nickname "Mister Marlboro" among the local population in the Sahara.

LASER-GUIDED?

Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and Libya's slide into chaos and fighting between two rival governments, the North African state has seen the rise of Islamist militant groups, which have taken advantage of the turmoil.

Some are allied with al Qaeda's leadership, others have local loyalties and some have recently declared allegiance with Islamic State, which has been gaining ground.

Ansar al-Sharia is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States after it was blamed for the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi that led to the death of the American ambassador.

In 2013, U.S. special forces carried out a raid on Tripoli to capture Abu Anas al-Liby - a Libyan suspected in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 civilians.

European states and Libya's North African neighbors have grown alarmed at Islamic State's expansion beyond its strongholds in Iraq and Syria to a chaotic country just across the Mediterranean sea from mainland Europe and with little control over its porous borders.

One Ajdabiya city resident said Saturday night's air strike had appeared to be much more accurate than ones carried out by local forces. The resident said it appeared to be laser-guided.

"It was a really accurate strike," the witness said.

http://news.yahoo.com/libya-says-veteran-uncatchable-militant-killed-u-strike-000044738.html

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Exclusive: The Arming of BenghaziThe United States supported the secret supply of weapons to Libyan rebels while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State according to federal court documents obtained by Fox News.

In a sworn declaration to the District Court of Arizona May 5th 2015, a career CIA officer David Manners said, "It was then, and remains now, my opinion that the United States did participate, directly or indirectly, in the supply of weapons to the Libyan Transitional National Council." The timing matters because in the Spring of 2011 the Libyan opposition was not formally recognized, and the direct supply of arms was not authorized. At that time, the CIA Director was David Petraeus. (DAVID MANNERS DOCUMENT HERE)

Manners testified before a grand jury investigating American defense contractor Marc Turi who faces trial this September on two counts that he allegedly violated the arms control export act by making false statements.

Turi and his company Turi Defense Group are at the center of an ongoing federal investigation over the source and user of weapons defined in court documents as "end user" or "end use" flowing into Libya as Moammar Qaddafi's regime was collapsing in 2011.

"It was then, and remains now, my opinion that the United States did participate, directly or indirectly, in the supply of weapons to the Libyan Transitional National Council."
- Sworn Federal Court Declaration by CIA Veteran David Manners
In "United States of America v. Marc Turi and Turi Defense Group," Manners identifies himself as having 18 years experience as an intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA, with foreign postings as Chief of Station in Prague, Czechoslovakia and in Amman, Jordan. Manners also stated he was “the executive assistant to the Deputy Director of the National Security Agency."

Manners’ declaration supports statements made exclusively to FOX News by Turi about what President Obama's team and members of Congress knew about weapons flowing into the region during the chaotic Arab Spring of 2011.

The United States supported the secret supply of weapons to Libyan rebels while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State according to federal court documents obtained by Fox News.

In a sworn declaration to the District Court of Arizona May 5th 2015, a career CIA officer David Manners said, "It was then, and remains now, my opinion that the United States did participate, directly or indirectly, in the supply of weapons to the Libyan Transitional National Council." The timing matters because in the Spring of 2011 the Libyan opposition was not formally recognized, and the direct supply of arms was not authorized. At that time, the CIA Director was David Petraeus. (DAVID MANNERS DOCUMENT HERE)

Manners testified before a grand jury investigating American defense contractor Marc Turi who faces trial this September on two counts that he allegedly violated the arms control export act by making false statements.

Turi and his company Turi Defense Group are at the center of an ongoing federal investigation over the source and user of weapons defined in court documents as "end user" or "end use" flowing into Libya as Moammar Qaddafi's regime was collapsing in 2011.

"It was then, and remains now, my opinion that the United States did participate, directly or indirectly, in the supply of weapons to the Libyan Transitional National Council."
- Sworn Federal Court Declaration by CIA Veteran David Manners
In "United States of America v. Marc Turi and Turi Defense Group," Manners identifies himself as having 18 years experience as an intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA, with foreign postings as Chief of Station in Prague, Czechoslovakia and in Amman, Jordan. Manners also stated he was “the executive assistant to the Deputy Director of the National Security Agency."

Manners’ declaration supports statements made exclusively to FOX News by Turi about what President Obama's team and members of Congress knew about weapons flowing into the region during the chaotic Arab Spring of 2011.

"When this equipment landed in Libya, half went one way, and the half went the other way," Turi said, emphasizing that poor oversight, allowed individuals hostile to the United States to get arms. "The half that went the other way is the half that ended up in Syria."

As part of Fox's ongoing investigation of the 2012 terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, as well as former Navy Seals Ty Woods and Glen Doherty, Turi spoke exclusively to FOX Senior Executive Producer Pamela Browne. The investigation premiered on "FOX Files" on the FOX BUSINESS NETWORK.

Turi was one of several thousand US arms contractors licensed by the State Department to sell and move weapons around the world. He's been a go to guy for the US government, most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I got involved in this business in the 1990s," Turi explained. "I've been involved in all type of operations, regarding transportation, logistics, and liaising with those foreign governments."

Turi admits to a criminal history. He told Fox that in the late 1980's, he stole a computer, his roommate's car, and wrote bad checks including one for $100,000 dollars. Through court records, Fox News verified he was arrested, convicted, and served time in an Arizona jail.

"In my youth, I made some very very bad mistakes...I was discharged from the United States Navy other under than honorable conditions...and I've been fighting ever since to get that honor back." (TURI DISCHARGE DOCUMENT HERE)

Licensed arms contractors require painstaking compliance in order to obtain the necessary approvals set by strict US government regulations. While Hillary Clinton served as President Obama's Secretary of State, American arms dealers were awarded a record number of export licenses to sell sophisticated weapons, military parts and technology internationally.

"That's actually been a huge, policy position, of the Obama Administration," Celina Realuyo, a professor of national security at the Perry Center at the National Defense University explained to FOX. Realuyo has served two presidents with expertise in tracking down money and weaponry used in what are called "dark networks" that can channel weapons to criminal and designated foreign terrorist organizations.

More than 86-thousand licenses with a value of $44.3 billion dollars were granted in 2011... a surge of more than $10 billion dollars from the previous year.

In the spring of 2011, Turi says his high level contacts both inside and outside of the US government, encouraged him to explore options to arm the Libyan opposition as they tried to overthrow then Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi. He says his associates included David Manners, a former intelligence officer with the CIA who stated his expertise to the court as an expert with knowledge of "authorized covert arms transfers."

Turi provided documents and email exchanges with high level members of Congress as well as military, and State Department employees which are currently being reviewed by Fox News.

"The half that went the other way is the half that ended up in Syria."

- Defense Contractor Marc Turi

Turi said, "That's where I came up with this "zero footprint" Arab supply chain whereby, our foreign ally supplies another, Arab country." In this case, the US would supply conventional weapons to a US ally-Qatar, who would inturn supply them to Libya, as a kind of workaround.​

"If you want to limit the exposure to the US government, what you simply do is outsource it to your allies," Turi said, describing the practice. "The partners-the Qataris, and the Emiratis did exactly what they were contracted to do." Turi told Fox he never supplied any weapons to Qatar, and it was in the hands of the US government and the State Department's Bureau of Political and Military Affairs which was headed by a key Clinton aide, Andrew Shapiro. Mr. Shapiro was responsible to oversee the export control process at the State Department.

March 2011 was a busy time for Hillary Clinton. Even today, congressional investigators doubt they have all of the emails from her personal server when she was Secretary of State. On the 14th, along with Chris Stevens, who was then the number two man in Libya serving as the embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission, Clinton met with Libya's Mustafa Jibril in Paris-- a senior member of the TNC. The next day, Secretary Clinton met with Egypt's new foreign minister Nabil el Arabi in Cairo and walked through Tahrir Square with her senior adviser Huma Abedin. At the same time, Turi's proposal, a 267-million dollar contract, was working its way through US government channels.

"My application was submitted on the 12th," Turi said his contacts gave the proposal to the then Secretary of State. "...through their relationship with the TNC, then provided that application information to Mrs. Clinton via the TNC council when she was in Cairo. That's what was told to me...and emailed. "

Turi provided Fox News with emails he exchanged - in early April 2011 - with Chris Stevens to alert him to the proposed weapons deal. The emails were previously cited by the New York Times, but Fox News is now making the message traffic public. (CHRIS STEVENS EMAIL DOCUMENT HERE)

Stevens replied with a "thank you " and wrote "I'll keep it in mind and share it with my colleagues in Washington."

As FOX Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine Herridge first reported, it was a heavily redacted email released to the Benghazi Committee last month that clearly states that on April 8, 2011, a day after the Turi/Stevens exchange, Secretary Clinton was interested in arming the rebels using contractors:

"FYI. The idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered," Clinton wrote. Significantly, the State Department released emails blacked out this line, but the version given to the Benghazi Select Committee was complete. (CLINTON EMAIL DOCUMENT HERE)

In May 2011, Turi got a brokering approval from the State Department for Qatar. In July, his Arizona home was raided by federal agents.

"They came in the full body armor, and weapons and, they take my computers and my cell phones and that was it. That was the last time I saw them. And they've been chasing me all over the world for the past three years, speaking to associates of mine all over the United States and looking into my records and my past."

His attorney Jean-Jacques Cabou told Fox in a series of emails that his client had a track record working for the "US government through the Central Intelligence Agency" and the government case is an “epic fishing expedition." Adding his client"...neither lied on any application nor did he do anything other than support U.S. foreign policy and interests in the Middle East."

Turi believes his "zero footprint" idea was stolen out from under him, and now he is being blamed for a program that went off the rails.

Such are the stakes in this case, that the Justice Department National Security Division is involved, and recently requested that some proceedings remain secret under CIPA, the Classified Information Procedures Act. The Federal Judge wrote on June 16 "the government can seek protection under CIPA 4 in this case only by complying with Ninth Circuit law by making a formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has actual control over the discoverable information."

In his sworn declaration to the court, Manners said his grand jury testimony on covert arms transfers was cut off by the government lawyer. "As a result of the Assistant United States Attorney's actions, I believe that (a) the grand jury never received a full and complete picture of authorized covert arms transfers and their relevance to the present case. "

"At some point, I may be that internet video excuse," Turi said, referring to statements where then Secretary of Clinton and members of the Obama Administration wrongly blamed an obscure anti-Islam video for the 2012 terrorist attack that killed four Americans. "I don't know. But, it's really strange that the US government would invest three years, a multi-year investigation, fly all over the world interviewing people, for an application."

In her only congressional testimony to date on Benghazi in January 2013, Mrs. Clinton was asked by Republican Senator Rand Paul about the flow of weapons.

"I will see what information is available," then Secretary Clinton ‎responded. "I don't have any information on that."

Two weeks after her testimony, a letter from the State Department was sent to Senator Paul skirting his question and stated that the US government “is not involved in any transfer of weapons from Libya to Turkey.” (SENATOR PAUL LETTER)

http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2015/06/27/exclusive-arming-benghazi/

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Libya rivals urged to sign long-awaited peace dealTripoli (AFP) - World leaders and the United Nations urged Libya's warring parties Friday to sign a proposed peace deal installing a national unity government, after a cool response from some lawmakers in the country's rival parliaments.

Libya has had two administrations since August last year when a militia alliance that includes Islamists overran the capital, forcing the internationally recognised government to take refuge in the east.

The new government proposed by UN envoy Bernardino Leon would be headed by Fayez el-Sarraj, a deputy in the Tripoli parliament, and include three deputy prime ministers, one each from the west, east and south of the country.

"There is no more time to waste," said a joint statement released by the governments of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States.

"Delays in forming a unity government will only prolong the suffering of the Libyan people and benefit terrorists seeking to take advantage of the chaos."

The UN Security Council also unanimously called on all stakeholders in the country to support the deal and reiterated it was "prepared to sanction those who threaten Libya's peace, stability and security or that undermine the successful completion of its political transition."


The country descended into chaos after the fall of Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, with the two sides vying for power as well as several groups battling for control of its vast resource wealth.

Sarraj, a graduate in business management, has been involved in dialogue that tried to bring together the various actors of Libyan society to end the crisis.

"After a year of work in this process, after working with more than 150 Libyan personalities from all the regions... finally the moment has come in which we can propose a national unity government," UN envoy Leon told a news conference in Morocco.

- 'A significant milestone' -

UN chief Ban Ki-moon welcomed the news, and appealed to warring factions to sign the accord.


He urged Libya's leaders "not to squander this opportunity to put the country back on the path to building a state that reflects the spirit and ambitions of the 2011 revolution.

"Now is the time for the parties to the political dialogue to endorse this proposal and sign the agreement without delay."

US Secretary of State John Kerry called the proposed accord a "significant milestone in the Libyan political process" and said the US "stands ready" to support the unity government.

Previous deals to ensure a ceasefire and restore stability to the strife-torn country have fallen apart, and officials from both sides expressed scepticism after the announcement.

- Turn Libya into 'joke' -


Abdulsalam Bilashahir, from the rival Tripoli-based General National Congress, told the BBC: "We are not a part of this (proposed) government. It means nothing to us and we were not consulted."

Ibrahim Alzaghiat, from the internationally recognised House of Representatives based in Tobruk, was also quoted as saying: "This proposed government will lead to the division of Libya and will turn it into a joke. Mr Leon's choice was unwise."

But Leon said the new government list could be agreed by all sides.

"Too many Libyans have lost their lives, too many children have been suffering, too many mothers have been suffering... around 2.4 million Libyans are in a situation of humanitarian need," he said..

"This was not an easy task. We have been listening to many people, inside and outside the dialogue. And we believe that this list can work.

"It is a quite reasonably good list of names, politicians, personalities that will do their best, I'm sure, to take their country out of this crisis," he said.

Years of chaos in Libya have turned it into a hub for human-trafficking gangs, which have fuelled Europe's huge migrant crisis by sending thousands of people on the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

More than 3,000 people have died or are feared drowned after trying to make the crossing since the start of this year, according to the UN refugee agency.

On Thursday, Libyan authorities said they had arrested some 300 migrants as they were preparing to board boats.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini welcomed the announcement from Libya, and pledged some 100 million euros ($110 million) in support for the new government.

"There is no time to waste in the formation of a government of national accord, so that it may -- with the full recognition and support of the international community -- begin working for the benefit of all the Libyan people," she said in a statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-european-leaders-urge-libya-rivals-sign-peace-235954231.html

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

This is the DOD memo dated September 12, 2012 showing the timeline of events and what the White House knew at the time of the events and how it was happening.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/JW-v-State-DSCC-docs-01733-pg-7.pdf

http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/JW-v-State-DSCC-docs-01733-pg-8.pdf

http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/JW-v-State-DSCC-docs-01733-pg-101.pdf

At 1549 hrs, DSCC was notified that U.S. Mission Benghazi was under attack. At 1600 hrs, DSCC [Diplomatic Security Command Center] was notified by Regional Security Officer (RSO) Benghazi that armed individuals had entered the compound, and at 1614 hrs RSO Benghazi reported that an armed group had set fire to buildings inside the compound. The US Ambassador was visiting post from Tripoli, and as of 1614 hrs it was suspected that one of the buildings that had been set on fire was the building where the Ambassador was sheltering. [Redacted] Quick Reaction Force (QRF) responded from their off-compound Annex, but was turned back due to heavy hostile fire.

1550 The Diplomatic Security Command Center (DSCC) receives word that US Mission Benghazi is under attack by 15-20 armed hostiles.
1615 RSO Benghazi advises hostile individuals setting fire to buildings on compound, including the one housing Ambassador Stevens, IPO Sean Smith, and ARSO [REDACTED] responds with a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) and takes fire from hostiles. QRF returns to Annex to regroup with host militia and redeploys.

As of 1700 hrs, [REDACTED] QRF and host nation militia (17 February Brigade) have redeployed to the compound. One Assistant RSO (ARSO) suffered injuries from smoke inhalation. This agent was in the Principal Officer’s Residence with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Information Program Officer (IPO) Sean P. Smith. All three moved to the safe haven when the attack began, but had to relocate to the roof as the building caught on fire. The agent reached the rooftop but lost contact with the other two. The agent reentered the residence and found the IPO killed in action (KIA), and was unable to locate the Ambassador. The agent had given his cell phone to the Ambassador.

At 2215 hrs, Benghazi ARSO called DSCC to report that the [REDACTED] response team has been on the ground in Benghazi for approximately 60 minutes, but are waiting for the 17 February Brigade to escort them to [REDACTED]. DS Seniors ask ARSO about the identity of the reported white male in the hospital. [REDACTED MATERIAL] hospital for about two hours. Henderson will call him after this call.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

My view is to let democracy happen, regardless of the consequences.

The only way for people to understand democracy is to experience it. They sure aren't going to learn about it under the iron fist of a dictator.

Old post but the problem with that view is what happens when there are parties with antidemocratic ideologies that use democracy to take power and shut down democracy.

No elections in Libya by the way, though we engaged in regime change there. They just skipped right past nation building and into full on chaos.

 

[Quez]

In the Dem debate Hillary was making it sound like we had no choice but to go into Libya. It sounds like she would do the same thing again today. Even after seeing what a disaster it was, is, and will be.

She was almost blaming the pressure of our European allies as the reas on we got involved.

Then, they always make a point to say no soldiers were on the ground. They call bombing these people back to the stone age "strategic support". With today's drones & missile capabilities, this is alarming that we keep hearing this. Unmanned warfare is the future.

Also, it's ironic our European allies were supporting many of these Arab spring overthrows, and now they are the ones having problems with all the migrants.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

In the Dem debate Hillary was making it sound like we had no choice but to go into Libya. It sounds like she would do the same thing again today. Even after seeing what a disaster it was, is, and will be.

She was almost blaming the pressure of our European allies as the reas on we got involved.

Then, they always make a point to say no soldiers were on the ground. They call bombing these people back to the stone age "strategic support". With today's drones & missile capabilities, this is alarming that we keep hearing this. Unmanned warfare is the future.

Also, it's ironic our European allies were supporting many of these Arab spring overthrows, and now they are the ones having problems with all the migrants.

That's a good point about Europe and the migrant crisis.

 

[cstu]

In the Dem debate Hillary was making it sound like we had no choice but to go into Libya. It sounds like she would do the same thing again today. Even after seeing what a disaster it was, is, and will be.

What else does your crystal ball tell you?

 

[cstu]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

My view is to let democracy happen, regardless of the consequences.

The only way for people to understand democracy is to experience it. They sure aren't going to learn about it under the iron fist of a dictator.

Old post but the problem with that view is what happens when there are parties with antidemocratic ideologies that use democracy to take power and shut down democracy.

No elections in Libya by the way, though we engaged in regime change there. They just skipped right past nation building and into full on chaos.

They have an elected Parliament.

Libya is mired in a conflict between its internationally recognized government and elected parliament on one side, and a self-styled administration holding Tripoli on the other, with each backed by loose coalitions of armed factions.

After months of talks, the United Nations has drafted a deal to form a national unity government and has proposed six-member executive council to lead it. But both sides have balked at parts of those accords, stalling any final agreement.

On Monday, the chief of the elected House of representatives based in the eastern city of Tobruk, said the congress had rejected the U.N. proposal. But there were conflicting reports on whether lawmakers had officially voted on the deal.

"In the coming days I will be conducting meetings with the Libyans," U.N. envoy Bernardino Leon told reporters in Tunisian capital Tunis. "We hope to see the majority of the members in Tripoli and in Tobruk approving this accord."

The international community is pushing for both sides to accept the U.N. deal to end a conflict they fear has allowed Islamist militants and people smugglers to gain ground in the chaos just over the Mediterranean from mainland Europe.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

My view is to let democracy happen, regardless of the consequences.

The only way for people to understand democracy is to experience it. They sure aren't going to learn about it under the iron fist of a dictator.

Old post but the problem with that view is what happens when there are parties with antidemocratic ideologies that use democracy to take power and shut down democracy.

No elections in Libya by the way, though we engaged in regime change there. They just skipped right past nation building and into full on chaos.

They have an elected Parliament.

Libya is mired in a conflict between its internationally recognized government and elected parliament on one side, and a self-styled administration holding Tripoli on the other, with each backed by loose coalitions of armed factions.

After months of talks, the United Nations has drafted a deal to form a national unity government and has proposed six-member executive council to lead it. But both sides have balked at parts of those accords, stalling any final agreement.

On Monday, the chief of the elected House of representatives based in the eastern city of Tobruk, said the congress had rejected the U.N. proposal. But there were conflicting reports on whether lawmakers had officially voted on the deal.

"In the coming days I will be conducting meetings with the Libyans," U.N. envoy Bernardino Leon told reporters in Tunisian capital Tunis. "We hope to see the majority of the members in Tripoli and in Tobruk approving this accord."

The international community is pushing for both sides to accept the U.N. deal to end a conflict they fear has allowed Islamist militants and people smugglers to gain ground in the chaos just over the Mediterranean from mainland Europe.

Yeah, I actually posted that story further up. The country blew apart (with our help) in 2011-12 and it is currently divided into 3-4 parts, much of it totally ungovernable.

I do need to correct my comment on there having been no elections, there were.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

This is a map of Libya in March of this year.

http://foggofwar.blogspot.com/2015/03/middle-east-war-update-libyan-civil-war.html

Red = Tobruk Gov't; Green = Libya Dawn; Grey/Black = ISIS.

 

[Mark Davis]

Oh how I long for the days of Gaddafi and Saddam.

 

[Quez]

In the Dem debate Hillary was making it sound like we had no choice but to go into Libya. It sounds like she would do the same thing again today. Even after seeing what a disaster it was, is, and will be.

What else does your crystal ball tell you?

Have you seen any signs that it isn't going to be a mess for the next decade or longer?

 

[Quez]

This is a map of Libya in March of this year.

http://foggofwar.blogspot.com/2015/03/middle-east-war-update-libyan-civil-war.html

Red = Tobruk Gov't; Green = Libya Dawn; Grey/Black = ISIS.

We forget about Yemen, but it sounds like there is more action there than the other hot spots.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

This is a map of Libya in March of this year.

http://foggofwar.blogspot.com/2015/03/middle-east-war-update-libyan-civil-war.html

Red = Tobruk Gov't; Green = Libya Dawn; Grey/Black = ISIS.

We forget about Yemen, but it sounds like there is more action there than the other hot spots.

Here's Yemen, also partitioned:

http://foggofwar.blogspot.com/2015/08/persistence-pays-for-saudis-yemen.html

Red is government control, green is Houthi rebel control, grey/black is ISIS/al-Qaeda control, and yellow is Southern Resistance movement control (now aligned with the government). Aden is up for grabs.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

‘We Came, We Saw, He Died’

10.20.158:00 PM ET

Hillary’s Libya Post-War Plan Was ‘Play It by Ear,’ Gates Says

She still defends the invasion as ‘smart power at its best.’ But war backers like Clinton had no plan for securing the country, says ex-Pentagon chief Bob Gates.

When Hillary Clinton appears before Congress’s special committee on Benghazi Thursday, she’ll likely be asked all the wrong questions.

Clinton will be peppered with queries about why she kept a private email server, what caused the 2012 attacks on the U.S. special consulate in Benghazi, and how come U.S. forces didn’t respond more quickly to the strikes. But the really important issues—the questions longstanding followers of the U.S. and NATO intervention want answered—are: Why did Hillary Clinton push for strikes that contributed to the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi? And why didn’t the Obama administration bother to plan for the all-too-predictable chaos that came next?

In 2011, as the United States considered intervention, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among those who pushed for intervention—without resolving just how Libya would be governed after Gaddafi, according to a senior defense official who was part of the decision-making process. Obama advisers like Samantha Power and Susan Rice also made the case alongside Clinton. They argued the U.S. had a moral obligation to save lives in Benghazi facing a threatened genocide by Libyan dictator Gaddafi. The only strategy spelled out publicly was that the Europeans’ newly formed “Libyan Transitional Council” would be at the forefront of the effort. Washington was “leading from behind,” to use a famous phrase from the era.

As then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who opposed the U.S. intervention, frustratingly explained to The Daily Beast: “We were playing it by ear.”

And the consequences of that improvisation are still being felt today. The country is an epicenter of the refugee crisis sweeping the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. Part of Libya is under the control of the self-proclaimed Islamic State. And the Russians use the U.S.-NATO intervention in Libya to justify their own military incursions in places like Syria.

But to Clinton, Libya was—and still remains—a major achievement. “We came, we saw, he died,” she crowed in October 2011. “Smart power at its best” is how Clinton described it during the most recent Democratic debate.

Clinton campaign aides note that she spent months working with the Libyan parliament to craft a successful state in both the run-up to American intervention and afterward, all while honoring a Libyan request for limited Western intervention. Above all else, the aides stress, the United States had a moral obligation to act in Libya.

“The alternative was so bleak, we simply had to take action,” one aide to the Clinton campaign told The Daily Beast.

President Obama, however, didn’t see things quite that way. He was reportedly reluctant about the operation—until Clinton, Rice, and Power swayed him, over Gates’s objections. “Clinton won the bureaucratic battle to use DOD [Department of Defense] resources to achieve what’s essentially the State Department’s objective,” Steve Clemons, then an analyst with the administration-friendly New America Foundation, told Foreign Policy at the time.

According to Gates, Obama told his advisers that he was 51/49 in favor of intervening. The ratio is telling. According to the New York Times Magazine, Obama was 55/45 about conducting the May 2011 raid that eventually killed Osama bin Laden.

And when Obama finally agreed to the operation, he stressed “Operation Odyssey Dawn” would be a limited effort to protect civilians from a possible genocide by the Libyan government. Removing Gaddafi was the last thing he wanted to do.

“If we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground to accomplish that mission, or risk killing many civilians from the air,” Obama said in March of 2011. “To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq… [R]egime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.”

But repetition is exactly what happened. Attacks spread from the eastern city of Benghazi, where civilians were endangered, to the Libyan capital of Tripoli, 635 miles away. No one ever explained why the change in goal or who might succeed Gaddafi afterward.

During revolutionary-era Libya, no one in the upper ranks of the U.S. government seriously considered whether the newly created Transitional National Council, a rival government in rebel-held areas like Benghazi, could govern the oil-rich state. Nor did Clinton or top leaders ask about unintended consequences of an air campaign, especially if it successfully ended Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, according to the senior defense official who was part of the conversation at the time. And as the country was falling apart, it seems no one in the higher reaches of Clinton’s department took note. If they did, they did not take action.

As secretary of state, it was Clinton’s job to ask questions about the state of Libya, both before the intervention and after. She was secretary when the intervention began—and when the U.S. presence in Benghazi ended with a deadly attack. And while she held talks in the early months after Gaddafi’s death, Libya became largely a public afterthought. In the email caches released so far from her personal account, former adviser Sidney Blumenthal repeatedly kept Libya before Clinton, sharing his views of the situation, at the time contradicting the diplomats working for Clinton. Blumenthal, a longtime adviser to both Clinton and President Clinton, was not an expert on the region.

And yet, the day after the attack in Benghazi, Blumenthal drafted an email to Clinton that read like a State Department cable. He said his sources were those that had “direct access to the Libyan Transitional National Council, as well as the highest European Governments, and Western Intelligence and security services.” And those sources said the attack was the result of a protest “inspired by what many devout Libyans viewed as a sacrilegious internet video on the prophet Mohammed originating in America.” It’s a narrative that was quickly disproven.

Another instance of Blumenthal’s analysis going south came in April of 2012. Blumenthal assessed that the Muslim Brotherhood would do well in July elections. Chris Stevens, then the number two diplomat in Libya, disagreed. Blumenthal’s views were passed on to Stevens in an email with the subject line “Latest from HRC contact,” referring to Hillary Rodham Clinton. But Blumenthal was wrong, despite the high-level endorsement. The Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party won 10 percent of the vote.

Stevens was appointed ambassador in May 2012 and was one of the four killed in the Benghazi attack. He had supported the U.S. intervention in Libya and had built an unusually close relationship with Libyans, many of whom saw him as a friend. Stevens rejected two offers of additional security for himself and his staff as recently as the month leading up to the attack, leaning on his close relationships with residents there.

Of course, the administration was not alone in ignoring the mounting threats in Libya in the year leading up to the attack. Congress never held a hearing about Libya from the time U.S. intervention ended to the Sept. 11, 2012, death of Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and CIA operatives Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

Instead, many celebrated Libya as a success story of limited U.S. intervention despite obvious signs there of looming instability. The British consulate in Benghazi came under an attempted assassination attack the previous summer and other nations pulled out amid rising violence. The U.S. consulate in Benghazi suffered an improvised bomb attack around the time of the strike on the British. And there were early signs of a rising jihadist presence in the eastern city. In Tripoli, Sufi shrines were destroyed.

Defenders of the U.S. approach contend that the United States indeed had a moral obligation to help revolutionaries seeking to end a dictatorial regime. The United States and the coalition are not responsible for what the Libyans do with such a responsibility.

“It is not our failing because the Libyans started the uprisings. The Libyans formed the Transitional National Congress. They then called for international support in the form of a no-fly zone. The Arab League for the first time in its history called for a non-Arab state to intervene,” said Jason Pack, a researcher of Middle Eastern and world history who runs a website dedicated to analyzing Libya. “It would have been catastrophic for U.S. national standing to not intervene.”

In the months leading up to the attack, flags belonging to a jihadist group, Ansar al Sharia, appeared in Benghazi. Ansar al Sharia members also controlled security around certain government buildings, including the hospital that would try to save Stevens.

In that ensuing power vacuum, jihadists began claiming territory, making it difficult for the moderate government to control the country. By 2013, Libya’s oil production all but stopped as the nation plunged toward civil war and a state led by two rival governments on opposite ends of the country. Efforts to create a unity government have so far faltered. Benghazi, the birthplace of the 2011 uprising, became a terrorist haven. And today, many Libyans yearn for the return of Gaddafi, however dictatorial his regime was, because of the security that came with him.

As a failed state, Libya has become a way station for refugees around the world seeking passage to Europe by way of overcrowded, rickety boats whose boarding pass comes in the form of a bribe. Human traffickers now run the shores of Tripoli.

While European officials hoped their intervention would prevent a tide of refugees, it actually only accelerated it. Libya, with its ungoverned borders, has become a launching point for refugees from across Africa and across the Middle East. In 2014, 110,000 refugees arrived from Libya. And this year, that number is expected to reach 500,000, a byproduct of a failed state.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, the head of the latest of eight congressional committees on Benghazi, suggested in recent interviews that his committee would tackle key questions about the fall of Libya, saying he is the first to review emails from Clinton and the ambassador there. Thursday’s public hearing will offer insight on just how far back the committee will go.

But critics, Russia chief among them, argue that the whole affair was illegal and ill-considered. The UN resolution that authorized U.S. and NATO intervention was only to protect civilians, not topple a government. And whatever good came from toppling a strongman has been more than outweighed by the power vacuum exploited by Libya’s jihadists. Indeed, Russia said it began strikes in Syria on Sept. 30, in part, to keep Libya-style chaos from unfolding.

Obama may not have wanted another Iraq when he launched “Operation Odyssey Dawn.” But another Iraq is exactly what he and his administration got.

And to this day, Hillary Clinton says the invasion was the right call.

“Well, let’s remember what was going on,” she offered during the recent Democratic debate. “We had a murderous dictator, Gaddafi, who had American blood on his hands, as I’m sure you remember, threatening to massacre large numbers of the Libyan people. We had our closest allies in Europe burning up the phone lines begging us to help them try to prevent what they saw as a mass genocide, in their words. And we had the Arabs standing by our side saying, ‘We want you to help us deal with Gaddafi.’

“The Libyan people had a free election the first time since 1951. And you know what, they voted for moderates, they voted with the hope of democracy,” she added.

Clinton admitted that “there was turmoil” after the invasion. But she said the chaos was unleashed “because of the Arab Spring, because of a lot of other things.”

She never admitted she might have something to do with reaping the Libyan whirlwind.

[SIZE=12pt]http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/20/hillary-s-libya-post-war-plan-was-play-it-by-ear-gates-says.html[/SIZE]

 

[cstu]

“If we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground to accomplish that mission, or risk killing many civilians from the air,” Obama said in March of 2011. “To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq… [R]egime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.”

But repetition is exactly what happened. Attacks spread from the eastern city of Benghazi, where civilians were endangered, to the Libyan capital of Tripoli, 635 miles away. No one ever explained why the change in goal or who might succeed Gaddafi afterward.

Repetition did not happen since we didn't have to risk American lives or spend a trillion dollars.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

“If we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground to accomplish that mission, or risk killing many civilians from the air,” Obama said in March of 2011. “To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq… [R]egime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.”

But repetition is exactly what happened. Attacks spread from the eastern city of Benghazi, where civilians were endangered, to the Libyan capital of Tripoli, 635 miles away. No one ever explained why the change in goal or who might succeed Gaddafi afterward.

Repetition did not happen since we didn't have to risk American lives or spend a trillion dollars.

You're right, we didn't account for the chaos or the power vacuum and helped engender total mayhem so we accomplished what we did in Iraq without losing any American lives (well, except for four).

 

[quickhands]

Right. As I wrote I don't know what the right decisions were in those cases (Egypt, Libya and Syria). I don't think anyone does. I absolutely agree with you about the perils of imposing democracy, however there are also perils to ignoring democracy. To this day we are still blamed for overthrowing Mossedegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Diem in Vietnam, and Allende in Chile. All of those were Cold War decisions. We don't want to go back to that.

My view is to let democracy happen, regardless of the consequences.

The only way for people to understand democracy is to experience it. They sure aren't going to learn about it under the iron fist of a dictator.

Democracy <<<<<<Republic

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

In the month before attackers stormed U.S. facilities in Benghazi and killed four Americans, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens twice turned down offers of security assistance made by the senior U.S. military official in the region in response to concerns that Stevens had raised in a still secret memorandum, two government officials told McClatchy.

Why Stevens, who died of smoke inhalation in the first of two attacks that took place late Sept. 11 and early Sept. 12, 2012, would turn down the offers remains unclear.


...The offers of aid and Stevens’ rejection of them have not been revealed in either the State Department’s Administrative Review Board investigation of the Benghazi events or during any of the congressional hearings and reports that have been issued into what took place there.
Stevens’ deputy, Gregory Hicks, who might be expected to be aware of the ambassador’s exchange with military leaders, was not asked about the offer of additional assistance during his appearance before a House of Representatives committee last week, and testimony has not been sought from Ham, who is now retired.

Both Hicks and Ham declined to comment on the exchange between Ham and Stevens. Hicks’ lawyer, Victoria Toensing, said Hicks did not know the details of conversations between Stevens and Ham and was not aware of Stevens turning down an offer of additional security.

“As far as Mr. Hicks knows, the ambassador always wanted more security and they were both frustrated by not getting it,” she said.

...But a spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, indicated that some lawmakers may have been aware of Stevens’ exchange with Ham.


“Decisions conveyed by Ambassador Stevens were made on behalf of the U.S. State Department,” the spokesman, Frederick Hill, said in an email. “There were certainly robust debates between State and Defense officials over the mission and controlling authority of such forces. The lack of discussion by the public ARB report about the role inter-agency tension played in a lack of security resources remains a significant concern of the Oversight Committee.”
One person familiar with the events said Stevens might have rejected the offers because there was an understanding within the State Department that officials in Libya ought not to request more security, in part because of concerns about the political fallout of seeking a larger military presence in a country that was still being touted as a foreign policy success.

“The embassy was told through back channels to not make direct requests for security,” an official familiar with the case, who agreed to discuss the case only anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject, told McClatchy.

...There have been fewer questions, however, about the months leading up to the attack and how the State Department, the CIA and defense officials addressed a growing security problem. Among the questions that have not been probed is why the Benghazi mission, with its large CIA contingent, remained open when other Western countries, most notably Great Britain, had pulled out of Benghazi in the weeks preceding the attacks because of security concerns.

Officials have publicly referred to Ham’s phone call before. In his Feb. 7 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military was aware of the Aug. 16 cable and that someone had turned down Ham’s offer.

Referring to the cable, Dempsey said: “I was aware of it, because it came in, in Gen. Ham’s report. Gen. Ham actually called the embassy to, to see if they wanted to extend the special security team there and was said – and was told no.”

Dempsey said the State Department never requested more from the military.

“We never received a request for support from the State Department, which would have allowed us to put forces on the ground,” Dempsey told the committee.

...“RSO (Regional Security Officer) expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound,” the cable said, according to Fox News.

The Accountability Review Board investigation, commissioned by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and released in December, placed blame for the Benghazi attack in large part on the State Department for not answering repeated calls for more security.

But the report also is peppered with references to Stevens and how well the embassy made the case to Washington for more security. In a news conference at the time of the release of the board’s finding, Adm. Mike Mullen, one of the board’s two chairmen and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referred to the failing of the embassy.

“As the chief of mission, he certainly had a responsibility in that regard, and actually he was very security conscious and increasingly concerned about security,” Mullen said. “But part of his responsibility is certainly to make that case back here, and he had not gotten to that point where you would, you might get to a point where you would be considering, ‘It’s so dangerous, we might close the mission.’”

...The embassy Stevens oversaw in Tripoli “did not demonstrate strong and sustained advocacy with Washington for increased security” in Benghazi, the report stated.

Traditionally, State Department officials have depended on the State Department’s own Diplomatic Security Service, local police and military forces and security contractors to secure embassies around the world. U.S. military personnel at embassies consist usually of Marines whose job it is to guard the perimeter of a compound and to protect classified documents and equipment inside. It is rare that U.S. forces would be called upon to guard embassy personnel traveling outside embassy grounds.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article24749134.html

(5/4/13)

- The rare offer of military support by the US military and the closing of western embassies is a clear indication that the security situation was considered untenable. The administration likely did not want to suffer the embarrassment of closing the mission and also likely did not want to concede that the mission needed the military to remain.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Omahan in Benghazi in 2012 faults CIA station chief’s stand-down orderGazing into the leafy backyard of his Omaha home, Kris Paronto can almost forget the ghosts of Benghazi.

For many Americans, the facts of the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya’s second-largest city on Sept. 11, 2012, remain murky, overshadowed by the Beltway debate over who is to blame for the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans that night.

Paronto, 43, wants to change that. He was there — one of six private contractors hired by the CIA to provide security at its Benghazi annex, less than a mile from the diplomatic compound where the attack occurred.
Paronto and the four other surviving members of the Annex Security Team have told their story in a new book, “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi,” co-written by Boston University journalism professor Mitchell Zuckoff.
The book mostly skips the politics to tell a dramatic action tale in the mold of “Black Hawk Down.”
But the authors do level harsh criticism at “Bob,” a pseudonym for the CIA station chief in Benghazi. They say “Bob” ordered the team to stand down while he tried to arrange for a Libyan militia to aid the seven men trapped in the compound.
Paronto and his teammates — all military veterans, most with special forces experience — were “jocked up” in their weapons and protective gear within minutes of the first call for help from the besieged diplomatic compound. They loaded themselves into two armored vehicles, ready to go. Then they were told to wait.
After 20 minutes, hearing the increasingly desperate pleas over the radio, the team defied orders and took off.
“We’re just thinking ‘We’ve got to get to our buddies,’ ” Paronto said. “You don’t just sit there and watch.”
He would love to have those 20 minutes back. He believes Stevens and U.S. State Department information technology specialist Sean Smith would have lived.
“They died of smoke inhalation. That takes time,” Paronto said. “If we would have gotten there sooner and scared (the invaders) off earlier, we could have gotten them out of those buildings.”
He’s way more interested in talking about the boots-on-the-ground actions of the men who tried to save lives that night than in the endless debate over the roles of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.
“I want to honor these guys I fought with — tell the truth, tell what happened,” he said. “I’m not going to speculate about Hillary and Obama.”
For Paronto, Benghazi means fire and smoke and sweat and blood. He lived through a night of frustration, terror and sorrow.
He won’t forget the moment when he saw a pair of mortar rounds hit the roof of a building in the compound. Four of his friends manned positions up there. Two of them — Tyrone “Rone” Woods and Glen “Bub” Doherty — were killed.
“I saw the smoke coming up, and I knew. ‘(Expletive), they’re gone,’ ” Paronto recalled in a weekend interview at his home.
Paronto had taken a long and in some ways unlikely path to Benghazi. The son of a college football coach and an elementary school teacher, he had been an indifferent student but a stellar athlete while growing up at a series of his father’s coaching stops in Colorado, Oregon and Utah.
“I was a typical jock kid growing up. I played outside, rode motorcycles,” he said.
In football, Paronto was a junior college All-American wide receiver, good enough to be recruited by Brigham Young and South Carolina. But he chose Division II Mesa State College in Colorado, where his father was athletic director.
Paronto said he didn’t get along with the coach and didn’t play much. As he lost interest in sports, his academics improved. He earned a degree in criminal justice and planned to go into law enforcement. An FBI recruiter steered him to the military.
Paronto decided to enlist in the Army after a recruiter showed him a video of the elite Army Rangers.
He excelled in the Army but left after two years under pressure from his wife, who disliked military life. They later divorced.
“I was so down. I felt like a failure,” Paronto said. “I had not only lost my wife, but I was out of the Army, too.”
To console him, a friend invited him to come along on a spring break trip to Texas. There he met Tanya Cate, an All-American volleyball player (and now an assistant coach) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He followed her to Omaha and enrolled in graduate school at UNO. He earned a degree and gained a wife and a permanent home in Nebraska.
Paronto re-enlisted in 1999 and served four more years. But he was forced out after his superiors learned that he suffered from Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammation of the digestive tract. He was crushed.
In 2004, his luck changed. Paronto was recruited by Blackwater, a private security company that protects diplomats in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots.
“It was a lifesaver for me. I was with guys again like myself,” he said.
Paronto spent two years with Blackwater and later contracted on his own. Over the next several years, his security work took him all over the world, for seven to nine months a year. But he earned as much as $1,000 a day for the risky work.
“It didn’t create a good family life,” he said. “But my kids’ college fund is pretty far along for their ages.”
In the summer of 2012, Paronto took a short-term assignment in Benghazi. The city had been a pro-American stronghold during the rebellion the previous year against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
But the city had changed. It was controlled by a patchwork of militias. Some, inspired by al-Qaida, were fiercely anti-American.
Besides Paronto — known by his radio call sign “Tanto” — the Annex Security Team included Mark “Oz” Geist, John “Tig” Tiegen, Woods and two men called in the book by the pseudonyms Dave “D.B.” Benton and Jack Silva, to preserve their privacy.
Everyone on the team agreed that the defenses of the diplomatic compound and the CIA annex were weak, with just the six contractors and a handful of agents from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. Requests to beef up the defenses had been rebuffed in Washington, D.C. Security at the compound was to be left in the hands of a friendly militia called “17 February.”
Paronto and his teammates didn’t trust them.
Ambassador Stevens had arrived Sept. 10 for a ribbon-cutting and to meet with local officials. Despite the ominous anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on America, Paronto said, the team was no more worried than usual.
“It wasn’t like September 11th was any different,” he said. “We thought we were going to get attacked every day.”
The first call for help came at 9:32 p.m. on Sept. 11. Libyan irregulars had overrun the diplomatic compound, and the militia guards appeared to have abandoned their posts. Stevens, Smith and Diplomatic Security Service agent Scott Wickland barricaded themselves in a safe room inside the ambassador’s residence. Four other Diplomatic Security Service agents were holed up in two other buildings.
As the security team members left the annex for the compound, they could hear gunfire and see smoke. They drove quickly but not recklessly, to avoid suspicion.
They approached the compound warily, not sure whether the insurgents controlled the site, and made the decision to sneak in on foot, through yards and over walls. Woods and Silva reached the ambassador’s residence — by now nearly an hour after the first call for help — and found it burning intensely.
Unable to penetrate the safe room, the invaders had saturated the furniture and carpets with diesel fuel, then set it on fire. Inky smoke filled the home. Wickland had escaped, thinking Stevens and Smith were right behind him. He nearly died as he returned repeatedly to try to find them, without success.
In pairs, the security team members checked the other buildings and rounded up the Diplomatic Security Service agents. The invaders seemed to have left the compound — but the Americans couldn’t be sure. All of the security team, now including the agents, made repeated forays into the burning residence. Paronto entered twice.
“It was like going into a pizza oven,” Paronto said. “It was hot, and you couldn’t breathe in there at all.”
Finally, two of the security agents found Smith inside and brought him out of the burning building. He was dead.
“I looked at his face,” Paronto said. “I said a prayer over him. ‘God bless his soul, please accept him.’ Then I got back to work.”
Still, no one could find the ambassador. He must be dead, they concluded; no one could have survived the heavy smoke. After more than two fruitless hours, they climbed into two vehicles. The invaders had begun a counterattack. Paronto and the security team, aided by some friendly militia members, fought their way out of the diplomatic compound and headed through quiet streets back to the CIA annex.
But they knew it wouldn’t be safe there for long. Paronto’s team fully expected an attack at the annex, too, before morning arrived. At least they could prepare for this one.
The security team and some of the Diplomatic Security Service agents deployed on the roofs, with night-vision goggles and plenty of ammo. Each man watched over a different area.
Paronto and Benton looked out over a scrubby acre to the east they called “Zombieland” because they thought it resembled the set of a horror movie.
Twice during the night they watched as groups of men crept toward the compound’s wall. They waited until the figures drew close. Then they opened up with short, disciplined bursts of fire.
Before dawn, a team of five security contractors that had flown in from the Embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, arrived. These were the only reinforcements the Benghazi team would receive all night.
One of the Tripoli contractors, Bub Doherty, climbed to the roof of one of the buildings to see Rone Woods, his old friend and fellow former Navy SEAL.
Soon after, mortars landed next to them. Woods and Doherty died together. Oz Geist and one of the security agents were badly hurt.
Paronto and the others held their positions, expecting a horde of invaders to storm the annex and more mortars to follow. Neither came.
“We were lucky,” Paronto said. “If they’d have kept mortaring us, we would have all been dead.”
Soon a convoy of Libyan police arrived to take the roughly 25 survivors to the airport, along with the bodies of Smith, Woods and Doherty.
The body of Ambassador Stevens would meet them at the airport. He had been recovered from the burned-out residence by friendly Libyans and taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
It was a dispiriting journey home for Paronto and his teammates. Their fallen comrades were next to them, covered by sheets. The ambassador’s body was in a flag-draped coffin.
And they all traveled on a Libyan transport, not an American plane.
“I was thinking ‘I hope they don’t shoot this plane out of the sky,’ ” Paronto said of the Libyan attackers. “I was just tired, physically drained.”
He realized he’d grown fed up with working for the government. He turned full time to his side business, as an insurance adjuster in Omaha, and to his family.
After 18 years of Army and contract security work, Paronto didn’t need the adrenaline rush of the combat work zone anymore.
“I did my ‘cool guy’ stuff. I checked that box,” Paronto said. “My new goal is making sure I’m around for my kids.”
He has seen Department of Veterans Affairs counselors to talk about post-traumatic stress disorder. But mostly he has his own ways of dealing with the nightmares. He runs, he works out, he tells jokes. He loves to talk, especially to the friends who survived Benghazi.
“D.B., Oz and Tig and Jack and myself, we’re bros,” Paronto said. “We can talk about that night.”
Writing the book has kept them in touch, and now they’ll be working together to publicize it. Fox News outbid other networks for the advance media rights. Last week news anchor Brett Baier and a film crew spent two days with him at home, and they were guests Friday on Baier’s show. This week, he and two of his teammates will appear on Bill O’Reilly’s television program and with Sean Hannity on his radio show.
“It’s a whole new world,” Paronto said.
He revels in family life with Tanya and his kids, a 9-year-old son he calls “Bubba” and 6-year-old girl he calls “Princess.”
When he’s having a bad night, it’s the kids who help him get through.
“I walk into their rooms and I kiss ’em,” Paronto said. “They’re still innocent. They don’t know the bad things in this world.”

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/omahan-in-benghazi-in-faults-cia-station-chief-s-stand/article_be49e943-caa9-5d8e-9fa0-1560a9abbe89.html

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

 

The Libya Gamble: Inside Hillary Clinton's Push for War & the Making of a Failed State


The New York Times has published a major two-part exposé titled "The Libya Gamble" on how then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed President Obama to begin bombing Libya five years ago this month. Today, Libya is a failed state and a haven for terrorists. How much should Hillary Clinton be blamed for the crisis? We speak to journalist Scott Shane of The New York Times.


TRANSCRIPT


This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Five years ago this month, the United States and allied nations began bombing Libya, striking forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The Obama administration said the strikes were needed to enforce a no-fly zone and to protect Libyan protesters who took to the streets as part of the Arab Spring. Inside the Obama administration, there was a deep division over whether the U.S. should intervene militarily. One of the most hawkish members of Obama’s Cabinet was Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state.

The New York Times has just published two major pieces [part one, part two] looking at Clinton’s role pushing for the bombing of Libya. The special report is titled "The Libya Gamble." In a moment, we’ll be joined by Scott Shane, one of the report’s co-authors, but first a video package produced by The New York Times.


JO BECKER: Hillary Clinton’s role in the military intervention that ousted Muammar Gaddafi in Libya is getting new scrutiny as she runs for president. The U.S. relationship with Libya has long been complicated. Colonel Gaddafi, who ruled from 1969 until 2011, was an eccentric dictator linked to terrorism. Still, when he gave up his nuclear program a decade ago and provided information about al-Qaeda, he became an ally of sorts. In 2009, when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, she welcomed one of Colonel Gaddafi’s sons to Washington.




SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya.




JO BECKER: But two years later, when Colonel Gaddafi threatened to crush the Arab Spring protests in Libya, she helped persuade President Obama to join other countries in bombing his forces to prevent a feared massacre.




SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: This operation has already saved many lives, but the danger is far from over.




JO BECKER: The military campaign ended up ousting Colonel Gaddafi, and Secretary Clinton was welcomed to Libya on a victory tour. A few days later, Colonel Gaddafi was killed by opposition fighters.




SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: We came, we saw, he died.




JO BECKER: But the new Western-backed government proved incapable of uniting Libya. And in the end, the strongman’s death led to chaos. When four Americans were killed by terrorists in Benghazi in 2012, it revealed just how bad things had gotten. Colonel Gaddafi’s huge arsenal of weapons has shown up in the hands of terrorists in places like Gaza, Syria, Nigeria and Mali. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have fled through Libya on boats. Many have drowned. And the power vacuum has allowed ISIS to build its most dangerous outpost on the Libyan coast. Today, just 300 miles from Europe, Libya is a failed state. Meanwhile, back at home, Mrs. Clinton has struggled to defend the decision to intervene.




HILLARY CLINTON: But I’m not giving up on Libya, and I don’t think anybody should. We’ve been at this a couple of years.




MARTHA RADDATZ: But were mistakes made?




HILLARY CLINTON: Well, there’s always a retrospective to say what mistakes were made. But I know that we offered a lot of help, and I know it was difficult for the Libyans to accept help.



AMY GOODMAN:...

Scott Shane, welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s start with this two-part series, "Clinton, 'Smart Power' and a Dictator’s Fall." Talk about Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and how she led the charge, or what she advised President Obama in Libya.

SCOTT SHANE: Well, five years ago, there were—there was a question about what to do as Gaddafi’s forces approached Benghazi. The Europeans and the Arab League were calling for action. No one really knew what the outcome would be, but there was certainly a very serious threat to a large number of civilians in Benghazi. But, you know, the U.S. was still involved in two big wars, and the sort of heavyweights in the Obama administration were against getting involved—Robert Gates, the defensive secretary; Joe Biden, the vice president; Tom Donilon, the national security adviser.

And Secretary Clinton had been meeting with representatives of Britain, France and the Arab countries. And she sort of essentially called in from Paris and then from Cairo, and she ended up tipping the balance and essentially convincing President Obama, who later described this as a 51-49 decision, to join the other countries in the coalition to bomb Gaddafi’s forces.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Hillary Clinton has argued, in her defense, that it’s still too early to tell what the effects of the intervention have been, and that perhaps accounts for why she’s pushing for more military involvement in Syria. But Obama, on the other hand, as you point out in your piece, says the Libya experience has made him question each military intervention by asking, "Should we intervene militarily? Do we have an answer for the day after?" So, Scott Shane, can you lay out what you explain happened in Libya the day after, as it were?

SCOTT SHANE: Well, you know, for a few months, it looked like things might go reasonably well. There was some attention to restoring Libya’s oil industry. And the optimism was based in part on the idea that this is a relatively small country population-wise, about 6 million people. It did not have the Sunni-Shia split that you see in many Muslim countries, and it had plenty of money from oil to rebuild. So, briefly, there was this sort of moment of optimism. And Secretary Clinton made her visit. And they were—you know, her people were actually thinking this would be perhaps a centerpiece of her record as secretary of state.

But what happened was the militias that had participated in the fight against Gaddafi, you know, essentially aligned with different tribes in different cities, and it proved impossible for these mostly Western-educated—in some cases, somewhat detached—opposition leaders to pull the country together, and eventually it sort of dissolved into civil war.

AMY GOODMAN: You say—in that piece we just heard, the tape that caught Hillary Clinton saying, "We came, we saw, he died." Explain.

SCOTT SHANE: Well, you know, in some ways, I think she would see that as unfair. She was giving a series of TV interviews, and that was in a break between interviews. The reporter for the next take was just sitting down in the chair, and an aide handed her a Blackberry with the news that Gaddafi—you know, first reports that Gaddafi might be dead. And that was her sort of, I think she would say, you know, exaggerated, humorous reaction. But, you know—but it did capture, I think, the fact that she had become very involved in this effort that first—that sort of began as protecting civilians and sort of evolved into overthrowing Gaddafi. And she was eager to see an end to what had become a surprisingly drawn-out affair, given the fact that this very large alliance of NATO and Arab countries were on the rebels’ side. So I think she was relieved and pleased that Gaddafi’s rule was over and that he was no longer around to make trouble.

...

AMY GOODMAN: "I’m not quite the fan of regime change that ... she is," says Bernie Sanders in that debate with Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Scott Shane, from Iraq and her vote for the war with Iraq, which of course did lead to regime change, to Libya, talk about the goal of Hillary Clinton and whether that was even different from the goal of President Obama, who she does wrap herself around now in all of her presidential campaigning.

SCOTT SHANE: I think what we found is that there is a subtle but distinct difference between President Obama and Secretary Clinton on the question of sort of activism and interventionism abroad. And, you know, in a situation like Libya, there are no good choices. It’s certainly conceivable that if she had tipped the other way, and the U.S. and the Europeans and others had not gotten involved, that perhaps Gaddafi would have slaughtered a whole lot of civilians, and we would be, you know, posing different questions to her today.

But, you know, what we found was that President Obama is, not surprisingly, very shaped by the Iraq experience, which he’s had to cope with the still ongoing aftermath of the decision to invade in 2003 all these years later. She, of course, has been in government longer, and I think she—you know, her aides say that she was also influenced by genocide in Rwanda, which taught her the cost of inaction in a situation like that, and by the experience in the Balkans, which sort of cut both ways. But, you know, I think she drew the lesson that intervention could prevent even larger massacres and do some good, as imperfect as the outcome was there. So they kind of look back to these different historical experiences and draw different conclusions.

...

AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of this being a failed state right now and Hillary Clinton’s responsibility here—of course, as is President Obama, but she was the secretary of state who was advising him, meeting with people on the ground, making her suggestions on pushing forward with war?

SCOTT SHANE: Yeah, I mean, you know, one reason we did that series is that it appears that intervention—when, how and whether to intervene in other countries, particularly Muslim countries—remains sort of a pressing question for American presidents. And since she’s running for the presidency, this is, you know, perhaps a revealing case study of how she comes out in these situations.

But, you know, there are—there is no good example of intervention or non-intervention in these countries since the Arab Spring and before that. I mean, you have Iraq, where we spent years occupying, a very tragic outcome. You have Libya, where we intervened but did not occupy and pretty much, you know, stayed out of it afterwards—not a good outcome. And you have Syria, where we have really not intervened, have not occupied, and you’ve had this terrible civil war with huge casualties. So, you know, some people in Washington are questioning whether there is any right answer in these extremely complicated countries in the Middle East.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, given the spread of ISIS in Libya, you report that some of Obama’s top national security aides are now pushing for a second American military intervention in Libya.

SCOTT SHANE: Yeah, I mean, one of the ironies here is that, you know, you’ve almost come full circle, but instead of targeting Gaddafi and Gaddafi’s forces, the U.S. is now targeting ISIS. And the—you know, in that debate, Martha Raddatz uses the number 2,000 ISIS fighters; now it’s up to 5,000 or 6,000. You know, on the coast of Libya, they have formed the most important outpost for the Islamic State outside Syria and Iraq, and the Europeans and the Americans are very worried about it. So, there was actually an airstrike on an ISIS camp in western Libya, where there were Tunisians responsible for some attacks in Tunisia, and now they’re looking at possible attacks on the major ISIS stronghold in Libya, which is in Sirte on the coast.

AMY GOODMAN: In your piece, you talk about the memo afterwards that highlights Hillary Rodham Clinton—HRC, as it’s put—role, talking about her leadership, ownership, stewardship of this country’s Libya policy from start to finish, with an eye to the presidential campaign. Can you talk about this, as you put it, this brag sheet?

SCOTT SHANE: Well, that memo was written in 2011, when Gaddafi had fallen. And, you know, it looked like—you know, they were holding this up as sort of an alternative to the George W. Bush invasion of Iraq, a coalition in which the U.S. was not even the leader and organizer, really, and it was a very broad coalition of nations that had intervened. They saw this as what she referred to as "smart power." And they really thought this might be something they would hold up as a very successful part of her record as she ran for president. As we’ve seen, that did not happen, and, you know, you don’t hear them raise the subject of Libya on the campaign trail at all.

...

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/3/the_libya_gamble_inside_hillary_clinton

 

[Rove!]

Obama calls Libya a "#### show"

blames it on..........

David Cameron

http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/11/obama-just-threw-serious-shade-on-david-cameron-5746221/

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Obama calls Libya a "#### show"

blames it on..........

David Cameron

http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/11/obama-just-threw-serious-shade-on-david-cameron-5746221/

Really incredible. Sad. Our reputation is a sh+ show when we do this to our allies, what a way to act. We need to own this, Hillary and Obama need to be made to own this.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

 

Obama Cites Lack of `Day After' Plan in Libya as Biggest Mistake


A failure to adequately plan for the aid and governing of Libya after the U.S.-led NATO attacks in 2011 “probably” was his biggest error in office, President Barack Obama said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

Asked by host Chris Wallace about the “worst mistake” of his soon-to-end White House years, Obama listed the aftermath of the ouster and death of Moammar Qaddafi, even as he defended the intervention.

“Probably failing to plan for the day after,” Obama said in the session, which was taped at the University of Chicago on April 7. He added that intervening in Libya “was the right thing to do.”

 
The Libya operation and its chaotic aftermath has been resurrected in the 2016 presidential campaign. That’s in part because of the increasing presence of the Islamic State there, and U.S. airstrikes to disrupt its operation.

Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, as Obama’s secretary of state, strongly supported the intervention. In a 2011 interview with CBS News when still secretary, Clinton said of Qaddafi, “We came. We saw. He died.”


‘Deeply Regrettable’


At a March 7 town hall meeting, Clinton said what has happened since then “is deeply regrettable. There have been forces coming from the outside, internal squabbles that have led to the instability that has given terrorist groups, including ISIS, a foothold in some parts of Libya.”

“I think it’s fair to say, however, if there had not been” an intervention “we would be looking at something much more resembling Syria now, than what we faced in Libya,” she said in March.

Army General David Rodriguez, head of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters last week that the Islamic State presence in Libya has doubled since 2015 to as many as 6,000 fighters.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Yahoo News in January that he thought Clinton’s “influence was pivotal in persuading the president to broaden the goal in Libya beyond just saving the people in Benghazi” from Qaddafi’s forces and “essentially focusing more on regime change. The president told me that it was one of the closest decisions he’d ever made, sort of 51-49, and I’m not sure that he would’ve made that decision if Secretary Clinton hadn’t supported it.”


‘Political Transition’


The Congressional Research Service this month wrote that Libya’s “political transition has been disrupted by armed non-state groups and threatened by the indecision and infighting of interim leaders” after the armed uprising toppled Qaddafi’s regime.

“Interim authorities” have “proved unable to form a stable government, address pressing security issues, reshape the country’s public finances, or create a viable framework for post-conflict justice and reconciliation,” according to CRS, the public policy research arm of the U.S. Congress.

A United Nations-sponsored unity government led by Fayez Serraj assumed office last month and has won support from politicians and militias, offering hope that Libya may begin to emerge from the turmoil that has uprooted nearly half a million people since Qaddafi fell in 2011 after more than four decades in power.

Obama told Fox News that his best day in office was the one on which his signature health care plan was passed, and his worst was “the day we traveled up to Newtown,” after the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adult staff members at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-10/obama-cites-lack-of-day-after-plan-in-libya-as-biggest-mistake

 

[cstu]

Really incredible. Sad. Our reputation is a sh+ show when we do this to our allies, what a way to act. We need to own this, Hillary and Obama need to be made to own this.

Was what Obama said untrue?

And if you're going to throw someone under the bus, might as well be a guy who is being forced to resign.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Was what Obama said untrue?

And if you're going to throw someone under the bus, might as well be a guy who is being forced to resign.

He's not resigning over Libya.

How about the person who's idea this was?

http://graphics.wsj.com/hillary-clinton-email-documents/pdfs/C05787434.pdf

- From the day Libyan war started.

 

[cstu]

He's not resigning over Libya.

How about the person who's idea this was?

http://graphics.wsj.com/hillary-clinton-email-documents/pdfs/C05787434.pdf

Overthrowing Gaddafi was absolutely the right thing to do.

 

[AnonymousBob]

He's not resigning over Libya.

How about the person who's idea this was?

http://graphics.wsj.com/hillary-clinton-email-documents/pdfs/C05787434.pdf

Bernie is right. There's something seriously wrong with her judgement. 

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Overthrowing Gaddafi was absolutely the right thing to do.

How's Libya look now, good?

http://www.newsweek.com/isis-has-doubled-its-ranks-libya-says-general-445536

 

[cstu]

How's Libya look now, good?

http://www.newsweek.com/isis-has-doubled-its-ranks-libya-says-general-445536

Do not care, ISIS will be defeated. Spreading democracy is not done by the short-sighted support of dictators.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Do not care, ISIS will be defeated. Spreading democracy is not done by the short-sighted support of dictators.

Thy will? The article says ISIS's numbers have doubled, not dwindled in Libya.

Are you saying our policy is still that of regime change for democratic change? That's neoconservatism. We've been at war in Libya, Iraq. Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen.

Libya at this moment is a mess, it's basically partitioned in three as a practical matter.

And the crisis has also contributed mightily to the refugee crisis in Europe.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The chaos in Libya has had a regional effect also.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

This is the current real map of Libya.

 

[cstu]

Thy will? The article says ISIS's numbers have doubled, not dwindled in Libya.

Are you saying our policy is still that of regime change for democratic change? That's neoconservatism. We've been at war in Libya, Iraq. Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen.

Libya at this moment is a mess, it's basically partitioned in three as a practical matter.

And teh crisis has also contributed mightily to the refugee crisis in Europe.

Yes, they will:

As the group has continued to lose territory in Iraq and Syria, many of its members have fled to Libya and, as it becomes harder to enter into caliphate, more foreign fighters have chosen Libya as their destination of choice.

I believe in supporting homegrown revolutions against dictators (you know, like the one we had here) not the neoconservative view of forcing democracy on people.

The world has problems right now, but I'm focused on where it will be in 20 years.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Yes, they will:

I believe in supporting homegrown revolutions against dictators (you know, like the one we had here) not the neoconservative view of forcing democracy on people.

The world has problems right now, but I'm focused on where it will be in 20 years.

We may still be fighting there in 20 years.

 

[Dr Oadi]

Yeah that Libya thing...My Bad.

 

[joffer]

Is there a good answer?

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

 

The Associated Press ‏@AP 4h4 hours ago
BREAKING: Justice Department won't seek death penalty against Libyan man charged in Benghazi attacks.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Libya: US backs arming of government for IS fight


The US and other world powers have said they are ready to arm Libya's UN-backed unity government to help it fight the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group.

Speaking in Vienna, US Secretary of State John Kerry said world powers would back Libya in seeking exemption from a UN arms embargo.

He said IS was a "new threat" to Libya and it was "imperative" it was stopped.

Last month, the Libyan government warned that IS could seize most of the country if it was not halted soon.

After holding talks with international partners, Mr Kerry said: "The GNA [Government of National Accord] is the only entity that can unify the country. It is the only way to ensure that vital institutions... fall under representative and acknowledged authority.

"It is the only way to generate the cohesion necessary to defeat Daesh [IS]."


Risks ahead, by Rana Jawad, the BBC's North Africa Correspondent


The requested arms embargo "exemption" for Libya will need to be approved by the UN Sanctions Committee before it comes into force.

But the Libyan government's formal request for it signals that they have been given assurances that it would soon be approved.

Libya remains a country where multiple administrations are still bickering over who is in charge. Armed groups in western Libya, reputed for their shifting allegiances, only loosely back the new government, and there is no clear chain of command.

There is a risk that future arms shipments will either fall into the wrong hands, or exacerbate the civil conflict there between rival militias.

Mr Kerry said support for arming the government was part of a package of measures agreed at the meeting, which included accelerating non-military aid to Libya.

He said that as well as countering IS, the GNA should take full control of Libyan ministries, backed by the international community.

A joint statement from the countries attending drew attention to Libya's role as a major transit point for migrants trying to reach Europe.

"We look forward to partnering with the GNA and neighbouring countries to tackle the threat posed throughout the Mediterranean and on its land borders by criminal organisations engaged in all forms of smuggling and trafficking, including in human beings," it said.

"We are ready to respond to the Libyan government's requests for training and equipping the presidential guard and vetted forces from throughout Libya."

But the prime minister of Libya's unity government, Fayez Sarraj, warned major challenges lay ahead, saying taking on IS would require further outside help.

"We urge the international community to assist us," he said.

"We are not talking about international intervention, we are talking about international assistance in training, equipping our troops and training our youths."

The North African country has been in chaos since Nato-backed forces overthrew long-time ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011.

Until recently it had two rival governments competing for power, and there are still hundreds of militias, some allied to IS.

Western nations hope the unity government will take on IS, which has a foothold in Sirte - the home town of Gaddafi.

The militant group has launched a series of suicide bombings and attacks on oil facilities in the country.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36300525?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central

- So. It looks like we are about to start a second proxy war in the mideast after Syria. Or a third if you count Yemen.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Another map of Libya, this from what the IS claims the situation is there. This has to be as big as what they have in Syria.

 

[beer 30]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36300525?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central

- So. It looks like we are about to start a second proxy war in the mideast after Syria. Or a third if you count Yemen.

Arming a group of radicals to fight another group of radicals is a time tested process that always, ALWAYS works out in the end. There are hundreds if not thousands of instances across history where this not only made a ton of sense but also provided a stable, well adjusted populace that showed favorably toward it's US benefactor. What could possibly go wrong?