Western nutjobs destroyed Libya - another of their wrecks. Here are the results

[galdur]

What has the West wrought in Libya?

In the fullness of the Arab Spring, helping rebels oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya seemed to Western leaders as a good idea. He was a mercurial thorn in the side to the West and an autocrat in his own country.

France and Britain led the air campaign to destroy Gaddafi's military capability. The United States assisted. President Obama justified it on humanitarian grounds, to keep Gaddafi from slaughtering the rebels and civilians where they were located.

Now Libya is a dangerous wreck, and no Western countries want to take responsibility for restoring its civil order.

The migrant shipwreck that may have left as many as 700 dead in an attempt to flee Libya is triggering reflections about European immigration policies. There are difficult questions, about collective border security and the willingness to accept refugees from Northern Africa, given the large numbers and the growing anti-immigration sentiment in much of Europe.

But that shouldn't be the end of the introspection. Whether Libya is better off today than if the West had allowed the incipient civil war to play itself out is unclear. There's not much room for it to be worse off. And it is impossible to contend that Libya is clearly better off.

The tragic shipwreck should also trigger circumspection about interfering in the affairs of other countries when there is not a direct security threat to your own.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/robertrobb/2015/04/20/what-has-west-wrought-in-libya/26081571/

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[bryant.coleman]

OK... let me make a quick comparison of pre-invasion era Libya and NATO-controlled Libya:

Libya before invasion:

1. Secular government
2. One of the most prosperous nations in Africa. Attracting migrants from all over Africa in their millions.
3. Home o some of the mega engineering products, such as the Great Man-Made River.
4 Citizens enjoy one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa
5. Probably the best healthcare facilities in the entire African continent.

Libya under NATO

1. ISIS is active, and controls most of the cities.
2. Jobs and livelihoods are vanishing. Thousands of Libyan citizens are fleeing the country, mainly to Europe.
3. Large scale destruction to infrastructure, as a result of civil war.
4. One of the most war ravaged countries in the world.
5. Healthcare facilities almost non-existent.

[Snail2]

Taxpayer's money in work :/. To be honest I wouldn't oppose some plundering raids to such countries if we all can get a fair share in exchange for our crowdfunding efforts (aka taxes) from the loot, but in this case there are no loot, no plundering just destruction and hefty bills. I don't see the point why we went there.

[Lethn]

Taxpayer's money in work :/. To be honest I wouldn't oppose some plundering raids to such countries if we all can get a fair share in exchange for our crowdfunding efforts (aka taxes) from the loot, but in this case there are no loot, no plundering just destruction and hefty bills. I don't see the point why we went there.

That's precisely the point, we're the ones who foot the bill for their ventures, politicians and government contractors benefits from all the gains made in these wars and they get the money from the tax payer so they can afford it, from their point of view, it's a win win, even if it is a balancing at where they send a bit our way through either minor tax cuts or more deficit spending, mostly it's just through deficit spending.

[saddampbuh]

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

[galdur]

Well, certainly this mess is not being viewed as a failure since Hillary Clinton - another of those certifiable nutbags that unfortunately are never taken out of circulation in the interests of public safety - is supposed to be the next president of the United States.

Psychopathic junk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y

[BitMos]

What has the West wrought in Libya?

In the fullness of the Arab Spring, helping rebels oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya seemed to Western leaders as a good idea. He was a mercurial thorn in the side to the West and an autocrat in his own country.

France and Britain led the air campaign to destroy Gaddafi's military capability. The United States assisted. President Obama justified it on humanitarian grounds, to keep Gaddafi from slaughtering the rebels and civilians where they were located.

Now Libya is a dangerous wreck, and no Western countries want to take responsibility for restoring its civil order.

The migrant shipwreck that may have left as many as 700 dead in an attempt to flee Libya is triggering reflections about European immigration policies. There are difficult questions, about collective border security and the willingness to accept refugees from Northern Africa, given the large numbers and the growing anti-immigration sentiment in much of Europe.

But that shouldn't be the end of the introspection. Whether Libya is better off today than if the West had allowed the incipient civil war to play itself out is unclear. There's not much room for it to be worse off. And it is impossible to contend that Libya is clearly better off.

The tragic shipwreck should also trigger circumspection about interfering in the affairs of other countries when there is not a direct security threat to your own.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/robertrobb/2015/04/20/what-has-west-wrought-in-libya/26081571/

You can't support on one side the freedom of people because they speak russian to self determine and oppose it on the other side, it would lead to the collapse. second this type of what ever you try to achieve here is futile. remember keep your yard and you are clean, don't become arrogant.

OK... let me make a quick comparison of pre-invasion era Libya and NATO-controlled Libya:

Libya before invasion:

1. Secular government
2. One of the most prosperous nations in Africa. Attracting migrants from all over Africa in their millions.
3. Home o some of the mega engineering products, such as the Great Man-Made River.
4 Citizens enjoy one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa
5. Probably the best healthcare facilities in the entire African continent.

Libya under NATO

1. ISIS is active, and controls most of the cities.
2. Jobs and livelihoods are vanishing. Thousands of Libyan citizens are fleeing the country, mainly to Europe.
3. Large scale destruction to infrastructure, as a result of civil war.
4. One of the most war ravaged countries in the world.
5. Healthcare facilities almost non-existent.

again, same can be said on anything by those that can't stand the high ground, is vodka making you roll along the slope of the hills?

Taxpayer's money in work :/. To be honest I wouldn't oppose some plundering raids to such countries if we all can get a fair share in exchange for our crowdfunding efforts (aka taxes) from the loot, but in this case there are no loot, no plundering just destruction and hefty bills. I don't see the point why we went there.

right now, I don't care, it's broken because those people are too weak to do what real Russians did, aka not surrender, and stand firm, even against a man who call himself king of Africa. learn. and don't stand in the fucking path. from your nation no history can be learn worth being repeated but submission.

Taxpayer's money in work :/. To be honest I wouldn't oppose some plundering raids to such countries if we all can get a fair share in exchange for our crowdfunding efforts (aka taxes) from the loot, but in this case there are no loot, no plundering just destruction and hefty bills. I don't see the point why we went there.

That's precisely the point, we're the ones who foot the bill for their ventures, politicians and government contractors benefits from all the gains made in these wars and they get the money from the tax payer so they can afford it, from their point of view, it's a win win, even if it is a balancing at where they send a bit our way through either minor tax cuts or more deficit spending, mostly it's just through deficit spending.

however how tragic it may be, once the core is a threat, the others mother fuckers must understand that rules evolves, and such once the forces focus at home, you have to feed for yourselves, like they do. however if you believe to be able to exploit a blind spot, you are delusional.

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

rapists must die. end. they are infidels.

Well, certainly this mess is not being viewed as a failure since Hillary Clinton - another of those certifiable nutbags that unfortunately are never taken out of circulation in the interests of public safety - is supposed to be the next president of the United States.

Psychopathic junk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y

the only failure is the rescue of the boys. the rest isn't my problem on this topic.

[bryant.coleman]

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

I wouldn't say that Gaddafi was a great man. But still, he did a lot of good things for the Libyans. And the Europeans should also thank him for limiting the refugee flow through Libya. His vision was a unified and progressive Africa, just like the European Union. The world powers were not in favor of that idea.

[BitMos]

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

I wouldn't say that Gaddafi was a great man. But still, he did a lot of good things for the Libyans. And the Europeans should also thank him for limiting the refugee flow through Libya. His vision was a unified and progressive Africa, just like the European Union. The world powers were not in favor of that idea.

rape = I Don't Care... if you need lyrics... provided foc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAOHXSpE-v0

okay, thank you.

[galdur]

Libya anarchy fuels boom in migrant smuggling

CAIRO — Libya's chaos has turned it into a lucrative magnet attracting migrants desperate to make the dangerous sea voyage to Europe. With no central authority to stop it, business is booming, with smugglers charging ever more as demand goes up, then using the profits to buy larger boats and heavier weapons to ensure no one dare touch them.
It's a vicious cycle that only translates into more tragedies at sea.
With each rickety boat that sets off from Libya's coast, traffickers rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars. So assured are they of their impunity that they operate openly. Many even use Facebook to advertise their services to migrants desperate to flee war, repression and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.....

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/libya-anarchy-fuels-boom-in-migrant-smuggling-1.2340718

[countryfree]

OK... let me make a quick comparison of pre-invasion era Libya and NATO-controlled Libya:

Libya before invasion:

1. Secular government
2. One of the most prosperous nations in Africa. Attracting migrants from all over Africa in their millions.
3. Home o some of the mega engineering products, such as the Great Man-Made River.
4 Citizens enjoy one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa
5. Probably the best healthcare facilities in the entire African continent.

Libya under NATO

1. ISIS is active, and controls most of the cities.
2. Jobs and livelihoods are vanishing. Thousands of Libyan citizens are fleeing the country, mainly to Europe.
3. Large scale destruction to infrastructure, as a result of civil war.
4. One of the most war ravaged countries in the world.
5. Healthcare facilities almost non-existent.

Under NATO?
Sorry, but you can't say that. NATO doesn't control anything in Libya. I wish it would, though.

Another thing which changed: before the invasion, a woman could go out in Tripoli wearing a short skirt. I'm not sure this is still possible.

[Nemo1024]

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

I wouldn't say that Gaddafi was a great man. But still, he did a lot of good things for the Libyans. And the Europeans should also thank him for limiting the refugee flow through Libya. His vision was a unified and progressive Africa, just like the European Union. The world powers were not in favor of that idea.

Add to that his vision of a pan-African gold-backed currency, and you can see why the Western powers had to put his head into a freezer.

[Chef Ramsay]

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

I wouldn't say that Gaddafi was a great man. But still, he did a lot of good things for the Libyans. And the Europeans should also thank him for limiting the refugee flow through Libya. His vision was a unified and progressive Africa, just like the European Union. The world powers were not in favor of that idea.

Add to that his vision of a pan-African gold-backed currency, and you can see why the Western powers had to put his head into a freezer.

Yep, mess around with the US dollar and that's when team usa come running after you. When the first inkling of trouble came from abroad, I'm surprised that Gadaffi just didn't pack up and relocate himself to Cuba, North Korea or some other place where he's had alliances w/.

[bryant.coleman]

Under NATO?
Sorry, but you can't say that. NATO doesn't control anything in Libya. I wish it would, though.

Another thing which changed: before the invasion, a woman could go out in Tripoli wearing a short skirt. I'm not sure this is still possible.

NATO toppled the legitimate and popular government headed by Muammar Gaddafi and then installed some of their puppets (with obvious Islamist links) in power. So basically, the Libya is under effective NATO control. It is another fact that the puppets lost most of the major cities to rebel formations, such as the Islamic State of Libya.

[Chef Ramsay]

Under NATO?
Sorry, but you can't say that. NATO doesn't control anything in Libya. I wish it would, though.

Another thing which changed: before the invasion, a woman could go out in Tripoli wearing a short skirt. I'm not sure this is still possible.

NATO toppled the legitimate and popular government headed by Muammar Gaddafi and then installed some of their puppets (with obvious Islamist links) in power. So basically, the Libya is under effective NATO control. It is another fact that the puppets lost most of the major cities to rebel formations, such as the Islamic State of Libya.

Yes indeed, Hillary's War was an epic F-up and now the terrorists are free ranging across Libya or whatever is left of it. By design I presume.

[saddampbuh]

Yep, mess around with the US dollar and that's when team usa come running after you. When the first inkling of trouble came from abroad, I'm surprised that Gadaffi just didn't pack up and relocate himself to Cuba, North Korea or some other place where he's had alliances w/.

he had no intention of running to save his skin as this is not how a true leader behaves. sources close to him said the convoy that got hit by the french bomber just before he died was on its way to make a last stand and go out fighting to the death. ape obama and kike sarkozy aren't worthy to lick gaddafis boots.

[galdur]

Yet another mission accomplished for western psychopaths


Libya's collapse

What has gone wrong?
Very little has gone right for Libya since Oct. 20, 2011, when longtime dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi was dragged from a drainage pipe outside the city of Sirte, beaten with shoes and sticks, and shot in the head by militiamen. A NATO-led coalition had helped the rebels topple Gadhafi's much-hated regime with a punishing bombing campaign, in the hope that his fall would precipitate a new era of democracy and prosperity in the oil-rich North African nation. After Gadhafi's death, NATO leaders called their involvement "a model intervention," and President Obama declared, "Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives." But four years later, Libya is economically and politically broken, and may end up splitting in two. It has two governments and two parliaments; extremist Islamist militias are causing mayhem; and about 3,000 people have been killed in fighting since last summer. Libya's lawlessness and unguarded coasts have made it the main conduit for illegal immigration into Europe, leading to tragedies such as this week's boat capsizing that cost 900 people their lives. ...... more

https://theweek.com/articles/551150/libyas-collapse

[Okurkabinladin]

Well, United States found it important to install democracy in Lybia (aswell as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Syria and with minor tweaks - UKRAINE), while ignoring islamic dictatorships in Persian gulf (I look at you Saudis). So I say, american citizens should now take care about millions of victims of democracy, not Italians, Greeks or Germans. Maybe, White House would then think twice before orchestrating another Color revolution.

http://www.targetmap.com/ThumbnailsReports/9600_THUMB_IPAD.jpg

[bryant.coleman]

Well, United States found it important to install democracy in Lybia (aswell as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Syria and with minor tweaks - UKRAINE), while ignoring islamic dictatorships in Persian gulf (I look at you Saudis). So I say, american citizens should now take care about millions of victims of democracy, not Italians, Greeks or Germans. Maybe, White House would then think twice before orchestrating another Color revolution.

At that point of time, there were major differences between the governments in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE.etc and those in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia.etc. The first group were already being ruled by US puppets, although fanatic Islamists. The second group were being ruled by secularists, who were fundamentally opposed to the United States and its puppets.

[galdur]

ISIS In Libya Update: Egypt Reportedly Readying Assault On Islamic State Group Positions

Egypt reportedly is preparing a large-scale ground and air assault along the Libyan border to oust the Islamic State group from eastern Libya. DebkaFile, quoting military and intelligence sources, said naval and marine forces are assembling at Egypt's Mediterranean ports for a possible assault on Derna, the militants' provincial capital.

DebkaFile noted the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, represents an unacceptable threat to Egypt, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been warned extremists already have penetrated some Egyptian towns and military units. ISIS fighters are being smuggled through the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt from Syria and Iraq by drug rings, DebkaFile said.

Libya has deteriorated to near-chaos since former strongman Moammar Gadhafi was dragged from a drainage pipe and executed in 2011 following a NATO-led air campaign to oust him. The country has been divided by warring factions -- one led by the legitimate government operating out of Tobruk and the other led by militias operating out of Tripoli. The West has been reluctant to intervene further since terrorists burned the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others in 2012.

ISIS has seized 11 oil fields and is pumping 200,000 barrels a day to fund its operations while Tobruk is running out of money, the Week reported. ..... more

http://www.ibtimes.com/isis-libya-update-egypt-reportedly-readying-assault-islamic-state-group-positions-1897259

[treihon]

^ isn't ISIS the perfect gift for weapons manufacturers and permanent war proponents all over the world? Couldn't have hoped for anything better. Something everyone can hate, mad as hell, and weak enough to not be a threat to the west.

[galdur]

^ isn't ISIS the perfect gift for weapons manufacturers and permanent war proponents all over the world? Couldn't have hoped for anything better. Something everyone can hate, mad as hell, and weak enough to not be a threat to the west.

Yes, a new and improved advertising campaign. After bin Laden died for the 14th and apparently final time al CIAduh was out and this ISIS thing in. It fits perfectly into the usual business model: blow countries to smithereens, install puppets in your own image, that is utterly insane and incompetent, thus ensuring constant chaos and lack of any central government. Into these basket cases that you created comes ISIS that you also created "necessitating" more bombing and destruction. Even better they spill into neighboring countries that you need pretexts to attack anyway.

[galdur]

Dead Broke Libya Hires Million-Dollar American Lobbyist

Libya’s teetering government has almost no money—and lots of ISIS enemies. So how can it afford to pay its D.C. public-relations firm’s hefty fee?
The fledgling government of Libya has hired a top-flight Washington PR firm to represent its interests in D.C., even though by all accounts Libya is a failed state with no real functioning government.

This month, the Libyan embassy in Washington, which maintains a small office in the Watergate office complex, signed a one-year contract worth $1 million with Qorvis MSLGROUP, to “provide strategic advice and assistance on public relations issues,” according to records filed with the Justice Department.

Precisely why the government has decided to spend so heavily on a foreign political campaign when it’s fighting for its life against Islamic radicals, political rivals, and ISIS is unclear. Officials at the embassy didn’t respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment. .........

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/29/dead-broke-libya-hires-million-dollar-american-lobbyist.html

[Chef Ramsay]

Dead Broke Libya Hires Million-Dollar American Lobbyist

Libya’s teetering government has almost no money—and lots of ISIS enemies. So how can it afford to pay its D.C. public-relations firm’s hefty fee?
The fledgling government of Libya has hired a top-flight Washington PR firm to represent its interests in D.C., even though by all accounts Libya is a failed state with no real functioning government.

This has western neocons hands all over it. They are the ones that were salivating at the mouth to overthrow Gadaffi and then create the vacuum that ISIS took over so they can use the media to show them murdering more Christians. F them all the way to hell.

[galdur]

Yes, the smell is familiar isn´t it. Those cockroaches got well entrenched with Reagan I guess and every administration has been infested by them since - with disastrous results. Remember when Little Bush was being sold ? Yeah, he´s dumb as a rock with not a clue but that´s all right because he´ll be bringing with him all those wonderful and experienced folks that used to work for his daddy. Too bad that most of that crap wasn´t taken out of circulation thirty years ago in the interests of public safety.

[bryant.coleman]

This has western neocons hands all over it. They are the ones that were salivating at the mouth to overthrow Gadaffi and then create the vacuum that ISIS took over so they can use the media to show them murdering more Christians. F them all the way to hell.

The main aim was to take control of the oil and gas resources of Libya. (Libya supplies most of its oil and gas to Southern Europe, especially to Italy). But things didn't went according to the plan. The NATO puppets proved to be extremely inefficient and incompetent. As a result, now we have the ISIS controlling most of Libya.

[galdur]

This has western neocons hands all over it. They are the ones that were salivating at the mouth to overthrow Gadaffi and then create the vacuum that ISIS took over so they can use the media to show them murdering more Christians. F them all the way to hell.

The main aim was to take control of the oil and gas resources of Libya. (Libya supplies most of its oil and gas to Southern Europe, especially to Italy). But things didn't went according to the plan. The NATO puppets proved to be extremely inefficient and incompetent. As a result, now we have the ISIS controlling most of Libya.

Incompetence is always the excuse but since nobody is ever fired for being incompetent, only promoted to perpetrate more scams that also fall flat - that excuse doesn´t hold up. This whole garbage heap that ruins country after country with their war scams needs to be arrested and brought before an international court to find out their real motives.

[galdur]

EU has failed to get a green light from Libya’s government about its migrant crisis plan, the nation’s envoy to the UN, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told AP. Libya is against the destruction of illegal migrant boats and the union’s ground troops on its territory.

"They never asked anything of us. Why should we send them this letter?" Dabbashi asked, referring to Libya’s approval to the request for EU ground forces to get involved.

“We will not accept any boots on the ground,” he added.

Libya has been largely lawless since the toppling of longtime strongman Muammar Gaddafi four years ago, with which the EU and US assisted the opposition forces. Since then a wave of migrants fleeing the internal conflict has increased and the EU has been facing a growing wave of criticism for not doing enough to save those fleeing to Europe.

http://rt.com/news/257105-libya-against-eu-plan/

[galdur]

Report: Human Rights Abuses in Libya Force Thousands to Flee to Europe

Diddn´t western nutcases make a total basket case out of the country to eradicate human rights abuses ? Like in all the other basket cases they´ve created ?

[galdur]

‘EU not concerned with humanitarian crisis it caused in Africa’

Published on May 18, 2015
The EU has come up with a plan to battle immigration by launching a naval operation targeting people-smugglers in the Mediterranean. For more on this Lode Vanoost - a former deputy speaker of the Belgian Parliament joins RT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvWYjb5KQo0

[Chef Ramsay]

The fact is that Hillary destroyed this country and let the arms to float up into Syria. She should have never let Gadaffi get wasted so to let ISIS take over and find a nice new way to make a come up. Her and her neocon allies dealt this hand and now the country is ripe for radical Islam to do their thing. Not good.

[galdur]

Gaddafi's home town falls to Islamic State in anarchic Libya

SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Standing guard at his frontline post, Libyan soldier Mohammed Abu Shager can see where Islamic State militants are holed up with their heavy weaponry less than a kilometer away.

The militants have effectively taken over former dictator Muammar Gaddafi's home city of Sirte as they exploit a civil war between two rival governments to expand in North Africa.

"Every night they open fire on us," said Abu Shebar, who with comrades on Sirte's western outskirts holds the last position of troops belonging to one of the two warring Libyan governments, the General National Congress, which controls the capital Tripoli and most of the west of the country.

"They are only active at night," he said, pointing to the militants' position in a house just down the road blocked by sandbags. He sleeps in a shed next to his firing positions where used tank shells litter the ground.

Libya, which has descended into near anarchy since NATO warplanes helped rebels overthrow Gaddafi in a 2011 civil war, is now the third big stronghold for the Sunni Islamist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, which declared a Caliphate to rule over all Muslims from territory it holds in Syria and Iraq. ...

https://news.yahoo.com/gaddafis-home-town-falls-islamic-state-anarchic-libya-094455638.html

[galdur]

Unable to halt Europe-bound migrants, Tripoli demands help

TRIPOLI | BY ULF LAESSING

Europe cannot halt the deadly traffic of African migrants across the Mediterranean unless it ends a boycott of forces that have seized power in the Libyan capital and helps authorities there cope, the de facto government in Tripoli said.

Chaos and civil war since NATO warplanes helped topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 have turned the North African country into the launching point for human traffickers smuggling tens of thousands of people across the Mediterranean.

Libya's rulers have rounded up thousands of Europe-bound African migrants in makeshift detention centers. But officials say they have no room to hold the migrants, no way of fighting smugglers and no hope of guarding vast desert frontiers to prevent thousands more people trying to reach the sea.

"We tell you: come and talk and cooperate with us, the national salvation government," Mohamed al-Ghirani, foreign minister in the government based in the capital Tripoli, told Reuters in his office overlooking the Mediterranean.

"If Europe doesn't cooperate, then after (some) years Europe will be completely black. Europe will change from a white Europe to an African Europe," he said.

The lack of any unified authority in Libya has prevented virtually all international cooperation to respond to the migration crisis. An EU team helping to train and advise Libyan border guards evacuated the country.

Nearly all European countries have withdrawn their embassies from Tripoli and refuse to recognize Ghirani's government, which took control of the capital in heavy fighting last year. Instead, they recognize a rump government now based in the east.

After 800 migrants drowned in the shipwreck of a fishing boat last month, European leaders agreed at an emergency summit to strengthen naval patrols off the Libyan coast to fight the smugglers.

But Ghirani said such efforts were pointless unless Europe began cooperating with his government's forces on the ground.

"Now we cannot do anything. The state is weak," he said. "We need logistics, intelligence, aircraft."

UNFIT FOR HUMAN BEINGS

Ghirani said Libya had detained more than 16,000 mostly African migrants in overcrowded detention centers. Some were being housed in abandoned schools and other public buildings.

At a detention center in Gharboulli east of Tripoli, almost 100 people shared one cell with a single toilet. Men were segregated from women, some of whom were pregnant, lying on mattresses next to each other on the floor.

Detainees are allowed to leave the crowded cell only briefly to meet visitors.

"This place is not fit for human beings. We don't get fresh air in the cell and many are sick," said 24-year old Eritrean Mussie Tolde who has been held for two months since the Libyan navy stopped the crowded boat on which he tried to reach Italy.

Authorities struggle to provide medical care for detained migrants, many of whom arrive exhausted or undernourished from weeks in overloaded trucks driving across the Sahara, said the center's deputy director, Faraj Abdullah.

"A doctor comes for a day or two, but it's not enough."

Another detention center visited by Reuters in the city of Misrata further east was so full even the floor outside the cells was packed with migrants. Hundreds shared one toilet. Shouting broke out when one person got up to get some air.

TWO GOVERNMENTS

Since an alliance of rebels seized Tripoli last year and the internationally-recognized leadership fled to the east, Libya has had two rival governments, fighting a civil war. Both field "armies" formed mainly of loose coalitions of rebel groups that fought against Gaddafi, funding themselves out of Libya's oil revenue. Some parts of the country are also in the hands of Islamist groups, including fighters who proclaim allegiance to Islamic State, the group that controls much of Syria and Iraq.

The chaos has given free rein to people-smugglers, who have set up a vast trafficking trade, charging thousands of dollars to bring migrants across the desert from sub-Saharan Africa and pack them into unsafe boats for the trip across the sea.

More than 170,000 migrants successfully crossed the Mediterranean from Libya last year, and more than 3,000 drowned at sea. The International Organization for Migration forecasts the number attempting the journey - and the death toll - could both increase by several times this year.

Colonel Mohamed Abu Breeda, assistant director of the illegal migration department at the Tripoli government's interior ministry said he had 8,000 men to cover the vast desert country and lacked vehicles and weapons to guard its desert borders.

"Our possibilities are very, very limited. We cannot do anything without support from the European Union," he said. "The southern borders are open without any monitoring.... The smugglers have weapons, better capabilities."

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing; Edited by Peter Graff)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/24/us-europe-migrants-libya-insight-idUSKBN0O907L20150524

[bryant.coleman]

"If Europe doesn't cooperate, then after (some) years Europe will be completely black. Europe will change from a white Europe to an African Europe," he said.

That will be the wet-dream of every European liberal. 

Right now, Europe is something like "Brown Europe". White Europe existed some 5-6 decades ago, and is now restricted to fringe countries such as Belarus and Estonia.

[mayflor2]

What has the West wrought in Libya?

In the fullness of the Arab Spring, helping rebels oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya seemed to Western leaders as a good idea. He was a mercurial thorn in the side to the West and an autocrat in his own country.

France and Britain led the air campaign to destroy Gaddafi's military capability. The United States assisted. President Obama justified it on humanitarian grounds, to keep Gaddafi from slaughtering the rebels and civilians where they were located.

Now Libya is a dangerous wreck, and no Western countries want to take responsibility for restoring its civil order.

The migrant shipwreck that may have left as many as 700 dead in an attempt to flee Libya is triggering reflections about European immigration policies. There are difficult questions, about collective border security and the willingness to accept refugees from Northern Africa, given the large numbers and the growing anti-immigration sentiment in much of Europe.

But that shouldn't be the end of the introspection. Whether Libya is better off today than if the West had allowed the incipient civil war to play itself out is unclear. There's not much room for it to be worse off. And it is impossible to contend that Libya is clearly better off.

The tragic shipwreck should also trigger circumspection about interfering in the affairs of other countries when there is not a direct security threat to your own.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/robertrobb/2015/04/20/what-has-west-wrought-in-libya/26081571/

The west should not bother with that part of the world unless absolutely necessary.   The Middle East is still in the dark ages for a reason and will destroy themselves eventually. 

[galdur]

Libya Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni survives assassination attempt

Abdullah al-Thinni, Libya's internationally recognized prime minister, has survived an assassination attempt unscathed. Armed gunmen reportedly opened fire on al-Thinni's motorcade as it left a session of parliament.

http://www.dw.de/libya-prime-minister-abdullah-al-thinni-survives-assassination-attempt/a-18477700

[bryant.coleman]

The west should not bother with that part of the world unless absolutely necessary.   The Middle East is still in the dark ages for a reason and will destroy themselves eventually. 

How ironic?

The middle-east was just fine, before the Americans arrived there and began dividing people based upon the Shia-Sunni sectarian division. Almost all the wars fought in the Middle-East, from 1948 had the Americans playing some part in it. I am not just talking about the Arab-Israeli wars, but also about the Iran-Iraq war, 1990 Gulf War.etc.

[galdur]

May. 28, 2015 | 07:54 PM

Libya on verge of economic collapse: UN

| Reuters
BRUSSELS: Libya is on the verge of economic collapse as rival factions haggle over a political settlement, the United Nations special envoy said on Thursday.

Bernardino Leon, who has been trying for months to broker an agreement on a national unity government for Libya, said the United Nations was preparing a new draft of a possible political agreement which it hoped to give to the feuding parties in the first week of June.

Two governments - one in the east, the other in Tripoli - are fighting for control of the North African state four years after leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted.

Leon said that in the last round of talks in Morocco, the rival groups had agreed on 80 percent of an accord and negotiators were working on the remaining 20 percent, which was the most difficult part.

Libyans understood that the only solution was a political agreement but it was difficult to say if it was possible within the next three or four weeks, he told a news conference in Brussels.

He warned that Libya was running out of time.

"Libya is on the verge of economic and financial collapse. It is facing huge security threats because of the civil war but also...because of the ISIS threat," he said, referring to militants who have gained a foothold in the oil-rich country.

"Libya's economic collapse is a real possibility. Recently, I met with the governor of the central bank. The situation is very difficult in terms of Libyan finances," Leon said.

Libya is high on the European Union's agenda because thousands of refugees from strife in the Middle East and Africa are using it as a jumping off point for dangerous Mediterranean voyages to try to reach Europe.

European countries are working on a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a planned EU mission to destroy migrant traffickers' boats off the Libyan coast.

Russia, which wields a Security Council veto, has said that destroying the boats would be too extreme and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also said such action could deprive people of their livelihoods.

"I think we should not dwell on this element of destruction. It is about being effective in fighting these mafias," Leon said. ...... more

https://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/May-28/299620-libya-on-verge-of-economic-collapse-un.ashx

[galdur]

Libyan investment chief: 'Goldman Sachs squandered a nation's wealth, someone has to answer'

Interview: Hassan Bouhadi, the chairman of the Libyan Investment Authority, outlines his role in helping to rebuild the war-torn nation

Hassan Bouhadi, the chairman of Libya’s $67bn (£44bn) national wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority, doesn’t want his job to be this interesting.
Ideally, he would be in Libya’s capital Tripoli, quietly stewarding the country’s wealth, smoothing out the public finances of an economy that is 97pc dependent on volatile oil revenues.
Instead, he is sitting in a London hotel, in between missions to Washington and Tunis. After that, he will return to Malta, where the LIA has been forced to move due to the violence in Tripoli.
As well as trying to keep his own struggling government and the international community on side, Mr Bouhadi is facing a leadership challenge from the LIA’s former chair.
And last but not least, he is attempting to drive forward two multi-billion-dollar lawsuits against Goldman Sachs and Société Générale, two of the biggest banks in the world.
If Mr Bouhadi, who last October became the third chairman of the LIA in a matter of months, is finding the job stressful, it doesn’t show.
“After 40 years of dictatorship, we are trying to create a new Libya, where we can see that a democratic process is taking shape,” he says.
“It’s tough, but at the end of the day this is what we’ve been appointed for. It is a very, very challenging time for Libya as a whole, but we’ve decided to do the right thing.” ....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/11641830/Libyan-investment-chief-Goldman-Sachs-squandered-a-nations-wealth-someone-has-to-answer.html

[galdur]

Libyan gains may offer ISIS a base for new attacks

By Hassan Morajea and Erin Cunningham June 6 at 8:57 PM
 
MISURATA, Libya — As the Islamic State scores new victories in Syria and Iraq, its affiliate in Libya is also on the offensive, consolidating control of Moammar Gaddafi’s former home town and staging a bomb attack on a major city, Misurata.

The Islamic State’s growth could further destabilize a country already suffering from a devastating civil war. And Libya could offer the extremists a new base from which to launch attacks elsewhere in North Africa.

The Libyan affiliate does not occupy large amounts of territory as the Islamic State does in Syria and Iraq. But in the past few months, the local group has seized Sirte, the coastal city that was Gaddafi’s last redoubt, as well as neighborhoods in the eastern city of Derna.

A key reason for the Libyan affiliate’s expansion is the chaos that has enveloped this oil-rich nation since the 2011 Arab Spring revolt. The country has two rival governments and is rent by fighting between militias that emerged from the anti-Gaddafi struggle.

Although the Islamic State claims allies in many countries, the Libya branch is especially close to the main organization. Its core fighters in Libya are veterans of the Syrian civil war.

Security experts estimate there are as many as 3,000 fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Libya. The country has become one of the primary locations to train with the group outside of Syria and Iraq. Volunteers from Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries have flocked here to fight with the extremists and other jihadist organizations. The Islamic State also has succeeded in pulling away members of other Libyan extremist groups.

In the latest signs of their growing strength, Islamic State fighters last month seized the airport and an adjacent air base in Sirte, where they have controlled most government institutions since February. The militants also took over the nearby headquarters of a mammoth network of pipes that pump fresh water to Libyan cities.

Then, on May 31, the militants dispatched a Tunisian suicide bomber to Misurata, 170 miles west of Sirte. He rammed his vehicle into a major security checkpoint, killing five.

Five days later, Islamic State fighters captured the town of Harawah, 46 miles east of Sirte.

Misurata’s militias gained a reputation as some of the country’s toughest fighters during the 2011 uprising. But the powerful militias have been deeply embroiled in a fight against forces aligned with Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the Libyan army chief who declared war on the country’s Islamists in 2014.

[Gen. Hifter, who is leading Libya rebellion, spent years in Northern Virginia]


The Misurata commanders have been cautious about taking on the Islamic State, even though the militias clashed with extremist fighters in Sirte. But the recent suicide bombing has prompted the commanders to shift their focus.

“They see the threat, and they are really focused on it now,” said Frederic Wehrey, a Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Misurata’s militia leaders held meetings in Tripoli, the capital, this past week to coordinate a counterattack, according to an official from the city’s military council. Misurata sits along the coast between Tripoli and Sirte.

“The priorities have shifted,” Wehrey said. “Misurata is getting hit [by the Islamic State], and they are just down the road.”

Since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, this city of about 500,000 — Libya’s third-largest — has enjoyed relative stability. Thanks to advanced infrastructure and the city’s port, Misurata has again established itself as a Mediterranean trade hub.

Advancing in Libya
Gaddafi cracked down on domestic Islamist groups during his four-decade rule. But Islamists became powerful after the 2011 rebellion, with some joining the government and others openly running armed factions.

Still, the Islamic State did not appear in Libya until mid-2014. A group of Libyan militants who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State while fighting in Syria returned home and began to organize in the eastern city of Derna, according to experts and Libyan Islamists.

At the time, Libya’s weak government was fracturing into two entities: an Islamist-led administration in Tripoli, and a Hifter-aligned authority in the eastern city of Tobruk.

Later in 2014, the Islamic State leadership sent a delegation from Syria to Libya to formally receive pledges of allegiance to its self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Libyan group set up three caliphate “provinces” in the east, in Tripoli and in the south. Each province has an Islamic State governor, but there is no single spiritual or military leader inside Libya, experts say.

For the Islamic State, Libya is attractive because of its location along the Mediterranean Sea, making it a potential launchpad for attacks on places such as Egypt and Tunisia, analysts say. The country’s vast desert regions and general lawlessness also mean the Islamic State could operate quite freely.

In February, Islamic State fighters drove a convoy of vehicles mounted with heavy weapons into Sirte, capturing a cluster of government buildings and a local radio station.

Soon the militants began enforcing their own brand of strict Islamic law. According to local news reports, militants established checkpoints to inspect vehicles and confiscate items such as CDs and cigarettes, which they say are not Islamic.

“These extremist forces were not so strong a few months ago,” said Mohamed Lagha, a Libyan journalist who has reported from Sirte. But “they have continued to grow” and now control most of the city, he said.

The Libyan Islamic State militants caused an international outcry in February when they released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians who had been abducted in December and January. In April, the group released a similar video in which militants beheaded 15 Ethiopian Christians and shot 15 more in Libya.

The Islamic State also has claimed terrorist attacks in cities such as Tripoli and Benghazi.

Despite the extremists’ advances, there are several factors that will probably hinder their growth, Wehrey said. The country’s 6.2 million people are mostly Sunni, so there are not the kind of sectarian divisions that have allowed the Islamic State to grow in Syria and Iraq.

Lacking in revenue
The Libyan affiliate also lacks a stream of revenue, hampering its ability to offer social services. In Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State has far more income because of its control of some of the countries’ oil production, as well as its ability to impose taxes and collect ransoms from kidnappings. Libya’s petroleum resources remain under the control of the two governments.

Still, the Misuratan military official said the Islamic State militants in Sirte are capable fighters.

“We are not sure how many [fighters] there are, and they are pretty well-armed,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to the media. “Of course they are a threat.”

Wehrey said the number of militants in Sirte is probably in the low- to mid-hundreds.

The military official said the Misurata factions plan to move against the Islamic State in Sirte before the end of the month, but they might not have enough manpower to attack so soon. The Misuratan brigades, which are made up of as many as 40,000 fighters, are deployed across Libya in their fight against Hifter’s forces.

The United Nations has for months worked to hammer out a peace deal between the two Libyan governments, which have been unable to cooperate in confronting the militants.

“We need the people upstairs to get their act together and agree that these extremists must be fought,” said Ismael Shighmani, a Misurata police officer who was close to the checkpoint that was attacked recently. “They are the main threat in Libya now.”

Read more:

In Libya, will Misrata be the kingmaker?

Why the Islamic State has its eyes on Libya

Oil-rich Libya, torn by conflict, may be going broke

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-libyas-civil-war-the-islamic-state-shows-itself-as-the-main-threat/2015/06/06/65766592-0879-11e5-951e-8e15090d64ae_story.html

[bryant.coleman]

Libya on verge of economic collapse: UN

This might seem difficult to believe. The Americans and their NATO vassals have succeeded in converting Libya, from the richest nation in the African continent, to one of the poorest. Earlier, Libya was one of the most preferred destination for economic immigrants from the Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, Libyan refugees are flooding in to Southern European nations in their tens of thousands.

[galdur]

CIA not sure if they killed some terrier guy for the 23rd time or not.

US Strike in Libya Killed Three, But Growing Doubts Target Was Among Them
Officials Unclear Who Was Actually Slain in Strike

by Jason Ditz, June 15, 2015

A US airstrike overnight yesterday in Libya was initially reported to have killed al-Qaeda figure Mokhtar Belmokhtar, but after Libyan officials initially “confirmed” this they followed up by saying they were unsure who was actually killed in the US Strike.

The strike targeted a farm near Benghazi, where US officials believed Belmokhtar was in a meeting. Three people were killed in the strike, but no one has been conclusively identified, and there appears to be growing doubt over Belmokhtar being among them.

Belmokhtar was a figure within al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and had claimed credit for the 2013 Ameriras hostage-taking incident in Algeria, in which 39 hostages and 29 militants were slain. He had been listed by the State Department as a terrorist financier since 2003.

Belmokhtar had been falsely reported slain several times in the past, only to reemerge publicly, and officials seem less eager to claim conclusively that they have him this time, because these false reports are getting a bit embarrassing.

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/15/us-strike-in-libya-killed-three-but-growing-doubts-target-was-among-them/

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/15/us-strike-in-libya-killed-three-but-growing-doubts-target-was-among-them/

[bryant.coleman]

^^^^ I am not surprised. On the other hand, I really doubt about the true intention of these Americans. By killing innocent people using drones, they are encouraging more and more locals to join the ISIS. I am sure that at least some innocent people might have died in the latest strikes, as the American drone strikes are notoriously inaccurate.

[galdur]

Yes, they seem to have intelligence, false or true, about locations where their targets might stop by or reside, at family, friends etc. and shoot that up in the hope of being right. If they´re not well tough luck but why worry there are no consequences for them, nobody is going to hold them accountable for mass murder. And so it goes on. Clearly this system is run by homicidal maniacs and psychopaths which is regrettable but what is to be done?
They´re not going to take themselves out of circulation in the interests of public safety. Maybe if they give Pres, Barry Banana and his gang of fruitcakes another peace prize he´ll be a little less blood thirsty?

[Lorenzo]

The tragic shipwreck should also trigger circumspection about interfering in the affairs of other countries when there is not a direct security threat to your own.

Western-style democracies tend to work poorly in the Middle East (yeah, I know Libya technically isn't in the Middle East). I don't know if that's something inherent to their cultures or if it's the result of the decades-long US policy of propping up dictatorships in the area during the Cold War but governments there tend to take two forms; either a secular dictatorship or a religious theocracy.

While authoritarian dictatorships might carry negative connotations in the West, a heavy-handed dictator like Gaddafi, Hussein, Assad, or Mubarak is helpful in terms of maintaining stability and suppressing sectarian tensions. Hence their removal exacerbates these sectarian conflicts and often results in these countries descending into civil war.

Bush naively wanted to force democracy in the Middle East. His plan to topple Saddam Hussein succeeded, but since then Iraq has descended into chaos. It was from this chaos that ISIS emerged. Then the Syrian uprising allowed ISIS to grow in strength and numbers and emerge as a major force in the region as well as conquering large swaths of Iraq in the process.

There are some successful democracies in the Middle East, however. Lebanon, for example, is one of the most diverse countries in the Middle East. It has a strict policy of reserving the highest political positions to specific sects in order to deter sectarian conflict by making everyone feel represented. Turkey is another example - but it too, began as a secular authoritarian dictatorship under its first President, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

[pureelite]

What has the West wrought in Libya?

In the fullness of the Arab Spring, helping rebels oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya seemed to Western leaders as a good idea. He was a mercurial thorn in the side to the West and an autocrat in his own country.

France and Britain led the air campaign to destroy Gaddafi's military capability. The United States assisted. President Obama justified it on humanitarian grounds, to keep Gaddafi from slaughtering the rebels and civilians where they were located.

Now Libya is a dangerous wreck, and no Western countries want to take responsibility for restoring its civil order.

The migrant shipwreck that may have left as many as 700 dead in an attempt to flee Libya is triggering reflections about European immigration policies. There are difficult questions, about collective border security and the willingness to accept refugees from Northern Africa, given the large numbers and the growing anti-immigration sentiment in much of Europe.

But that shouldn't be the end of the introspection. Whether Libya is better off today than if the West had allowed the incipient civil war to play itself out is unclear. There's not much room for it to be worse off. And it is impossible to contend that Libya is clearly better off.

The tragic shipwreck should also trigger circumspection about interfering in the affairs of other countries when there is not a direct security threat to your own.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/robertrobb/2015/04/20/what-has-west-wrought-in-libya/26081571/

They've done it all before, and we always come to the same conclusion: where they go, grass doesn't grow anymore. Arab spring, now Ukraine, Serbia, entire Balkans actually... That is their MO, that's all because of their greed.

[bryant.coleman]

Maybe if they give Pres, Barry Banana and his gang of fruitcakes another peace prize he´ll be a little less blood thirsty?

Just wait until the Pinoccibitch becomes the President of the United States in 2016. Compared to her, Barry Banana will look like an angel. Whatever we say about him, we have to admit that Banana was less war crazy, when compared to the loonies such as Pinoccibitch, Jeb Bush, GW Bush, Joe Biden, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio.etc.

[galdur]

Chaos in Libya paves way for Islamic State expansion

BY REBECCA MURRAY
McClatchy Foreign Staff

June 17, 2015

MISRATA, LIBYA — Benefiting from Libya’s political chaos, Islamic State militants are consolidating their base in the city of Sirte and grabbing new territory, pushing back fighters from Misrata.

Libya’s two dueling governments, one based in Tripoli and the other based in Beida and Tobruk in the country’s east, are running dangerously low of cash as they back armed groups against each other, allowing the Islamic State to exploit the rift to grab territory.

The Tripoli-based government, known as Libya Dawn, and its rival, the Dignity coalition based in the east, have yet to come together to target the Islamic State’s growth, even as some commanders for Misrata’s militia, long considered the country’s most adept and a mainstay of Libya Dawn, worry that their city has become an Islamic State target.

“Daash are the biggest enemy,” said one Misratan intelligence official, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. He declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of his work.

Still, many in the Tripoli-based government view defeating Gen. Khalifa Hifter, who is aligned with the Dignity coalition, as a higher priority.

The Islamic State found fertile ground for development among Sirte’s disaffected, who were on the losing end of the 2011 war that toppled hometown boy Moammar Gadhafi and found their once-favored city devastated by the fighting and the NATO aerial campaign, according to one religious sheikh who fled his house on the outskirts of Sirte after Islamic State devotees moved into the house next door three months ago.

Some unhappy Gadhafi supporters at first had gravitated to Ansar al Shariah, the Islamist militia tied to the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

Then about six months ago, foreigners began arriving in Sirte, the sheikh said.

“The foreigners came one by one so the people of Sirte didn’t feel their presence,” he said. Recently, he said he was stopped at an impromptu checkpoint. He noticed the gunmen were not Libyans but from countries like Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan and Yemen.

Like other religious and tribal leaders, he asked to remain anonymous, saying it is too dangerous to speak out against the Islamic State, which he estimated number as many as 1,000 men in Sirte. He said they control control all the mosques.

“They have never given me trouble as they respect me – I taught some of them about the Quran before,” the sheikh as he sat in his refuge of a small, whitewashed room lined with mattresses in Misrata.

The fighters, he said, appeared to have money, had stocked up on supplies like fuel, and had recruited quietly through family networks.

The Islamic State flag now flies over the sprawling Ougadogou conference center Gadhafi built in Sirte. The militants also control the university, the Ibn Sina hospital, government buildings, including the police station and the passport office, as well as the seaport.

The militants also occupy the luxury Mahari hotel, the horrific scene of a seaside massacre by Misratan fighters against alleged Gadhafi loyalists in 2011, and more recently a suspected site for gruesome execution videos produced by the Islamic State.

Views of the Islamic State as a threat continue to evolve within the Tripoli-based government, and those from Misrata within it.

In January, after a spectacular terrorist attack on Tripoli’s Corinthian hotel and the videotaped beheadings of Egyptian laborers, Misrata dispatched its Brigade 166 to contain the Islamic State threat inside Sirte while other units continued fighting Hifter, a former Gadhafi general who defected to the United States in the 1980s and returned to Libya as the NATO air campaign deepened in 2011.

Misrata authorities talked tough about the Islamic State threat in March after Islamic State fighters murdered 10 Misratan militia members at a checkpoint, declaring their intention of ending the group’s presence in Sirte.

But an offensive by Hifter on Misratan forces outside Tripoli coincided with Misrata’s buildup to fight the Islamic State. Faced with two enemies, the Misratans chose not to engage in what they feared would be drawn-out urban combat in Sirte and instead tried to contain the Islamic State. The result was a series of tit-for-tat skirmishes on Sirte’s outskirts.

Despite the rising toll of Misratan fighters killed by the Islamic State around Sirte, Libya Dawn leaders continue to insist that Hifter was the deadlier threat.

The Misratan intelligence official, who spent time tracking down and capturing Islamic State militants, voiced frustration at what he perceived as a lack of support from the government in Tripoli. He produced a thick stack of unused credit cards from Aman Bank that he claimed was found on an Islamic State suspect and were used as a recruiting tool. Each had a spending limit of 20,000 Libyan – about $14,000.

He also had a notebook filled with phone numbers of suspects he claimed were pulled off Islamic State pages on Facebook, and religious literature culled from mosques in the coastal town of Sabratha, a major center for recruitment.

Misratan fighters also blame Tripoli’s Defense Ministry for their defeat at the hands of the Islamic State at Sirte’s airport on May 29. The airport had been a Misratan military base, but Islamic State fighters overran the Misratan positions. They also seized the massive pipeline that funnels water from desert aquifers to feed Libya’s thirsty coast. Soon after, the Islamic State captured the city’s main power station, 30 miles to the west. They also now control the coastal road east of Sirte running toward the country’s lucrative oilfields.

The Tripoli government provided little support – weapons, ammunition and wages – Misratan fighters complain, and now they fear the Islamic State is attacking Misrata itself, with a series of recent explosions inside the city.

A spokesman for the Tripoli government, Jamal Zubia, called for international support against the Islamic State. Libya Dawn’s rival in the east is the internationally recognized government.

“We are up against a well-financed enemy with sophisticated support,” he said. “And the international community should support us against them.”

But Zubia ruled out direct intervention, such as the NATO bombing campaign that toppled Gadhafi. “No one will accept that,” he said.

For Jamal Trachey, the military leader of Misrata’s elite Third Force, Tripoli’s hesitancy to tackle the Islamic State is a mistake. His fighters have been attacked by the Islamic State on the isolated desert road between the coast and Jufra, in southern Libya where they are based.

“The Islamic State is a bigger threat than Hifter,” he said.

Murray is a McClatchy special correspondent.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/06/17/270105/islamic-state-expands-in-libya.html#storylink=cpy

[galdur]

Obama’s Libya Fiasco

June 19, 2015

Exclusive: With Libya’s bloody “regime change” in 2011, the Obama administration and its European allies opened the door to anarchy and now the emergence of another Islamic State terror affiliate, but chaos and indecision continue to dominate the West’s reaction to the crisis, says Andres Cala.


By Andres Cala

U.S. Marines are expanding the U.S. military presence in Spain with eyes set on Libya’s escalating three-way civil war, which threatens to become a Syrian-like quagmire on Europe’s doorstep, an unintended consequence of the 2011 U.S.-European-led “regime change” that overthrew and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

While there’s little chance – for now – that the Marines will get entangled in yet another military adventure, America’s European allies are fumbling the Libyan crisis, allowing the Islamic State (Daesh, ISIS, ISIL or whatever you call it) to exploit a power vacuum, though still far from taking over.

President Barack Obama at the White House with National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Samantha Power (right), his U.N. ambassador. (Photo credit: Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama at the White House with National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Samantha Power (right), his U.N. ambassador. (Photo credit: Pete Souza)
The agreement, signed this week and awaiting only ratification from Spain’s Parliament, will make the Morón de la Frontera air base in southern Spain into a permanent base of operations against jihadists in North Africa, covering not just Libya but also Mali, Tunisia and Algeria. Troops stationed there will swell from the 850 currently there under temporary agreements to 2,200, plus 500 civilians. The agreement also involves basing 26 aircraft.

Morón will house a forward-operating base with a potent armory and fast-reaction special-op teams to carry out elite counter-terrorism operations, like the one in 2013 when American forces captured an accused Libyan terrorist for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Or the 2014 capture of the alleged mastermind of the 2012 attack in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. diplomatic personnel.

And perhaps as a prelude to what is to come, there was the stealth air assault earlier this week in Libya (the first American one since the 2011 NATO campaign) that targeted Mokhtar Belmoktar, the elusive Algerian Al Qaeda leader who led the attack on an Algerian gas plant in 2013 that left 38 hostages dead, including three Americans. (His death is not confirmed and Al Qaeda’s branch in northern Africa denied that Belmoktar is dead.)

To be sure, the U.S. deal with Spain is not a strategic shift, but rather a military acknowledgement that Europe may not be able to deal with the Libyan chaos. The Islamic State franchise already controls coastal territory and is now targeting Misrata, the third largest city.

The threat is real — and individual countries like Italy have called for a more active military role. The problem is that NATO is divided. And, while the Islamic State menace is still nascent, Libya’s strategic position – just a few hundred miles south of Sicily – represents a danger to Europe, underscored by recent attempts of migrants to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya.

The Libyan conflict is looking like the early stages of the Iraqi conflict after longtime dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted and killed, unleashing pent-up hostilities among competing tribes, ethnic groups and political factions. There are similarities, too, with the Syrian civil war in which U.S. Arab allies and Turkey have supported the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.

In Libya, there are two governments operating, each with their own foreign support. In the east, based in Tobruk on a cruise ship, is the “Dignity” government, which most European countries and the Saudi-Egyptian alliance endorse. The Tobruk government is backed by an authoritarian and volatile general, Khalifa Haftar.

In the west, based in the capital Tripoli, is a moderate Islamist coalition under the “Libya Dawn” banner, backed by Qatar and Turkey. Though Muslim Brotherhood-based, the coalition is mostly allied warring clans that mistrust their eastern rivals. The U.K. and the U.S. officially remain on the sidelines, supporting United Nations negotiations aimed at unifying the Tripoli and Tobruk factions.

The civil war – and military stalemate – has so far thwarted all attempts to build a reconciliation government, a prerequisite to combat gains by ISIS and other radical militants, including Al Qaeda. The UN-set deadline expired this week with no signs of a breakthrough, basically because most European countries continue to support the eastern bloc despite its fragile political position.

The latest UN-pitched deal favors the Tripoli faction, but it has been rejected by the Tobruk faction. In essence, each warring side demands to have a commanding role in any future national unity government, while rejecting any prominent role for the other.

Sound familiar? Rival political factions unable to resolve their differences while extremists – Al Qaeda and the Islamic State – gain strength and consolidate territory. This was the pattern in Iraq and Syria – and now Libya, where the ISIS franchise is bulking up in Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown, smack in the center of the two other sides.

ISIS is still far from posing a serious threat, but some of the militants are battle-hardened from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. ISIS is also slowly winning over support from local militants, although still lacking the necessary economic muscle, a situation that could soon change.

ISIS already controls vital water and power supply lines and is targeting oil facilities to the east. Strategically, however, ISIS is looking west on Misrata, the last bastion before ISIS can target Tripoli. The ISIS attacks are already straining the front lines of the “Libya Dawn” coalition.

The UN Security Council is alarmed and is pressing the two political factions – in Tripoli and Tobruk – urging both sides in Libya to cooperate and compromise, but that doesn’t change the situation on the ground. Europe is divided as is the Arab world and Turkey, creating more space for ISIS to put down roots and grow.

By compounding Europe’s already serious immigration crisis, Libyan instability is urgent for Europe. There are reportedly between 500,000 and 1 million migrants waiting to cross from the anarchic country, especially to Italy. Gaddafi, in fact, warned Europe not to depose him because the disorder could create fertile ground for both Islamic extremism and an immigration crisis.

Besides flooding Europe with immigrants, ISIS could transform Libya into a training hub, bordering Egypt and Tunisia, which is even closer to Italy. Then what? Which is why President Barack Obama is increasingly alarmed at the situation.

As Europe and NATO dither, the U.S. is bolstering its military presence through bilateral partnerships, not just in Spain but also Italy. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey said it bluntly last week speaking at a Naples Navy base:

“The truth is, in our line of work, the very last thing we want to do is play a home game. We really want to play an away game and we need teammates to do it. We need to be forward. And we need to be sure that as conflict approaches – and conflict will approach – we have a shot at shaping it before we’re in it.”

Obama’s goal is not to get deeply involved in the Libyan civil war, again. His acquiescence in 2011 to demands from then-National Security Council aide Samantha Power and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to join in the overthrow of Gaddafi was a major factor in creating the Libyan chaos in the first place.

However, after Obama leaves office, the next president – whether Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush or some other contender – might opt to side with Saudi Arabia and Egypt against the “Libya Dawn” bloc in Tripoli, radicalizing Libya’s more moderate Islamists and driving many into the arms to ISIS.

The risk of a full collapse of Libya is real with Europe seemingly unable to get its act together and Obama failing to act with the necessary urgency. As with so many other foreign policy issues, Obama seems indecisive, unwilling to control his administration’s hardliners and hoping for a consensus that never comes. In the meantime, the U.S. military is making preparations for a military scenario.

And, while it may be better for the U.S. to play away games than home games, Europe does not have that luxury because Libya is getting very close to home for Europe.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/19/obamas-libya-fiasco/

[bryant.coleman]

No one is taking the ISIS contingent in Libya seriously, and this could be a big mistake. They already number in tens of thousands, and are slowly conquering more and more villages, as the government forces are fighting against the Gen. Khalifa Hifter-led coalition. ISIS is slowly establishing itself, and when the time comes, they will launch an assault against Tripoli.

[galdur]

No one is taking the ISIS contingent in Libya seriously, and this could be a big mistake. They already number in tens of thousands, and are slowly conquering more and more villages, as the government forces are fighting against the Gen. Khalifa Hifter-led coalition. ISIS is slowly establishing itself, and when the time comes, they will launch an assault against Tripoli.

Yes, obviously the corporate mass media isn´t very interested in Lybia now, mainly because corporations want to manhandle one of the main nutjobs that created the mess into the White House. And that is going to be very difficult anyway without even more skeletons in tow.

[stallion]

muammar gaddafi was a great man.

GADDAFI WAS A GREAT MAN? OH GOD. ENOUGH INTERNET FOR TODAY. Would you say the same if he did the same activities with your family? Fucking stupid.

[bryant.coleman]

muammar gaddafi was a great man.

GADDAFI WAS A GREAT MAN? OH GOD. ENOUGH INTERNET FOR TODAY. Would you say the same if he did the same activities with your family? Fucking stupid.

Don't edit my posts, lowlife. This is what I had posted.

I wouldn't say that Gaddafi was a great man.

No one is taking the ISIS contingent in Libya seriously, and this could be a big mistake. They already number in tens of thousands, and are slowly conquering more and more villages, as the government forces are fighting against the Gen. Khalifa Hifter-led coalition. ISIS is slowly establishing itself, and when the time comes, they will launch an assault against Tripoli.

Yes, obviously the corporate mass media isn´t very interested in Lybia now, mainly because corporations want to manhandle one of the main nutjobs that created the mess into the White House. And that is going to be very difficult anyway without even more skeletons in tow.

Lol... it will be interesting to see what will happen, if Hillary is actually voted in to the White House in 2016. May be she will favor the ISIS taking over all of Libya, so that no one will really come to know about her role in the 2012 Benghazi attack, which targeted the American embassy. She is really good in hiding her past crimes. For example, take the murder of Vince Foster.

[galdur]

Well, this farce of a one-party state is so far gone that everybody whose IQ tops that of an average chimpanzee (no disrespect against apes is intended by this comparison) has long ago given up on voting. So, the few dumbos that are left to nominally vote before the voting machines produce the results can be served anything, even Bush3 vs. Clinton2. The corporate owners of this system are openly mocking America and the world.

[galdur]

Blumenthal’s emails showed Hillary how to take credit for ‘success’ in Libya

June 23, 2015 | Michael Schaus

Clinton family insider Sidney Blumenthal acted like a political adviser giving then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton direction on how to “claim credit” for the “success” in Libya, Rep. Trey Gowdy told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren on Monday. ....

Gowdy, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, told Van Susteren that newly acquired emails showed the nature of Blumenthal’s political relationship with Clinton while she was America’s top diplomat.

Read more: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2015/06/23/blumenthals-emails-showed-hillary-how-to-take-credit-for-success-in-libya-217046#ixzz3dyudjvxr

[galdur]

Libya warns EU on migrant operation – ‘sign of frustration by West-installed forces’

Published time: June 24, 2015 11:07

Libya hasn’t got the aid promised by the West in 2011, today it’s against the potential EU naval operation in the Mediterranean saying Western countries can’t create a greater crisis, says Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire website.

EU naval forces are preparing for a possible combat mission, to stem the flow of human trafficking from Libya. But Libyan Air Force Commander Saqr Al-Jaroushi has warned against any such action without permission. ...more

http://rt.com/op-edge/269368-libya-eu-naval-operation-migrants/

[galdur]

Libya chaos likely to affect Tunisian security, experts say

By Asma Ajroudi | Al Arabiya News

Thursday, 26 February 2015

Tunisia will be most affected if the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continues to expand in Libya, Tunisian terrorism experts say.

“Libya is a ticking bomb,” former Brigadier-General Mohammed Sellami told Al Arabiya News.

“Not dealing with terrorism in Libya is likely to shake security in Tunisia, and even the Maghreb region in the long run.”

Libya descended into war after the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

The North African country now has two rival governments and parliaments, each backed by armed militias. The absence of law and authority in the oil-rich country has turned it into a beacon for extremists. ... more

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/analysis/2015/02/26/Libya-chaos-likely-to-affect-Tunisian-security-experts-say-.html

[bryant.coleman]

EU naval forces are preparing for a possible combat mission, to stem the flow of human trafficking from Libya. But Libyan Air Force Commander Saqr Al-Jaroushi has warned against any such action without permission.

See... there are mainly two groups of criminals who are profiting from the Mediterranean migrant crisis. The first group is composed of local Libyan criminal gangs, some of them affiliated with the Islamic State. The second groups is the Italian mafia clans, such as the 'Ndrangheta, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unita, and the Cosa Nostra. If we eradicate these two groups, the migrant inflows from the Mediterranean will automatically cease.

[galdur]

It´s a policy. They systematically destroy country after country, displacing millions which go where? Right.

Peter Sutherland: Unlimited immigration into Europe from Africa is a benefit

Published on Jun 27, 2015
Broadcast on RTÉ radio, Ireland June 2015, Peter Sutherland chairman of Goldman Sachs International comments on looking at potential figures of 240,000 migrants arriving in Europe each year and whether anyone has worked out what the capacity of Europe is to deal with these numbers of migrants:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=46&v=rVmg37snifI

[bryant.coleman]

Peter Sutherland: Unlimited immigration into Europe from Africa is a benefit

I was wondering who is this Peter Sutherland guy.... then I noticed this:

Peter Sutherland chairman of Goldman Sachs International

No need to read the rest of the article. I know exactly what are his intentions and what was he trying to imply there. Goldman Sucks.... the cancer of the world.

[BADecker]

Gaddafi was a bad guy. But he DID bring a certain amount of tranquility to Libya. Libyan rebels killed him. Not Western nutjobs.

[galdur]

Peter Sutherland: Unlimited immigration into Europe from Africa is a benefit

I was wondering who is this Peter Sutherland guy.... then I noticed this:

Peter Sutherland chairman of Goldman Sachs International

No need to read the rest of the article. I know exactly what are his intentions and what was he trying to imply there. Goldman Sucks.... the cancer of the world.

Yep, those nutbags get their marching orders from their corporate owners obviously - as always. So, it´s policy and most policy is made by people that nobody voted for in any "elections" and then rubber stamped by the corporate assets. You know the drill I´m sure.

[bryant.coleman]

Libyan rebels killed him. Not Western nutjobs.

Wow... really nice way to escape from the responsibility. The rebel factions were instigated, supported, and armed by the NATO. Without the NATO airstrikes, these rebel factions would have been wiped out by the Libyan army. Rebels were just a smoke screen. It was the NATO which killed Muammar Gaddafi.

[BADecker]

Nice way to get around the fact that it was Gaddafi's own people who wanted him gone. The infusion of funds by the banks was simply made legal by the Western governments saying he was bad. So it was the banks who loaned the rebels the money. But it was the rebels that did the job.

[galdur]

Tony Blair’s US trip to 'broker' £1bn Libya terror deal that left British families with nothing

By Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter 9:12PM BST 24 Oct 2015

Tony Blair has ignored a deadline to explain to MPs his alleged role in a deal that deprived British victims of Libyan terrorism millions of pounds in compensation

Tony Blair made a secret trip to the White House to broker a deal on behalf of Muammar Gaddafi that deprived British victims of Libyan terrorism of millions of pounds in compensation.
Mr Blair acted as a go-between in negotiations between Gaddafi and President George Bush over payments to terror victims, according to a senior source.
“You will find that Mr Blair called on Mr Bush in Washington in February 2008. I do know there was a meeting between Mr Blair and Mr Bush subsequent to one of Mr Blair’s visits to Libya"
Source close to terror deal
The disclosure came as Mr Blair ignored a deadline to explain his role to a parliamentary committee investigating the deal.
Mr Blair was invited to respond by Friday October 23 but instead sent a letter at 6pm on the day of the deadline, asking when the deadline was.


The deal between the US and Libya led to American victims receiving about £1 billion while British victims were left out of the agreement, including hundreds of victims of IRA terrorism, who were killed or maimed using plastic explosives supplied by Libya.
The source said that Mr Blair travelled to Washington to intervene on behalf of Gaddafi in February 2008, after first meeting the dictator in Libya.
The new evidence suggests Mr Blair, who had quit as prime minister less than a year earlier, had played an important role in negotiations between Bush and Gaddafi.



At the time, Libya was being sued through the US courts for committing terror atrocities and billions of pounds of Gaddafi’s assets were at risk of being frozen as part of the law suits.
The deal struck by Bush and Gaddafi led to US victims receiving £1 billion out of a compensation fund but in exchange all court cases were dropped under an act of Congress.
But British victims, who had brought cases in the US, including almost 200 families of IRA terrorist attacks, were not included in the deal. It meant that, for example, the relatives of an American citizen killed in the bombing of Harrods in 1983 received about £5 million while British victims, including the families of four police officers killed in the attack, were left without a penny.
The source said: “You will find that Mr Blair called on Mr Bush in Washington in February 2008. I do know there was a meeting between Mr Blair and Mr Bush subsequent to one of Mr Blair’s visits to Libya.
“There was no deliberate plan to exclude Britons from the deal but that was a consequence. It was certainly the effect. The Libyans had taken fright at the number of court judgments and that led to the negotiations and the setting up of the US compensation fund. It’s regrettable that the US didn’t allow British citizens to make a claim on the fund.”
In a letter dated February 27 2008, Mr Blair wrote to Gaddafi following his visit to Tripoli and then on to Washington. In the letter, which was discovered after Gaddafi was overthrown but whose significance can now be disclosed, Mr Blair wrote: “Dear Muammar” and concluded: “I also raised some of our conversation with president Bush and would be very happy to let you know how those talks went, With my best wishes, yours ever Tony.”
"On USA/Libya, TB should explain what he said to President Bush ... to keep his promise to Col Q [Gaddafi] to intervene after the President allowed US courts to attach Libyan assets"
Sir Vincent Fean in email to Mr Blair's office
The source has made it clear that those talks included discussions about compensation.
A month before Mr Blair met Bush, in January 2008, the US Congress had passed a new law allowing victims of state-sponsored terrorism to collect court-awarded damages by either seizing the terror state’s assets or taking money from companies doing business with them.
Gaddafi was so concerned about this - not least it would jeopardise oil and gas deals with US companies - that he appears to have enlisted Mr Blair’s help.
Mr Blair’s involvement is currently the subject of a parliamentary inquiry by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Concern over Mr Blair’s role was prompted by an email obtained by The Sunday Telegraph which was written by Sir Vincent Fean, the then British ambassador to Libya, to Mr Blair’s office in June 2008.
In the email, sent ahead of another visit to Tripoli by Mr Blair, Sir Vincent wrote: “On USA/Libya, TB should explain what he said to President Bush ... to keep his promise to Col Q [Gaddafi] to intervene after the President allowed US courts to attach Libyan assets.
“He [Blair] could express satisfaction at the progress made in talks between the US and Libya to reach a Govt to Govt solution to all the legal/compensation issues outstanding from the 1980s.”
Laurence Robertson, the committee’s chairman, wrote to Mr Blair asking for a written explanation by October 23.
Mr Blair then set a letter back on October 23, saying he would like to respond and asking for a ‘timeframe for its submission’.
A committee source said: “It is school boyish of Mr Blair in the deliberate misreading of the the letter.”



The committee will want to know why Mr Blair ‘intervened’ on behalf of Gaddafi. The former prime minister is thought to have visited Libya at least six times after leaving Downing St in 2007 as he tried to build up his business and philanthropic interests. Mr Blair has since built up a fortune estimated at £60 million, based on a consultancy business that includes advising foreign governments.
Mr Blair is understood to have attempted to put together a number of deals during his trips to Libya.
Kate Hoey, a Labour MP and committee member, said: “The more we hear from witnesses, the more Tony Blair’s name crops up. It is extremely likely our committee will wish to interview him and see him in person.”
Mr Blair has always insisted he had “nothing whatever to do with any compensation legislation signed by President Bush”.
However, Jason McCue, of McCue & Partners, the law firm that represented almost 200 British victims and their families in a law suit in the US, questioned Mr Blair’s role.
Mr McCue said: “If Mr Blair met President Bush as early as February 2008, this should have given the British Government ample time to ensure that the UK victims’ claims were included.
“Did Mr Blair advise the Government what he was doing? This vital query makes it all the more necessary for Mr Blair to give full account to the Committee of his involvement and what actually went on.”
Mr Blair’s spokeswoman said: “Mr Blair did not have any involvement with the terms of compensation, nor any discussion with President Bush on the matter. The email you reference merely expresses government policy at the time which was to re-engage with the Libyans after they gave up their WMD programme and chose to co-operate rather than sponsor terrorism.”
Sir Vincent has told the inquiry that he knew of three occasions on which Mr Blair had visited Tripoli during his stint as ambassador. Sir Vincent confirmed details of the email in which he also discussed British arms deals with Libya.
Sir Vincent, who has since retired, told MPs the US decision to exclude British victims from the compensation fund was “sad and negative” and said he was not party to the decision taken in Washington.
“The United States had a large amount of influence at the time and indeed now, and joining with them would have increased the chances of success,” he said. “But the United States for reasons I do not fully understand did not wish to associate the UK victims with the US victims.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11953214/Tony-Blairs-US-trip-to-broker-1bn-Libya-terror-deal-that-left-British-families-with-nothing.html

[bryant.coleman]

Nice way to get around the fact that it was Gaddafi's own people who wanted him gone. The infusion of funds by the banks was simply made legal by the Western governments saying he was bad. So it was the banks who loaned the rebels the money. But it was the rebels that did the job.

Bullshit. Do you have any proof to support your claims? At least a slightly reliable opinion poll which claims to show that the Libyans hated Gaddafi? Also, if the Americans are so keen to "bring democracy" to the countries which are under dictatorships, then why don't they do it in nations such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait? Why don't you arm the rebel and pro-democracy groups in Saudi Arabia?

[galdur]

TRUMP: WORLD WOULD BE 100 PERCENT BETTER WITH HUSSEIN, GADHAFI IN POWER

by TRENT BAKER 25 Oct 2015

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper on the Sunday broadcast of “State of the Union” that the world would be “100 percent” better if former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and former Libya prime minister Moammar Gadhafi were still in power today.

“People are getting their heads chopped off,” Trump explained. “They’re being drowned in cages. Right now it’s far worse than ever under Saddam Hussein or Gadhafi.”

“Iraq used to be no terrorists,” he continued. “Now it’s the Harvard of terrorism. If you look at Iraq from years ago — I’m not saying [Hussein] was a nice guy — he was a horrible guy, but it was a lot better than it is right now. Right now Iraq is a training ground for terrorists.”

Trump also added that there is no longer Iraq or Libya, saying they are “all broken up,” and they “have no control.”

He went on to explain his position to Tapper, but made sure that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad wasn’t included among Hussein and Gadhafi.

Exchange as follows:

TAPPER: The world would be better off with Saddam Hussein…

TRUMP: A hundred percent.

TAPPER: … and Gadhafi in power?

TRUMP: A hundred percent.

TAPPER: If they were…

TRUMP: Now, as far as Assad is concerned…

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: What about the human rights abuses and…

TRUMP: Let’s talk — well, you don’t think they’re happening now? They’re worse now than they ever were. People are getting their heads chopped off. They’re being drowned. They’re — right now, they are far worse than they were ever under Saddam Hussein or Gadhafi.

I mean, look what happened. Libya is a catastrophe. You look at our ambassador, as an example, OK? Libya is a disaster. Iraq is a disaster. Syria is a disaster, the whole Middle East. And it all blew up around Hillary Clinton and around Barack Obama. It all blew up.

Now, one thing about Assad, not a good guy. I understand that, but we’re backing and spending billions and billions of dollars on backing rebels that we have no idea who they are. And a lot of people think they’re ISIS. I happen to think they’re ISIS, but who knows?

But we’re spending billions of dollars to get Assad out with people that we have no idea who they are. I don’t think that is smart. We have to rebuild our country. Our country is falling to pieces. We have $19 trillion in debt. We have infrastructure that is a disaster, our roadways, our airports, our schools, everything.

We have to start thinking about ourselves. We are pouring trillions of dollars into the Middle East, and we have nothing for it. We have nothing.

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/10/25/trump-world-would-be-100-percent-better-with-hussein-gadhafi-in-power/

[galdur]

Architects of Disaster: The Destruction of Libya

In his new book, Architects of Disaster: The Destruction of Libya, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra offers a thorough analysis of how a disastrous foreign policy led to Libya becoming a failed state on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Now serving as the Shillman Senior Fellow with the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Hoekstra details how America’s tragic intervention in the North African country turned an island of relative stability into a nexus of radical Islamist terrorist training, ideology, and weapons transfers; sowed the seeds of ISIS in Syria and Iraq; and led to the humanitarian crisis in Europe.
Hoekstra reflects on the truth behind former Secretary of State Clinton’s shifting claims before the House Select Committee on Benghazi and whether a spontaneous anti-Muslim video or well-coordinated al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists were behind the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. facility. Drawing upon insider sources and a depth of experience, Hoekstra offers a penetrating look at how a naïve foreign policy resulted in catastrophe.

http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/11/architects-of-disaster

[kydranel]

i thought muammar guadaffi was dead?

[galdur]

i thought muammar guadaffi was dead?

Why would you ask others whether you thought the guy was dead? Try asking your own dumb head first. 

[galdur]

Wed Nov 11, 2015 5:53am EST Related: WORLD, LIBYA
Heavy fighting in Libya's Benghazi, 16 killed: official
BENGHAZI, LIBYA

At least 16 people have been killed in heavy fighting in the Libyan city of Benghazi between forces allied with the official government and Islamic State fighters, a military commander said on Wednesday.

Benghazi, caught up in fighting for more than a year, is just one front in Libya's multi-sided war involving two competing governments -- an official one in the east and a self-declared one controlling Tripoli -- and the loose coalitions of armed factions backing them.

Battles involving air strikes erupted on Tuesday between Gen. Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) forces, and militants allied with Islamic State, military spokesman Milad Zwei told Reuters.

"Our special forces are making progress and have recaptured the air defense camp between Mash'hash and Sidi Faraj districts. The camp was captured last year by Islamic State," he said.

Haftar declared war on Islamist fighters in Benghazi more than a year ago and he was later named commander in chief for the official government. But his campaign has failed to sweep out militants from the city.

Both sides have alternately held the upper hand in the fighting. Islamic State fighters are also increasingly in the battle, including foreign jihadists.

Four years after former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi fell in a civil war, Libya still has no national army. The two competing governments have forces loyal to them but these often answer to regional, tribal or local commanders first.

(Reporting by Ayman Al-Warfalli; Writing by Patrick Markey

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/11/us-libya-security-idUSKCN0T010V20151111

[zenitzz]

Wed Nov 11, 2015 5:53am EST Related: WORLD, LIBYA
Heavy fighting in Libya's Benghazi, 16 killed: official
BENGHAZI, LIBYA

At least 16 people have been killed in heavy fighting in the Libyan city of Benghazi between forces allied with the official government and Islamic State fighters, a military commander said on Wednesday.

Benghazi, caught up in fighting for more than a year, is just one front in Libya's multi-sided war involving two competing governments -- an official one in the east and a self-declared one controlling Tripoli -- and the loose coalitions of armed factions backing them.

Battles involving air strikes erupted on Tuesday between Gen. Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) forces, and militants allied with Islamic State, military spokesman Milad Zwei told Reuters.

"Our special forces are making progress and have recaptured the air defense camp between Mash'hash and Sidi Faraj districts. The camp was captured last year by Islamic State," he said.

Haftar declared war on Islamist fighters in Benghazi more than a year ago and he was later named commander in chief for the official government. But his campaign has failed to sweep out militants from the city.

Both sides have alternately held the upper hand in the fighting. Islamic State fighters are also increasingly in the battle, including foreign jihadists.

Four years after former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi fell in a civil war, Libya still has no national army. The two competing governments have forces loyal to them but these often answer to regional, tribal or local commanders first.

(Reporting by Ayman Al-Warfalli; Writing by Patrick Markey

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/11/us-libya-security-idUSKCN0T010V20151111

The GOP supporters of America have collected how much money for Benghazi in donations? Surely Benghazi is on the top of their list to save.

[galdur]

First nutcases authorize themselves to destroy this country now the same nutjobs urge parties to endorse, sign deal for unity government on the ruins. Typical.

----------------------------------------------

7 November 2015 – Concerned over Libya's ongoing political, security and institutional crises and the rising threat of terrorism, the United Nations Security Council today urged all Libyan stakeholders to endorse and sign the recent UN-facilitated political deal and to move swiftly towards forming a Government of National Accord.

“The Political Agreement for the Government of National Accord finalized by the Libyan parties in October offers a real prospect for resolving the situation,” said the members of the Council in a statement issued earlier this afternoon, in which they also noted that the agreement had been reached after comprehensive and broad consultations within the framework of the Libyan-led and Libyan-owned dialogue process facilitated by the UN.

Welcoming expressions of support by the Libyan parties plus a wide range of Libyan groups for the agreement and for the formation of a Government of National Accord, the Security Council urged all Libyan dialogue participants to endorse and sign the Political Agreement.

The Council called on all Libyan stakeholders to work swiftly towards the formation of a unity government “which will work for the benefit of all Libyans,” and expressed support for an inclusive process “that listens to and integrates Libyans from all communities and all parts of the country.”

The members of the Security Council encouraged the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) to advance relevant efforts for co-ordination of international assistance to the future Government of National Accord.

Expressing concern about activities which could damage the integrity and unity of the Libyan State financial institutions and the National Oil Company, the Council also highlighted the importance of these institutions continuing to function for the benefit of all Libyans. blah blah and bleh

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52489#.VkOuuXbhDUI

[galdur]

U.S. officials: Chief of Islamic State in Libya thought to be killed in airstrike

A U.S. airstrike is believed to have killed the leader of the Islamic State affiliate in Libya, Pentagon officials said Saturday, in a mission that did not appear to be related to the terror attacks claimed by the group in Paris.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the strike took place on Friday and targeted Wisam al Zubaidi, also known as Abu Nabil al-Anbari, who commands what is the Islamic State’s strongest branch outside of Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The former Iraqi police officer was dispatched to Libya in 2014 by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to build up the group’s affiliate there.

Before going to Libya, Zubaidi was a senior Islamic State operative in Iraq. Like Baghdadi, he spent time in a U.S. prison in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

In a statement, Cook said that Zubaidi may have been the spokesman in a gruesome video that showed the killing of 21 Egyptian Christians on a beach in Libya this year.

Defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the operation, said the attack involved two U.S. F-15 aircraft that struck a small compound outside of Derna, a militant stronghold in eastern Libya. Several other people were in the same building at the time of the strike, officials said. .....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-officials-leader-of-islamic-state-in-libya-believed-killed-in-us-airstrike/2015/11/14/b42cb714-8af0-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html

[galdur]

The United Arab Emirates shipped weapons to its allies in Libya in violation of a UN resolution and with the apparent knowledge of the US government, according to leaked Emirati emails shared with the New York Times this week. -

See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/leaks-show-uae-shipped-weapons-libya-violated-un-resolution-1712843977#sthash.uxmGSzug.dpuf

Another news story called them "favored belligerents". Wonder if that´s code for ISIS. Obviously it can´t be mentioned in polite company that such great friends and weapons buyers of U.S.. Britain and France as Emirates and Saudi Arabia and other dictatorships there at the Gulf are funding and supporting the bogeyman.

[Nemo1024]

The West is so hell-bent on the "Assad is a bad guy" narrative... Did anyone in the West interview Assad, get his point of view. Or is asking the opinion of the other party undemocratic?

Here is an interesting article in a trustworthy Russian publication "Arguments and Facts" (they've been around for several decades and provide platform for all oponion as proper free press should, a concept, forgotten by the Western press), an interview with Asma, Assad's wife:

http://www.aif.ru/politics/world/plecho_asada

"Assad's shoulder. For what Syrians love their First Lady"



A few quotes:

When in 2013 the terrorists stormed the Headquarters, which are next to the presidential home, the international media were quick to report that "Damascus has fallen." Exploding shells could be heard from the house of the president, the eldest son is a student, and decided that he will not do to classes because of this. And was surprised when his mother started to collect his books: "Do you not love me? There's shooting there! I can get killed! "-" You will go to school just because I love you. I do not want for my son to grow up as a coward, you have to be educated, and not like the ones that are trying to destroy us."

Syria, which before the war was called the Eastern Fairytale, famous for the fact that there coexist more than 20 confessions. The history of this land goes back thousands of years.

In that Syria is almost like Russian Federation, where about 200 nationalities, speaking almost as many languages and belonging to a dozen confessions live together.

When Sergei Stepashin, the head of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS) visited Syria last year, Bashar Assad asked him to convey to President Vladimir Putin, that he is not Yanukovych. "I will not run. I'll stay until the end, "- said Assad, noting that if the Russian language in Ukraine is excluded from the school curriculum, in Syria, Russian is a compulsory subject. And the eldest son of President, Hafez, can already speak a little Russian. "At a meeting with the first lady we met with Hafez - says Milla Zhukovsky. - The eldest son of the president is named in honour of his grandfather, father of Bashar al-Assad. We had prepared a special gift for the teen - models of Russian fighter jets, which his grandfather piloted. The young man immediately determined that it is "MiG" and said in Russian: "Great!"



The first lady herself speaks English, French and Spanish. She was born in London, where her mother worked in the Syrian embassy, and his father was a cardiologist. During the holidays the parents came home, where as a child she met with Bashar al-Assad, who is 10 years her senior. Then she admitted: "Children's friendship grew into love."

In 2000, Bashar Assad became president of Syria, and soon the pair played the wedding. The family of the President has many children, the couple raising two sons and a daughter.

"Desert Rose", so translates the name of wife of President Assad - has become an example of resistance to the Syrians. All the years of the war, she did not leave the tormented Syria ready to share the fate of her people.

[galdur]

Yeah, unfortunately he and other western nutjobs that destroyed Lybia are a little late in figuring this out.

----------------------------------------------------------

PARIS - Lybia´s main armed factions will be committing suicide unless they stop fighting each other and take on Islamic State's growing presence in the North African country, France's defense minister said on Sunday.

Islamic State militants have tightened their grip on central Libya and carried out summary executions, beheadings and amputations, the United Nations said last week, in a further illustration of the country's descent into anarchy.

"Libya preoccupies me very much," French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio, nine days after Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris.

Libya has slipped deeper into chaos with two rival governments, each backed by a multitude of armed factions, which has allowed Islamic State jihadists to gain a foothold. They also control larger areas of Iraq and Syria.

"Daesh (Islamic State) is in Libya because it can exploit the internal rivalries ... If we reunite these forces, Daesh will cease to exist," Le Drian said.

Le Drian called for a international summit bringing together neighboring countries as soon as possible to get some kind of political agreement in Libya.

http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Libyans-need-to-fight-Islamic-State-not-each-other-French-defense-minister-says-434931

[galdur]

Why France Was So Keen to Attack Libya

by Soeren Kern

March 23, 2011 at 5:00 am

Even before allied forces unleashed a "shock and awe" barrage of cruise missile attacks against Libya on March 19, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was quick to take the credit, saying France had "decided to assume its role, its role before history" in stopping strongman Muammar Gaddafi's "killing spree" against people whose only crime was to seek to "liberate themselves from servitude."

Sarkozy's newfound concern for Libyan democracy contrasts sharply from only three years ago, when Sarkozy welcomed Gaddafi with open arms during an extravagant five-day state visit to France. On that occasion in December 2007, Gaddafi breezed into Paris in his Bedouin robes, accompanied by an entourage of 400 servants, five airplanes, a camel and 30 female virgin bodyguards, and then proceeded to pitch his heated tent on the grounds of the palatial Hôtel de Marigny, just across the street from the Elysée Palace.

At the time, Sarkozy ridiculed critics of Gaddafi's visit by saying: "It is rather beautiful the principle that consists in not getting yourself wet, not taking risks, being so certain of everything you think while you're having your latte on the Boulevard Saint-Germain." He also asked: "If we don't welcome countries that are starting to take the path of respectability, what can we say to those that leave that path?" Meanwhile, Sarkozy's chief diplomatic advisor, Jean-David Levitte, insisted that Libya had a "right to redemption."

Nor did Sarkozy express much support for the recent uprisings in the Arab world, which deposed long-time friends of Paris, including Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

In the case of Tunisia, Sarkozy reluctantly fired his loyal foreign minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, after it emerged that she borrowed a private jet from a Tunisian businessman linked to Ben Ali in order to work on her suntan in the Tunisian seaside town of Tabarka during the height of the political upheaval in Tunisia. According to the French newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, Alliot-Marie also offered Ben Ali the "know how" of France's security forces to help him quash the fighting in Tunisia just three days before he was removed from office.

In Egypt, it emerged that French Prime Minister François Fillon and his family had accepted a free holiday from Mubarak, complete with a private plane and Nile River boat, just weeks before the Egyptian president was removed from office. Facing accusations that France cozies up to dictators, Sarkozy said that in the future, his government ministers should take their holidays in France.

So what explains Sarkozy's about-face vis-à-vis Libya? His sudden support for the anti-Gaddafi rebels can be attributed to two main factors: opinion polls and the closely related issue of Muslim immigration.

Sarkozy's sudden zeal for the cause of democracy in Libya comes as his popularity is at record lows just thirteen months before the first round of the 2012 presidential election. With polls showing that Sarkozy is the least popular president since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, he is betting that French voters will appreciate his efforts in Libya to place France at the center of the world stage and reinforce what Charles de Gaulle once famously called "a certain idea of France" as a nation of exceptional destiny.

Further, Sarkozy's main rival is not Gaddafi, but rather Marine Le Pen, the charismatic new leader of the far-right National Front party in France. A new opinion poll published by Le Parisien newspaper on March 8 has Le Pen, who took over from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in January, winning the first round of next year's presidential election.

The survey gives Le Pen 23%, two percentage points ahead of both Sarkozy and Socialist leader Martine Aubry. On the basis of this opinion poll, Le Pen would automatically qualify for the second round run-off with one or other of the two mainstream party leaders.

Le Pen, who appeals to middle class voters, is riding high on voter dissatisfaction with the failure of the mainstream parties to address the problem of Muslim immigration. Since taking her post three months ago, Le Pen has single-handedly catapulted the twin issues of Muslim immigration and French national identity to the top of the French political agenda. In recent weeks, Le Pen has been a permanent fixture on prime-time television to discuss the threat to France of a wave of immigrants from Libya.

Gaddafi has already pledged that Europe will be "invaded" by an army of African immigrants: "You will have immigration. Thousands of people from Libya will invade Europe. There will be no-one to stop them any more," he warned on March 6 in an interview with the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

During a visit to Italy in August 2010, Gaddafi demanded €5 billion a year from the European Union to stop illegal immigration which "threatens to turn Europe black." At the time, Gaddafi asked: "What will be the reaction of the white Christian Europeans to this mass of hungry, uneducated Africans? We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and cohesive continent or if it will be destroyed by this barbarian invasion. We have to imagine that this could happen, but before it does we need to work together."

Furious Europeans have compared Gaddafi's demands for cash to stop illegal immigration to a "Mafia extortion racket." But since the revolt in Tunisia in January, nearly 15,000 boat people (more than the total for all of 2010) have arrived on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, a 20-square-kilometer island that traditionally has been a major gateway for illegal immigration into the European Union.

On March 14, Le Pen upstaged Sarkozy by visiting Lampedusa and telling undocumented migrants on the island that they were not welcome in Europe. "I have a lot of compassion for you, but Europe cannot welcome you," Le Pen said. "We do not have the financial means."

On March 2, the French minister for European affairs, Laurent Wauquiez, warned that up to 300,000 illegal immigrants could arrive in the European Union from North Africa during 2011. The influx of immigrants from Libya is a "real risk for Europe that must not be underestimated," he said.

Threatened by Le Pen's rising popularity, and in urgent need of a political boost, Sarkozy is now using the Libya intervention both to play the role of the respected statesman on the international stage and to address French concerns over mass immigration from North Africa.

During a March 21 interview with France 24, however, Le Pen dismissed Sarkozy as "a French president who is no longer running anything, who is governing on impulse or emotion, depending on the circumstances."

As an angry Gaddafi threatens to turn the "entire Mediterranean into a battlefield," it remains to be seen whether Sarkozy's gamble in Libya will pay off. With the French economy stalled, and unemployment stuck at 9.6%, any political bounce for Sarkozy is likely to ebb the longer the military campaign against Gaddafi lasts.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1983/france-libya-attack

[galdur]

I don´t know, maybe they should have listened to the man....This was written in 2011, the rest is history. I guess 5 billion euros is pocket change compared to the costs they face now. The nutjobs doubled down in Syria and then some.

-----------------------------------------------------

During a visit to Italy in August 2010, Gaddafi demanded €5 billion a year from the European Union to stop illegal immigration which "threatens to turn Europe black." At the time, Gaddafi asked: "What will be the reaction of the white Christian Europeans to this mass of hungry, uneducated Africans? We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and cohesive continent or if it will be destroyed by this barbarian invasion. We have to imagine that this could happen, but before it does we need to work together."

Furious Europeans have compared Gaddafi's demands for cash to stop illegal immigration to a "Mafia extortion racket." But since the revolt in Tunisia in January, nearly 15,000 boat people (more than the total for all of 2010) have arrived on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, a 20-square-kilometer island that traditionally has been a major gateway for illegal immigration into the European Union.

[galdur]

MAR 29, 2011 @ 02:01 PM

France, U.K. Have Differing Motives For Intervening In Libya

This is the second installment in a multi-part series examining the motives and mindset behind current European intervention in Libya. To access the entire series, click here.

France and the United Kingdom have led the charge on the intervention in Libya. For a month, both pushed the international community toward an intervention, ultimately penning U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 authorizing the no-fly zone on March 17.

Paris’ and London’s interests in waging war on Libya are not the same, and Libya carries different weight with each. For the United Kingdom, Libya offers a promise of energy exploitation. It is not a country with which London has a strong client-patron relationship at the moment, but one could develop if Moammar Gadhafi were removed from power. For France, Tripoli already is a significant energy exporter and arms customer. Paris’ interest in intervening is also about intra-European politics.
France
Paris has been the most vociferous supporter of the Libya intervention. French President Nicolas Sarkozy made it his mission to gather an international coalition to wage war on Libya, and France has been at the vanguard of recognizing the legitimacy of the Benghazi-based rebels.

French interests in the Libya intervention fall into two categories: domestic politics and intra-European relations.



The domestic political story is fairly straightforward. At the onset of the unrest in the Middle East, Paris stalled on recognizing the protesters as legitimate. In fact, then-French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie offered the Tunisian government official help in dealing with the protesters. Three days later, longtime Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee the country. It was revealed later that Alliot-Marie spent her Christmas vacation in Tunisia; during the trip, she used the private jet of a businessman close to the Ben Ali regime, and her parents were negotiating a business deal with the same businessman. Needless to say, the whole episode was highly embarrassing for Paris both internationally and domestically, and Sarkozy was essentially forced to fire Alliot-Marie and replace her with the veteran Alain Juppe. Additionally, Paris has its own Muslim population to consider, including a sizable Tunisian minority — though nowhere near as large as its Algerian minority — of around 600,000 people. This audience had a particularly negative reaction to Paris’ handling of the revolution in Tunisia.

The French intervention is more than just overcompensation for an initially disastrous handling of what Europe now perceives as a groundswell of agitation for democracy in the Arab world. Rather, Sarkozy has a history of using aggressive foreign relation moves to gain or maintain popularity at home. In August 2008, for example, he attempted and succeeded in negotiating a Russo-Georgian cease-fire without being invited to be a peacemaker. After the September 2008 financial crash, he called for a new “Bretton Woods.” While to the rest of the world “Super Sarko” seems impulsive and perhaps even arrogant, at home these moves boost his popularity, at least among his existing supporters. Sarkozy could use such a boost, as the French presidential election is barely more than a year away and he is trailing not just the likely Socialist candidate, but also far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. His supporters are beginning to gravitate toward Le Pen, who has worked hard to smooth over her father’s hard-right image. This could prompt Sarkozy’s party to choose a different candidate before it is too late, particularly as his own prime minister, Francois Fillon, gains ground.

There is more at play for France than just domestic politics, however. France also is reasserting its role as the most militarily capable European power. This has become particularly important because of developments in the European Union over the past 12 months. Ever since the eurozone sovereign debt crisis began in December 2009 with the Greek economic imbroglio, Germany has sought to use the power of its purse to reshape EU institutions to its own liking. These are the same institutions France painstakingly designed throughout and immediately after the Cold War. They were intended to magnify French political power in Europe and later offer Berlin incentives that would lock united Germany into Europe in a way that also benefited Paris.

Germany has worked to keep France appraised of the reforms every step of the way, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel huddling with Sarkozy before every major decision. However, this has not concealed the reality that Paris has had to take a backseat and accept most of Germany’s decisions as a fait accompli, from the need to pursue severe austerity measures, which caused widespread rioting in France in October 2010, to largely giving Berlin control over the new bailout mechanisms being designed to support lagging eurozone member states. This shift has not gone unnoticed by the French public, and criticism has been leveled against Sarkozy of having been reduced to Merkel’s yes-man.

The intervention in Libya therefore is a way to reassert to Europe, but particularly to Germany, that France still leads the Continent on foreign and military affairs. It is a message that says if Europe intends to be taken seriously as a global power, it will need French military power. France’s close coordination with the United Kingdom also is an attempt to further develop the military alliance between London and Paris formalized on Nov. 2, 2010, as a counter to Germany’s overwhelming economic and political power in the European Union.

In asserting its strength, Paris may cause Berlin to become more assertive in its own right. With the very act of opposing the Franco-British consensus on Libya, Berlin already has shown a level of assertiveness and foreign policy independence not seen in some time. In a sense, France and the United Kingdom are replaying their 19th century roles of colonial European powers looking to project power and protect interests outside the European continent, while Berlin remains landlocked behind the Skagerrak and concentrates on building a Mitteleuropa.

As for interests in Libya, France has plenty, but its situation could be improved. French energy major Total SA is involved in Libya but not to the same extent as Italian ENI or even German Wintershall. Considering Libya’s plentiful and largely unexplored energy reserves, French energy companies could stand to profit from helping rebels take power in Tripoli. But it is really military sales that Paris has benefited from thus far. Between 2004 — when the European Union lifted its arms embargo against Libya — and 2011, Tripoli has purchased approximately half a billion dollars worth of arms from France, more than from any other country in Europe. However, the Italian government was in negotiation for more than a billion dollars worth of more deals in 2010, and it seemed that the Rome-Tripoli relationship was overtaking Paris’ efforts in Libya prior to the intervention.

United Kingdom
London has not been as aggressive about pushing for the Libya intervention as France, but it still has been at the forefront of the coalition. For the United Kingdom, the domestic political component is not as strong as its energy interests.

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s government initially came under strong criticism for being slow to evacuate British nationals from Libya. Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and leader of the coalition Liberal Democratic Party, was on a ski vacation in Switzerland when the crisis in Libya began and later told a reporter he “forgot” he was running the country while Cameron was on a trip to the Persian Gulf states. Later, the rebels seized a Special Air Service diplomatic security team, dispatched on a diplomatic mission to establish contact with anti-Gadhafi forces in eastern Libya, because they did not announce their presence in the country.

Therefore, the United Kingdom is motivated to recover leadership of the intervention after an otherwise-bungled first few weeks of the unrest. There is also, as with most of the Western countries, a sense that decades of tolerating and profiting from Arab dictators has come to an end and that the people in the United Kingdom will no longer accept such actions.

London has another significant interest, namely, energy. British energy major BP has no production in Libya, although it agreed with Tripoli to drill onshore and offshore wells under a $1 billion deal signed in 2007. The negotiations on these concessions were drawn out but were finalized after the Scottish government decided to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi on humanitarian grounds in August 2009. He was expected to die of prostate cancer within months of his release but presumably is still alive in Tripoli. The Labour government in power at the time came under heavy criticism for al-Megrahi’s release. British media speculated, not entirely unfairly, that the decision represented an effort to kick-start BP’s production in Libya and smooth relations between London and Tripoli. BP announced in 2009 that it planned to invest $20 billion in Libyan oil production over the next 20 years.

The May 2010 Macondo well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has made BP’s — and London’s — Libya strategy even more urgent. The United States accounted for a quarter of BP’s total hydrocarbon production in 2010. The disaster cost BP $17.7 billion worth of losses in 2010, and the company also has had to set up a $20 billion compensation fund. Estimates of potential further spill-related costs range between $38 billion and $60 billion, making BP’s future in the United States uncertain. The disaster also allowed BP’s competitors to complain about its potential future offshore operations, something Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini stressed, arguing that until the investigation into the Macondo well disaster is completed, BP should refrain from drilling off Libya’s shore in the Mediterranean Sea. The complaint was more than likely an attempt by ENI to complicate BP’s Libya operations by questioning its environmental record in North America.

Ultimately, London could gain the most by the removal of Gadhafi or winning the allegiance of a rebel-controlled government in some kind of semi-independent state in eastern Libya. With no oil production in Libya and arms sales that lag those of France and Italy by a considerable margin, the United Kingdom could substantially benefit from new leadership in Tripoli or even just Benghazi.

Exit Strategies
In sum, the United Kingdom and France have two main points to consider in terms of what would be an appropriate strategy to the current intervention. First, how palatable will it be for their publics if Gadhafi remained in power after the considerable vilification that justified the intervention in the first place? It is true that both Paris and London have in recent days stepped back from arguing that the military intervention is supposed to oust Gadhafi, but that tempered rhetoric may have been forced on them by criticism from within the coalition that they have overstepped the U.N. mandate. British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said March 21 that the direct targeting of Gadhafi by coalition forces was a possibility.

Second, will France and the United Kingdom be satisfied with a solution in which Gadhafi withdraws to the west and rebels take control of the east? The United Kingdom and France could live with that solution because they would still benefit from their patronage of the eastern rebels in both new arms deals and energy deals in the oil-rich east. For Italy, the situation is more complex, as it would be left to deal with an indignant Gadhafi across the Mediterranean.
*This report is reprinted with permission of STRATFOR. It may not be reprinted by any other party without express permission of STRATFOR.

STRATFOR is one of the world’s leading private intelligence companies.  Our intelligence professionals provide a global audience of individuals and organizations with unique insights into political, economic, and military developments around the world.  STRATFOR’s independent and in-depth geopolitical and security analysis enables users to better understand international events and risks.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2011/03/29/france-u-k-have-differing-motives-for-intervening-in-libya/

[galdur]

Can´t we all agree? Isn´t oil and armaments humanitarian?

Humanitarian interest in Libya 2011. Color-coded humanitarian interest in the lowermost image.

[galdur]

Pétrole : l’accord secret entre le CNT et la France

Par Vittorio De Filippis — 1 septembre 2011 à 00:00 (mis à jour à 13:16

Dans une lettre que s’est procurée «Libération», les rebelles promettent d’accorder 35% du brut libyen aux Français.

La morale politique n’a rien à faire avec les affaires. C’est, en substance, ce que répète le gouvernement français depuis le 19 mars, jour du lancement de l’opération militaire contre les troupes du colonel Kadhafi. Paris n’a qu’un seul objectif : «Venir en aide à un peuple en danger de mort […] au nom de la conscience universelle qui ne peut tolérer de tels crimes, déclare Nicolas Sarkozy lors d’un discours à l’Elysée, le 19 mars. Nous le faisons pour protéger la population civile de la folie meurtrière d’un régime qui, en assassinant son propre peuple, a perdu toute légitimité.» N’empêche, les entreprises pétrolières françaises pourraient largement profiter de cette campagne militaire. C’est en tout cas ce qui est écrit noir sur blanc dans un document que Libération s’est procuré. Texte signé par le Conseil national de transition (CNT), autorité de transition créée par les rebelles libyens. .....



http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2011/09/01/petrole-l-accord-secret-entre-le-cnt-et-la-france_758320

[Spendulus]

Can´t we all agree? Isn´t oil and armaments humanitarian?

Humanitarian interest in Libya 2011. Color-coded humanitarian interest in the lowermost image.

Does not matter.  Reroute the tankers, others will take their place, since oil is a fungible commodity.  No reasonable or logical conclusion can be made from "Where a country's oil comes from."

Illogical and false conclusions can be made, of course.

[toddtervy]

How the world is still even in one piece with poisonous corrupt treasonous psychopathic u.s. government inflicting it's poison.

[practicaldreamer]

When the UK Government sent troops to Libya to oust Gaddafi it was never put to a vote in the Commons. No - the Government went ahead using the antiquated anachronism known as the "Royal Prerogative".

If Assad did this they'd be calling for his head on a platter.

So much for democratic accountability in the UK.

[galdur]

When the UK Government sent troops to Libya to oust Gaddafi it was never put to a vote in the Commons. No - the Government went ahead using the antiquated anachronism known as the "Royal Prerogative".

If Assad did this they'd be calling for his head on a platter.

So much for democratic accountability in the UK.

Royal Prerogative, hahahahahaha. It´s like something out of the Dark Ages. Small wonder that these screwballs are so tight with the medieval princes in charge of Saudi Arabia. It´s the same mentality. Of course being a weirdo from Eton also helps.

[Spendulus]

How the world is still even in one piece with poisonous corrupt treasonous psychopathic u.s. government inflicting it's poison.

Because there are also the poisonous, corrupt, treasonous and psychopathic poisionous existences of 200 other nations?

[galdur]

West should learn from Iraq and Libya, says Russian envoy Vladimir Morozov

November 23, 2015 - 8:08PM

Russia's ambassador in Canberra has attacked the West's track record in toppling Middle Eastern dictators as he insisted there must be no "political strings attached" to Syria peace talks.

Ambassador Vladimir Morozov, writing on Monday in an opinion article for Fairfax Media, raised the twin spectres of Iraq and Libya as examples of where the United States, Australia and Europeans countries had erred by forcing out their autocratic rulers.

"We can remember Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. In both cases, it was said that if you remove the dictator, the country will prosper. The result as we can see is quite different," he said.

His remarks came as former defence minister Kevin Andrews used a column in the Australian Financial Review to call on the US and its allies to work with Russia and leave Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in place until a viable alternative emerges.

In remarks echoing those of Moscow's envoy, Mr Andrews said that "we should have learnt by now that removing a dictator without having an achievable plan for a viable alternative leaves a vacuum that enemies like [the Islamic State] will fill".

Russia is an ally of Assad's and has intervened in the country's civil war to prop up the dictator. Moscow is also involved in talks in Vienna with the US and other key nations about finding a political solution to Syria's entrenched violence, which is regarded as a key plank in the campaign against the Islamic State terror group.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who has long called for a pragmatic political solution in Syria that could mean leaving Assad temporarily in place, told Fairfax Media on Friday that "realpolitik" meant both Russia and Iran needed to be at the table for negotiations.

She said it had been "controversial" in June when she first raised the involvement of Iran but time had shown that "no option should be taken off the table".

Referring to the aim of the Vienna talks to hold elections in Syria as soon as 2017, Ms Bishop said that "we should aim for elections to be held as soon as conceivably possible".

Mr Morozov's comments follow Fairfax Media reports that the ambassador had told other international diplomats in Canberra that Moscow would be prepared to see Assad go as part of a compromise over Syria.

But in his Monday article, Mr Morozov said that Assad was a necessary part of negotiations over the future shape of Syria.

"All the forecasts that the people would rise up and oust him never came true. This means one thing: Assad represents the interests of a significant part of Syrian society. So no peaceful solution can be found without his participation."

He added: "I can't agree with the thinking that … [Assad] is behind all misfortune. The terrorist attack in Paris and the Islamic State claiming responsibility for it showed that regardless of whether you are for or against Bashar al-Assad, you are the enemy of the Islamic State. So let's fight IS together."

Debate meanwhile heated up in Canberra on Monday over Australia's military options in the fight against the Islamic State after Mr Andrews used his AFR column to argue that "more is required" including greater use of coalition special forces soldiers.

He said that "a concerted campaign by coalition special forces and related personnel is required to defeat IS".

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said it was good to have a debate about "whoever wants to make a contribution should be welcome to do so".

But he repeated what is now a well-worn line for government ministers that Australia is already "making a very significant contribution" as the second-largest player among the US-led coalition.

"Obviously if other countries would like to step up their contribution to that coalition, then Australia would certainly welcome that," he said.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/west-should-learn-from-iraq-and-libya-says-russian-envoy-vladimir-morozov-20151123-gl5gb8.html

[bryant.coleman]

When the UK Government sent troops to Libya to oust Gaddafi it was never put to a vote in the Commons. No - the Government went ahead using the antiquated anachronism known as the "Royal Prerogative".

Well... we have to remember the fact that the United Kingdom is no longer a sovereign nation. Just like other nations such as Germany and Japan, the UK is just another one of the US vassal states. The order to attack Gaddafi came from their masters in the Washington DC, and the British parliamentarians just followed it.

[practicaldreamer]

When the UK Government sent troops to Libya to oust Gaddafi it was never put to a vote in the Commons. No - the Government went ahead using the antiquated anachronism known as the "Royal Prerogative".

Well... we have to remember the fact that the United Kingdom is no longer a sovereign nation. Just like other nations such as Germany and Japan, the UK is just another one of the US vassal states. The order to attack Gaddafi came from their masters in the Washington DC, and the British parliamentarians just followed it.

Agreed.

The UK Govt. put it to Parliament a couple of years ago (in the light of the US's attempts at the same) to send troops into Syria to counteract Assad (and, yawn, his chemical weapons arsenal). It was defeated - and the US thought twice.
Its sad to see that the latest attack in Paris is being used as the legitimation the UK sought to get a succesful vote through Parliament to enter Syria. This time they are saying its to counter ISIL - but I think we can safely say the reason might more rightly be stated as weakening President Assad.
Exact same thing Bush did post 9/11 re.Iraq.

What a bunch of cynical bastards they truly are.

[galdur]

“We stand alongside Turkey in its efforts in protecting its national security and fighting against terrorism. France and Turkey are on the same side within the framework of the international coalition against the terrorist group ISIS.” --Statement by French Foreign Ministry, July 2015

[galdur]

Islamic State Tightens Grip on Libyan Stronghold of Sirte

City across the Mediterranean from Europe is first outside Syria or Iraq to come under the group’s control

MISRATA, Libya—Even as foreign powers step up pressure against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the militant group has expanded in Libya and established a new base close to Europe where it can generate oil revenue and plot terror attacks.

Since announcing its presence in February in Sirte, the city on Libya’s Mediterranean coast has become the first that the militant group governs outside of Syria and Iraq. Its presence there has grown over the past year from 200 eager fighters to a roughly 5,000-strong contingent which includes administrators and financiers, according to estimates by Libyan intelligence officials, residents and activists in the area.

The group has exploited the deep divisions in Libya, which has two rival governments, to create this new stronghold of violent religious extremism just across the Mediterranean Sea from Italy. Along the way, they scored a string of victories—defeating one of the strongest fighting forces in the country and swiftly crushing a local popular revolt.

Libya’s neighbors have become increasingly alarmed.

Tunisia closed its border with Libya for 15 days on Wednesday, the day after Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a bus in the capital Tunis that killed 12 presidential guards.

Tunisia is also building a security wall along a third of that border to stem the flow of extremists between the countries. Two previous attacks in Tunisia this year that killed dozens of tourists were carried out by gunmen the government said were trained by Islamic State in Libya, which has recruited hundreds of Tunisians to its ranks.

This burgeoning operation in Libya shows how Islamic State is able to grow and adapt even as it is targeted by Russian, French and U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria as well as Kurdish and Iraqi ground assaults in Iraq.

On Thursday, nearly two weeks after Islamic State’s attacks on Paris, French President François Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi met in the French capital where both said Europe must turn its attention to the militants’ rise in Libya. Mr. Renzi said Libya risks becoming the “next emergency” if it is not given priority.

In Libya, Islamic State has fended off challenges from government-aligned militias and called for recruits who have the technical know-how to put nearby oil facilities into operation. Libyan officials said they are worried it is only a matter of time before the radical fighters attempt to take over more oil fields and refineries near Sirte to boost their revenues—money that could fund attacks in the Middle East and Europe.

Sirte is a gateway to several major oil fields and refineries farther east on the same coast and Islamic State has targeted those installations in the past year.

“They have made their intentions clear,” said Ismail Shoukry, head of military intelligence for the region that includes Sirte. “They want to take their fight to Rome.”

Islamic State is benefiting from a conflict that has further weakened government control in Libya. For nearly a year, the U.S. and European powers have pointed to the Islamic State threat to press the rival governments to come to a power-sharing agreement. Despite a United Nations-brokered draft agreement for peace announced in October, neither side has taken steps to implement it.

An image taken from Aamaq News Agency, a YouTube channel that posts videos from areas under the Islamic State control, and provided courtesy of SITE Intelligence Group on June 9 allegedly shows a flag of the group flying on top of what they say is a power plant in the southern Libyan city of Sirte. ENLARGE
An image taken from Aamaq News Agency, a YouTube channel that posts videos from areas under the Islamic State control, and provided courtesy of SITE Intelligence Group on June 9 allegedly shows a flag of the group flying on top of what they say is a power plant in the southern Libyan city of Sirte.

A new U.N. envoy, Martin Kobler, was appointed this month to break the stalemate, part of efforts to find a political solution to counter the extremists’ expansion.

“We don’t have a real state. We have a fragmented government,” said Fathi Ali Bashaagha, a politician from the city of Misrata who participated in the U.N.-led negotiations. “Every day we delay on a political deal, it is a golden opportunity for Islamic State to grow.” ...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-entrenches-in-sirte-libya-1448798153

[galdur]

Well, destroying Lybia is turning out to be yet another success for those who are interested in creating fertile ground for terrorism to thrive in. In this case, primarily France, Britain and Italy but even dwarves like Norway and Denmark got to join in probably because political refuse from there was dumped into the usual NATO dumpster. I guess E.U. and U.N. dumpsters for politicians past their expiration date were full at the time.

I don´t think the U.S. military played a very meaningful part in the destruction of Lybia, it seemed to be more the usual CIA terrorism, drones and such. But of course the U.S. had a totally certifiable lunatic as a Secretary of State at the time and other fruitcakes of the same ilk working the United Nations, which was a big help in selling the whole scam to begin with. So it was more a marketing role for the U.S. part of NATO in this case.

[galdur]

ISIS is preparing a 'backup' capital in case its major center in Syria falls

As western countries ramp up strikes against ISIS's de-facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, the terrorist group is looking to Libya as a potential back-up option at which to base its operations, according to The New York Times.

While ISIS (also known as the Islamic State) has other affiliates throughout Africa and the Middle East that have pledged their allegiance to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group's branch in Sirte is the only one that ISIS central leadership directly controls.

The Wall Street Journal reports that ISIS leaders in Libya have reportedly adopted a slogan that reflects Sirte's heightened profile within the jihadist organization: "Sirte will be no less than Raqqa."

The Sirte affiliate is also much closer to western Europe than ISIS's territory in Syria and Iraq:



ISIS's influence in Sirte has been growing over the past year, as it has evolved into what The Times describes as an "actively managed colony" of the central group.

The growth has been swift — the Libya affiliate has gone from 200 fighters to about 5,000 since ISIS announced its branch there, The Journal reports. (The Times reports that Western put that estimate at 2,000 fighters.)

And Libya might be an ideal location for ISIS' fallback capital. The country lacks a functioning government and is rich in oil resources, which ISIS uses to finance its operations in Syria and Iraq, where it holds most of its territory.

Fathi Ali Bashaagha, a politician from Misrata, Libya, told The Journal: "We don’t have a real state. We have a fragmented government. Every day we delay on a political deal, it is a golden opportunity for Islamic State to grow."

Rival governments in Libya agreed to a draft peace accord in October, but so far it has not been implemented, according to The Journal.

As ISIS has accomplished in Syria and Iraq, the group is successfully exploiting "deep divisions" in Libya, according to The Journal. ISIS has encouraged sectarian hatred in Syria and Iraq to further divide the population and convince Sunni Muslims that they need ISIS to protect them from Shiites.

Also as it did when it started seizing territory in Iraq and Syria, ISIS might also have its sights set on expansion in Libya. Local and Western officials told The Times that recent attacks suggest that Ajdabiya, a city further to the east, could be the next area ISIS looks to seize. It would give the group control of nearby oil fields, according to The Times.

Another sign of ISIS' intentions in Libya comes with the people starting to suddenly appear in the North African country. Senior Iraqi leaders from ISIS are reportedly arriving from across the Mediterranean, which mimics how ISIS set up its base in Raqqa. The leaders of ISIS-controlled cities in Syria are predominantly Iraqi.

Sirte is also being governed like other ISIS-controlled cities in the Middle East. The group has reportedly set up propaganda "media points" in the city and started imposing its strict laws, like requiring women to wear Islamic veils in public and permitting public executions.

ISIS might already be using Sirte as a base for its operations in North Africa. Neighboring Tunisia has been hit with attacks from terrorists who trained in Libya, and Tunisia is now building a wall along its border to prevent extremists from easily crossing between the two countries, according to The Journal.

The group has also backed off of insisting that Muslims travel to Syria to join its Islamic "caliphate" and is now suggesting that recruits go to Libya instead, according to both The Times and The Journal.

But there are problems with ISIS' franchise in Sirte. While the group has tried to build up the city to mirror Raqqa — with bureaucratic buildings, a "police" force, and courts — ISIS is having a hard time meeting the basic needs of the population, according to The Journal. Gas stations and hospitals aren't functioning, and checkpoints make travel difficult.

As a civil engineer who recently fled told The Journal: "Sirte has gone dark."

http://uk.businessinsider.com/isis-sirte-libya-2015-11?r=US&IR=T

[bryant.coleman]

^^^^ So the ISIS nuts have conceded that Syria is lost. 

It is just a matter of time before they lose the cities of Raqqa and Mosul. The only question is who will be conquering these cities. For Raqqa, the competition will be between the Syrian Army and the YPG. Mosul will be contested between the Kurds and the Iraqi Army (backed up by the Iranian and local Shiite paramilitaries). 

[galdur]

^^^^ So the ISIS nuts have conceded that Syria is lost. 

It is just a matter of time before they lose the cities of Raqqa and Mosul. The only question is who will be conquering these cities. For Raqqa, the competition will be between the Syrian Army and the YPG. Mosul will be contested between the Kurds and the Iraqi Army (backed up by the Iranian and local Shiite paramilitaries). 

Well, it doesn´t look like western nutjobs are managing to drive those off who are actually trying to wipe out ISIS - the Russians - so now it´s focusing its efforts on the ruins of Lybia that were prepared for it. It was always eminently predictable.

[Blithe]

HOW THE WEST DESTROYED LIBYA
Western leaders should be “judged at the Hague, for atrocities against humanity.”

The full impact of Western intervention in Libya was recently highlighted during a televised interview of Worlds Apart with guest Hanne Nabintu Herland, a Norwegian author and historian who was born and raised in Africa for 20 years.

At one point while talking about Libya, Herland firmly asserted that:

In a just world, the political leaders in the West, that have done such atrocities towards other nations and other cultures, should have been sent to the Hague [International Criminal Court], and judged at the Hague, for atrocities against humanity.

Before that, the African-born, Norwegian author said:

Libya is the worst example of Western countries’ assault in modern history; it’s a horrible thing to be a European intellectual and to watch your own political leaders go ahead and engage in something like this.  In Norway, for example, when it comes to something like the Libyan war … [political leaders] sent MSM messages to the other people in parliament; it was never a discussion in parliament, it was an MSM saying “Let’s bomb because someone called from America.”  We [Norway] bombed 588 bombs over roads, and water, and cities in Libya at that time.  And we had a large documentary in Norway, after that, where the fighters, the pilots that flew over Libya and dropped these bombs, they actually said in the documentary that “We were sent up and we weren’t even told what to bomb—just bomb something that looks valuable."

Herland also pointed out that, according to UN figures, Gaddafi’s Libya was once the most prosperous nation in Africa. While Oksana Boyko, the host, sometimes disagreed with Herland, she agreed about the West’s counterproductive role, pointing out that Gaddafi “was very active in trying to advance women’s rights, he brought a lot of women into universities and the labor force [a thing few people in the West know, as usual, thanks to the “MSM”] and now what people and women in Libya are facing is Sharia [Islamic law], with the possibility of some of them being sold to ISIS fighters as virgin brides.”

Indeed, that the jihadis and other “ISIS” type militants gained the most from Western intervention in Libya cannot be denied.  Simply looking at the treatment of Christian minorities—the litmus test of the radicalization of any Muslim society—proves this.

[bryant.coleman]

Well, it doesn´t look like western nutjobs are managing to drive those off who are actually trying to wipe out ISIS - the Russians - so now it´s focusing its efforts on the ruins of Lybia that were prepared for it. It was always eminently predictable.

Hmm.... just coincidentally.... I noticed that there are a lot of similarities between both Syria and Libya. Before the NATO intervention, both these nations were economically well doing and staunchly secular. The NATO tried to overthrow both the regimes, and replace them with hardcore Islamist theocracies. They succeeded in Libya, but failed in Syria.

One more thing. I believe that there is a sinister plot to turn the European continent to Eurabia. The ongoing civil wars in Syria and Libya might be a part of that tactic. Merkel wants to increase the German Muslim population to 20 million in 2020, from the current figure of 4 million.

[galdur]

(CNN)A report released on Tuesday by a United Nations monitoring group examining terrorist groups in Libya warns ISIS has built up a significant presence in Libya and could further expand the territory it controls through local alliances, but will likely face a number of challenges and constraints in the months ahead.

Outside Syria and Iraq, Libya has proved to the most promising ground for ISIS expansion with the group entrenching its control of the former Gadhafi stronghold of Sirte in recent months and over a hundred miles of coastline bordering the city. The group also retains a presence in eastern Libya where it is in a pitched contest with al Qaeda affiliated groups......

[galdur]

The Islamic State is training to fly planes in its stronghold in the northern coastal city of Sirte, an Arab newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The terrorist group is using at least one flight simulator, which may have been seized from the country’s airports, according to Libyan military sources quoted in the Asharq al-Awsat report.

“It’s a modern simulator, which may have arrived from abroad,” other sources stated.

A senior unnamed official, whose job is to track Islamic State activity in the country, told the newspaper that there is intelligence about their fighters training to fly civilian planes. The source added that the Libyan air force unsuccessfully attempted to take out at least one base where this training is occurring. ...

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-Threat/Report-ISIS-in-Libya-training-to-fly-planes-436165

[galdur]

IS group builts a base in Libya from which to exploit tribal conflicts
“IS is provoking tensions and making alliances,” particularly between the competing Tuareg and Toubou tribes

PARIS, FRANCE - Libya’s collapse into a chaotic mess of competing militias since the overthrow and death of dictator Moamer Kadhafi has made it an ideal stomping ground for Islamic State.

Islamic State (IS) group has built a base in Libya from which to exploit tribal conflicts and expand across Africa, though experts say the militants remain exposed even if the West’s attention is elsewhere ng ground for Islamic state.

Islamic State militants gradually built up control of several towns that were of minimum interest to other militias, particularly Kadhafi’s coastal home town of Sirte, east of Tripoli.

Libya not only offers an alternative base if the group is forced out of Syria and Iraq, experts fear it could also take advantage of tribal conflicts to expand south into the Sahel desert region of central Africa, particularly Chad, Niger and Sudan.

“IS is provoking tensions and making alliances,” particularly between the competing Tuareg and Toubou tribes, said Kader Abderrahim of the Institute of Strategic and International Relations in Paris.

For now, Islamic State has only a limited foothold in Libya, but it is enough to project violence into neighbouring countries, particularly Tunisia where the group has claimed three attacks this year.

“Tunisia is the most threatened,” said Abderrahim. “The terrorists cannot accept the idea of a functioning democracy just a few dozen kilometres away.”

Libya also lies just 500 miles across the Mediterranean from Italy, and is a route for thousands of refugees, another weakness Islamic State could exploit.

Libya nonetheless represents a much less hospitable environment for IS than Syria and Iraq.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/foreign/04-Dec-2015/is-group-built-a-base-in-libya-from-which-to-exploit-tribal-conflicts

[bryant.coleman]

(CNN)A report released on Tuesday by a United Nations monitoring group examining terrorist groups in Libya warns ISIS has built up a significant presence in Libya and could further expand the territory it controls through local alliances, but will likely face a number of challenges and constraints in the months ahead.

Outside Syria and Iraq, Libya has proved to the most promising ground for ISIS expansion with the group entrenching its control of the former Gadhafi stronghold of Sirte in recent months and over a hundred miles of coastline bordering the city. The group also retains a presence in eastern Libya where it is in a pitched contest with al Qaeda affiliated groups......

Not only Libya, but the Islamic State seems to be expanding in the other parts of the world as well, including Yemen, Sinai, Nigeria (Boko Haram), Afghanistan, and Pakistan. They are no longer asking their followers to travel to Syria. Instead, they are distributing them to territories such as Sirte, Hadramawt, and Sinai.

[galdur]

(CNN)A report released on Tuesday by a United Nations monitoring group examining terrorist groups in Libya warns ISIS has built up a significant presence in Libya and could further expand the territory it controls through local alliances, but will likely face a number of challenges and constraints in the months ahead.

Outside Syria and Iraq, Libya has proved to the most promising ground for ISIS expansion with the group entrenching its control of the former Gadhafi stronghold of Sirte in recent months and over a hundred miles of coastline bordering the city. The group also retains a presence in eastern Libya where it is in a pitched contest with al Qaeda affiliated groups......

Not only Libya, but the Islamic State seems to be expanding in the other parts of the world as well, including Yemen, Sinai, Nigeria (Boko Haram), Afghanistan, and Pakistan. They are no longer asking their followers to travel to Syria. Instead, they are distributing them to territories such as Sirte, Hadramawt, and Sinai.

Yes, and when they´re entrenched enough in all those places the bombing will start. It should be a familiar script to most people by now. Bomb, entice more terrorism, suffer terror attacks at home, act all dumb and indignant, bomb more and so on.

[bryant.coleman]

Yes, and when they´re entrenched enough in all those places the bombing will start. It should be a familiar script to most people by now. Bomb, entice more terrorism, suffer terror attacks at home, act all dumb and indignant, bomb more and so on.

The same mistake which was committed in Syria and Iraq should not be repeated ever again. The ISIS affiliates in Libya, Afghanistan and Yemen should be nipped in the bud. Just send in the ground forces (with air support) and take them out. If this is not done, then in the near future it will be almost impossible to defeat them militarily. 

[galdur]

It isn´t mistakes, it´s policy. It works so well that it keeps getting repeated in country after country. Which means that totally certifiable nutcases are in charge. The other possibility that they are expecting different results from these repeats, well that´s insanity as well, so there you are.

[alrachid]

And this is only one of the many reasons we don't need Hillary in office.  She played a role in it and she has ulterior motives IMO.

[bryant.coleman]

And this is only one of the many reasons we don't need Hillary in office.  She played a role in it and she has ulterior motives IMO.

Unfortunately, it is a foregone conclusion that she will become the POTUS in 2016. The US voter demographics has changed very dramatically. The spike in the Hispanic and Asian population will make it extremely hard for any GOP candidate to secure an outright win. Right now, Hillary is leading against all her potential GOP opponents by a wide margin.

[galdur]

[galdur]

Italy PM: ‘No Thank You’ to Joining ISIS War
Warns He Doesn't Want Another Libya

by Jason Ditz, December 06, 2015

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has rejected calls to join the US-led war against ISIS by announcing airstrikes against targets inside Syria, saying that more airstrikes would only add to the chaos in the region.

Renzi has been facing growing pressure from the center-right opposition to join the war, and told a newspaper today that he was interested in defeating ISIS, but not just to “multiply on-the-spot reactions, without a strategic vision.”

“If being a protagonist means playing at running after other people’s bombardments, then I say ‘no thank you,'” Renzi insisted, comparing the new strikes to the 2011 NATO attack on Libya, and saying he doesn’t want a “repeat of Libya.”

Libya was expected to be a huge boost for Italy, its neighbor across the Mediterranean, with Italian companies lining up for huge business deals in post-Gadhafi Libya, only to see those opportunities dry up as fighting grows. With ISIS and others establishing presences in Libya, Italy is finding the country less a source of business opportunities and more an endless supply of refugee ships.

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/12/06/italy-pm-no-thank-you-to-joining-isis-war/

[bryant.coleman]

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has rejected calls to join the US-led war against ISIS by announcing airstrikes against targets inside Syria, saying that more airstrikes would only add to the chaos in the region.

He is correct, up to an extent. The only way to destroy the ISIS is to mount a ground offensive, after sealing off the ISIS-Turkish border. But as long as the border remains open, it will be impossible to defeat the ISIS. Also, the Turks should be given strict instructions on not to purchase the ISIS oil. If they don't obey, then drop bombs and obliterate the Turkish oil refineries.

[galdur]

Why isn´t she running for president? Seems to have more brains than Obama and Hillary put together. Not to mention that unlike them she appears perfectly sane.

U.S. Congresswoman: CIA Must Stop Illegal, Counterproductive War to Overthrow Assad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHkher6ceaA

[Beliathon]

IMHO Nuke Libya

[bryant.coleman]

Why isn´t she running for president? Seems to have more brains than Obama and Hillary put together. Not to mention that unlike them she appears perfectly sane.

U.S. Congresswoman: CIA Must Stop Illegal, Counterproductive War to Overthrow Assad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHkher6ceaA

Tulsi Gabbard? LOL. She is a good politician, but unfortunately ended up with the wrong party. I am sure that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden would deny her a re-election in 2018. How can she remain in the Democrat party, with such outspoken views against the American intervention in Syria? Very courageous, I should admit.

[mohsin qureshi]

What has the West wrought in Libya?
Now Libya is a dangerous wreck, and no Western countries want to take responsibility for restoring its civil order.

I totally agreed some countries strikes in Libya, what they got from there??? nothing only killing of more than 10 thousand peoples, simentaniouly attacks in Iraq, (for in search of so called weapons of mass destructions), I think if only Saddam dismissed from his post, then there is no need for war there.

Same in Afghanistan, now Afghanistan become a nightmare for ally forces, over 14 years have been passed, but no peace there, a number of ally troops killed there.

all above said countries forces attacks, for their own intrest i guess, but no peace there, and the people of that countries now become an enemy of western countries. Thats why ISIS formed, it is the reason behind it i guess, we have another chance, we do not more attacks because then the situation become more worst, and that is the final alarm for WORLD WAR - III

[galdur]

IS aims to extend caliphate and grab oil in Libya

BEL TREWTHE TIMESDECEMBER 16, 2015 10:31AM

Islamic State has seized vast swathes of the Libyan coast in an attempt to grab the largest oil wells and establish headquarters to replace its northern Syrian stronghold, which has been pounded by western and Russian air strikes.

French reconnaissance missions and residents in Sirte, the coastal hometown of Colonel Gaddafi, have revealed that ISIS has sent large convoys east towards the oil terminals of Ras Lanuf and Sidra.

The French government, whose drones and jets have been spying on Isis movements in Libya, warned that the terror network was also expanding inland into the expansive oil crescent.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defence minister, who has overseen several missions in the past two months, said: “They are in Sirte, their territory extends 250km along the coast, but they are starting to penetrate the interior and to be tempted by access to oil wells and reserves.”

The French believe that ISIS is desperately trying to secure a new safe haven after massive aerial bombardment on Raqqa, the terror network’s effective headquarters, in northern Syria. ISIS already controls Sirte and would be able to extend the territory it controls by taking advantage of the chaotic state of the country, which has been effectively ungovernable since Colonel Gaddafi was killed and his regime collapsed. Grabbing Libya’s oil assets would also replace revenue for the terror network lost after the bombing of Syrian oilfields.

With two rival governments and no functioning army, Libyan authorities have been powerless to stop the insurgency.

ISIS now holds a stretch of territory several hundred miles long just across the Mediterranean from Europe, as well as pockets in the far east and far west of the country.

The group issued a decree at the weekend, which has been seen by The Times, stating that Sirte was governed by “the caliphate” and setting out a 13-point manifesto. It said that there would be strict punishments for those who flouted its rules.

The decree included details of a Sharia courthouse to oversee all financial transactions in Sirte. Those who attempt to evade the courthouse’s oversight will face trial, the fighters wrote. This week, Isis beheaded a woman for “witchcraft” and shot dead a Palestinian man accused of spying in the city. They also cut off a Libyan man’s hand for stealing.

Last month, they beheaded two men accused of “sorcery” and lashed two others for drinking alcohol and having extramarital relations. The brutal punishments were broadcast in a gory eight-minute propaganda video.

The ISIS police who now run Sirte have been tasked with enforcing the new constitution, which bans alcohol, smoking and drugs. All political activity, such as joining a party, holding rallies or interacting with “apostate governments” is to be punished by the sword, the makeshift constitution states. Women are ordered to “stay home unless there is an emergency” and to wear the full face veil.

The document refers to pagan images and sculptures, rousing fears for Libya’s heritage sites, many of which now lie within Isis’s growing territory. “If you see paganism, in the form of sculpture do not let it be until you destroy it,” the fighters wrote, echoing the actions of their counterparts in Syria and Iraq, who demolished the ancient cities of Palmyra and Nimrud and executed the officials who managed them.

Libya is rich in ancient archaeological sites that were once protected by Unesco, including Cyrene, which was founded in 630BC and was one of the most important cities in the Hellenic world.

Last week, ISIS fighters swept into Sabratha, about 500km east of Sirte. It was the first time that the ISIS fighters, who run several international jihadist training camps, had displayed such a brazen show of force so far east in the country.

Archaeologists fear for Sabratha’s third-century Roman amphitheatre, one of the best in the world, and the fully stocked museum on site, which could easily be looted.

ISIS first appeared in Libya in October last year, but has rapidly expanded across the country, exploiting a complete breakdown in security after the armed coalition Libya Dawn took over Tripoli and set up a rival administration, sparking a civil war.

The United Nations is desperate to secure a peace deal for Libya with delegates meeting today in Morocco. The UN is pushing for both administrations to form a united government and help stabilise the country, but few hold out much hope. Neither government has expressed support for such a deal.

In a recent conference on Libya held in Rome, officials from 17 countries, including the UK and the US, together with the European Union, the African Union and the Arab League, urged Libya’s politicians to push forward with a deal.

The Times

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/is-aims-to-extend-caliphate-and-grab-oil-in-libya/news-story/ef8616d00f5b15e7cb4a1df571cb414e

[zenitzz]

IS aims to extend caliphate and grab oil in Libya

BEL TREWTHE TIMESDECEMBER 16, 2015 10:31AM

Islamic State has seized vast swathes of the Libyan coast in an attempt to grab the largest oil wells and establish headquarters to replace its northern Syrian stronghold, which has been pounded by western and Russian air strikes.

French reconnaissance missions and residents in Sirte, the coastal hometown of Colonel Gaddafi, have revealed that ISIS has sent large convoys east towards the oil terminals of Ras Lanuf and Sidra.

The French government, whose drones and jets have been spying on Isis movements in Libya, warned that the terror network was also expanding inland into the expansive oil crescent.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defence minister, who has overseen several missions in the past two months, said: “They are in Sirte, their territory extends 250km along the coast, but they are starting to penetrate the interior and to be tempted by access to oil wells and reserves.”

The French believe that ISIS is desperately trying to secure a new safe haven after massive aerial bombardment on Raqqa, the terror network’s effective headquarters, in northern Syria. ISIS already controls Sirte and would be able to extend the territory it controls by taking advantage of the chaotic state of the country, which has been effectively ungovernable since Colonel Gaddafi was killed and his regime collapsed. Grabbing Libya’s oil assets would also replace revenue for the terror network lost after the bombing of Syrian oilfields.

With two rival governments and no functioning army, Libyan authorities have been powerless to stop the insurgency.

ISIS now holds a stretch of territory several hundred miles long just across the Mediterranean from Europe, as well as pockets in the far east and far west of the country.

The group issued a decree at the weekend, which has been seen by The Times, stating that Sirte was governed by “the caliphate” and setting out a 13-point manifesto. It said that there would be strict punishments for those who flouted its rules.

The decree included details of a Sharia courthouse to oversee all financial transactions in Sirte. Those who attempt to evade the courthouse’s oversight will face trial, the fighters wrote. This week, Isis beheaded a woman for “witchcraft” and shot dead a Palestinian man accused of spying in the city. They also cut off a Libyan man’s hand for stealing.

Last month, they beheaded two men accused of “sorcery” and lashed two others for drinking alcohol and having extramarital relations. The brutal punishments were broadcast in a gory eight-minute propaganda video.

The ISIS police who now run Sirte have been tasked with enforcing the new constitution, which bans alcohol, smoking and drugs. All political activity, such as joining a party, holding rallies or interacting with “apostate governments” is to be punished by the sword, the makeshift constitution states. Women are ordered to “stay home unless there is an emergency” and to wear the full face veil.

The document refers to pagan images and sculptures, rousing fears for Libya’s heritage sites, many of which now lie within Isis’s growing territory. “If you see paganism, in the form of sculpture do not let it be until you destroy it,” the fighters wrote, echoing the actions of their counterparts in Syria and Iraq, who demolished the ancient cities of Palmyra and Nimrud and executed the officials who managed them.

Libya is rich in ancient archaeological sites that were once protected by Unesco, including Cyrene, which was founded in 630BC and was one of the most important cities in the Hellenic world.

Last week, ISIS fighters swept into Sabratha, about 500km east of Sirte. It was the first time that the ISIS fighters, who run several international jihadist training camps, had displayed such a brazen show of force so far east in the country.

Archaeologists fear for Sabratha’s third-century Roman amphitheatre, one of the best in the world, and the fully stocked museum on site, which could easily be looted.

ISIS first appeared in Libya in October last year, but has rapidly expanded across the country, exploiting a complete breakdown in security after the armed coalition Libya Dawn took over Tripoli and set up a rival administration, sparking a civil war.

The United Nations is desperate to secure a peace deal for Libya with delegates meeting today in Morocco. The UN is pushing for both administrations to form a united government and help stabilise the country, but few hold out much hope. Neither government has expressed support for such a deal.

In a recent conference on Libya held in Rome, officials from 17 countries, including the UK and the US, together with the European Union, the African Union and the Arab League, urged Libya’s politicians to push forward with a deal.

The Times

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/is-aims-to-extend-caliphate-and-grab-oil-in-libya/news-story/ef8616d00f5b15e7cb4a1df571cb414e

looks like France might get a little chilly this winter. libya was their main source of oil when Gadahfi was in charge. I'd say France shot itself in the foot getting rid of Sarkozy's money man Ghadafi

[galdur]

Yes, French and Italian oil companies primarily and also British ones had high hopes for Libya but their political assets didn´t deliver. First and foremost they picked the worst possible crap (like obviously seeks like, as always) in Libya to help overthrow Ghadafi and second they actually let that crap develop the aftermath. The rest is history. It seems that the weapons manufacturing political ownership side has proved much more powerful, especially as the French are concerned. Their weapons sales to the Middle East warzones have totally ballooned in recent years and the region is by far their most important market.

[galdur]

US Special Ops Kicked Out of Libya
Troops Outed by Libyan Air Force on Facebook

by Jason Ditz, December 17, 2015

A US military ground operation began and ended without much fanfare earlier this week in Libya, the Pentagon admitted today, in a shockingly bungling effort to secretly establish a presence of US special forces in the country.

A group of about 20 US soldiers, armed with assault rifles and bulletproof vests, but conspicuously not wearing uniforms, showed up in the Wattiya airbase, just south of Tripoli Monday. Pictures of the US troops were published by the Libyan Air Force on their Facebook page.

The Air Force pointed out the troops arrived with no coordination and apparently no approval, though the Pentagon claims to have gotten an okay from some government faction or other, but apparently not the right ones, as local commanders quickly demanded that the US troops leave, and the Pentagon says they did to “avoid conflict.”

Pentagon officials further claimed the deployment was a “training mission” aimed at enhancing ties with the Libyan National Army, but didn’t explain why they sent the troops in wholly unannounced, nor why the troops were clearly combat-ready but out of uniform.

Recent conferences on Libya among NATO members, including one earlier this month in Rome, have had several nations talking up the idea of sending troops. It is surprising to learn, then, that the US went first, bungling their way into Libya and almost immediately getting chased out.

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/12/17/us-special-ops-kicked-out-of-libya/

[galdur]

Libya Seeks Russia’s Help in Battling Terrorism

11:51 19.12.2015 (updated 15:22 19.12.2015)

The Libyan Armed Forces' Commander Brigadier General Khalifa Hafter has voiced his country's readiness to cooperate with Russia in fighting terrorism, according to the Iranian news agency FARS.

"We welcome support from Russia in fighting terrorism," the agency quotes Hafter as telling reporters after his meeting with United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Chief Martin Kobler in the city of Marj, Northeastern Libya.


Will Syria Repeat the Fate of Libya, ‘Which No Longer Exists’?

The military leader assured that if Russia proposes a plan for fighting terrorism in Libya, Tripoli will cooperate with Moscow, adding that “Russians are serious in [the] fight against terrorists”.
Libya is currently run by two main rival governments, which are entangled in a violent, nationwide power struggle. Each side is backed by powerful armed groups which have dominated the Libyan scene since the elimination of the country’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The country's capital Tripoli, is controlled by a political faction, known as the General National Congress, which was set up after an armed group called Libya Dawn seized the capital, Tripoli, last summer.

The UN-recognized government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni is based in the eastern city of Bayda; its elected parliament moved from the capital Tripoli to Tobruk.


Moving Closer to Europe: ISIL Sets Its Sights on Expansion in Libya

On Thursday, rival Libyan politicians signed a deal on a unity government despite opposition on both sides, in what the United Nations described as a "first step" towards ending the crisis.
World powers have urged the warring factions to break a political deadlock that has allowed jihadists and people-smugglers to flourish.

Meanwhile, the jihadist group Daesh (also known as ISIL/ISIS) has increased its presence in the Libyan Mediterranean city of Sirte, having apparently established its new base there, where it can “generate oil revenue and plan terror attacks”.

http://sputniknews.com/world/20151219/1032011120/libya-russia-help-terrorism.html

[bryant.coleman]

^^^The Russians are unlikely to attack the ISIS in Libya. They intervened in Syria, only after Bashar al Assad requested for assistance. Also, Syria is a strategic location in the Middle East, and the city of Tartus is having a Russian naval base. On the other hand, Libya is having Zero strategic importance. Why should Putin waste his money and equipment there?

[galdur]

^^^The Russians are unlikely to attack the ISIS in Libya. They intervened in Syria, only after Bashar al Assad requested for assistance. Also, Syria is a strategic location in the Middle East, and the city of Tartus is having a Russian naval base. On the other hand, Libya is having Zero strategic importance. Why should Putin waste his money and equipment there?

Well, if Lybia can be stabilized and come under control of some people that can be dealt with in a civilized manner it can´t hurt to have friends there. I think the Russians will put out some feelers, maybe send some advisers, special forces that sort of thing.

[bryant.coleman]

Well, if Lybia can be stabilized and come under control of some people that can be dealt with in a civilized manner it can´t hurt to have friends there. I think the Russians will put out some feelers, maybe send some advisers, special forces that sort of thing.

That depends. I don't know whether these people can be trusted or not. Also, I don't want the Russian tax payers to foot the bill. The Libyans (or the NATO countries such as Italy and Germany, which caused this situation) should take care of all the expenses. After all, they are one of the top crude oil and natural gas producers in North Africa.

[galdur]

Well, if Lybia can be stabilized and come under control of some people that can be dealt with in a civilized manner it can´t hurt to have friends there. I think the Russians will put out some feelers, maybe send some advisers, special forces that sort of thing.

That depends. I don't know whether these people can be trusted or not. Also, I don't want the Russian tax payers to foot the bill. The Libyans (or the NATO countries such as Italy and Germany, which caused this situation) should take care of all the expenses. After all, they are one of the top crude oil and natural gas producers in North Africa.

NATO has no accountability or responsibility at all. It´s clearly policy from the member states and until that changes if ever, well those who have ethics and morals and are ready to shoulder responsibility even on behalf of others must step in.

[galdur]

See what I mean? It isn´t an opinion, it´s an argument. Here is yet another FACT that further supports that argument....

Europe and Turkey closed airspace for Russian Long-Range Aviation planes carrying out airstrikes on Daesh positions in Syria, forcing Russian pilots to reroute, Deputy Commander Maj. Gen. Anatoly Konovalov said Saturday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to Konovalov, Russian pilots had to leave for Syria from Russia’s northernmost Olenegorsk military airport in order to bypass Europe and then cross the Mediterranean Sea toward Syria.

[bryant.coleman]

Europe and Turkey closed airspace for Russian Long-Range Aviation planes carrying out airstrikes on Daesh positions in Syria, forcing Russian pilots to reroute, Deputy Commander Maj. Gen. Anatoly Konovalov said Saturday.

How long these European idiots are going to lick the boots of the Turks? The Americans are just sitting back and enjoying the drama, as the European farmers are accumulating tens of billions of Euros worth of debt due to the Russian embargo. And at the same time, the EU is wasting its funds on Turkey, rather than compensating these farmers.

[galdur]

Je Ne Regrette ISIS: Cameron Stands By Failed Libya Intervention

by BREITBART LONDON26 Dec 2015



Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has doubled down on his decision to use British military assets to intervene, alongside France, in Libya in 2011.

The intervention toppled the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, leading to the death of the one-time fair-weather friend of the United Kingdom and United States.

Arguably however, the intervention also gave way to the takeover of Libya by Islamic State terrorists, and prompted major, trans-Atlantic incidents such as the Benghazi scandal, and contributed to Europe’s migrant crisis.

But Mr. Cameron appears to have no regrets about his major role in sparking these crises. In an interview with the Spectator magazine’s Christmas edition, he claimed: “I would say that Libya is better off without Gaddafi. What we were doing was preventing a mass genocide.”

And despite taking to the streets of Benghazi to celebrate in September 2011, Mr. Cameron now claims: “It takes time. There just aren’t any easy answers with any of these things. Whether you are looking at Libya or Syria or Iraq or Nigeria or Somalia, you have to try and build governance and government.”

He was asked: “Knowing what you know now, would you have gone ahead with the Libyan operation?” to which he replied, “Yes because Gaddafi was going to massacre his own people.”

The Spectator noted:

Libya has been in the news again over Christmas: the UN Security Council has endorsed a new government but as Peter Oborne found out when he visited Benghazi, the city that David Cameron addressed after his 2011 bombing campaign (video above), there isn’t much government to speak of. The World Food Programme says that 2.4m Libyans will need humanitarian assistance; the country’s population is 6.2m. Its economy shrank by 25pc last year alone and private enterprise is collapsing: the state now employs 80pc of Libyans. At the height of the 2011 uprising there were about 17,000 militiamen: today they number in the hundreds of thousands and they’re tearing Libya apart.

His comments haven’t been received well by readers of the magazine, traditionally a Conservative Party supporting audience.

One Facebook user responded: “Self- justification. Ask Blair and Bush whether it was right to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and you know what the answer is going to be”, while another added: “Cameron, Blair…both unprincipled, treacherous cowards.”

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/12/26/je-ne-regrette-isis-cameron-stands-by-failed-libya-intervention/

[galdur]

ISIS Attacks Oil Port in Libya’s Sidra
12 Reported Killed in Fighting Over Terminal

by Jason Ditz, January 04, 2016

At least 12 people were reported killed and a 420,000 barrel oil tank is ablaze tonight after ISIS forces moved against the oil port in the Libyan coastal city of Sidra, attacking guards at the outskirts of the facility.

ISIS has been expanding from the city of Sirte toward the facilities at Ras Lanauf and Sidra, aiming to expand not just their territory but their control over Libyan oil wealth. In years past, Libya was a major source of oil to Europe, but wars since the NATO-imposed regime change have left those shipments intermittent, at best.

The Libyan parliament at Tobruk downplayed today’s strike, saying they’d mustered Air Force resources to resist the ISIS attack and had “repelled” them from the area. ISIS has insisted the fighting continues against the “enemies of God.”

At least 12 ISIS vehicles were involved in the initial attack, and a suicide bomber hit the checkpoint leading to the port. Fighting escalated around the port entrance. It’s unclear how the oil tank caught fire, but it was near the clashes.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/01/04/isis-attacks-oil-port-in-libyas-sidra/

[galdur]

But historians of the 2011 NATO war in Libya will be sure to notice a few of the truly explosive confirmations contained in the new emails: admissions of rebel war crimes, special ops trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of protests, Al Qaeda embedded in the U.S. backed opposition, Western nations jockeying for access to Libyan oil, the nefarious origins of the absurd Viagra mass rape claim, and concern over Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves threatening European currency....

Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/01/06/new-hillary-emails-reveal-true-motive-for-libya-intervention/

[galdur]

Nothing new under the sun...


In the "City of God," St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. The Emperor angrily demanded of him, "How dare you molest the seas?" To which the pirate replied, "How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the world and are called an emperor." St. Augustine thought the pirate's answer was "elegant and excellent."

The quote is from Noam Chomsky's Pirates and Emperors

[galdur]

Libya’s New Government Unveiled, Stuck in Tunisia
Libya Dawn Militia Won't Let 'Unity Government' Back

by Jason Ditz, January 19, 2016

Libya’s new “unity” Prime Minister Fayez Siraj today unveiled his new unity cabinet at a high-profile UN-backed ceremony in Tunis, the capital city of neighboring Tunisia. The hope was that this unified government would gain some control over the country.

Things aren’t looking good on day one, however, as the “unity government” quickly became a government-in-exile, when they tried to return to Libya and were stopped at the border by the Libyan Dawn militia, who are not going to let them back in.

The cabinet isn’t government of anything without approval from the parliament, which is based in Tobruk, and their inability to even get back into Libya has already lead to two members of the nation’s “presidential council” tendering their resignation just hours after their appointment.

The UN pushed the two parliaments, one based in Tobruk and one in Tripoli, to come to some sort of unity agreement, but neither side appeared particularly on board with the plan, meaning ultimately they have created a government on paper with no more power than any of the other Libyan governments around at any given time.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/01/19/libyas-new-government-unveiled-stuck-in-tunisia/

[mOgliE]

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

Dude... He was an horrible dictator that stole its people until he became one of the richest man in the world. He used torture on anyone he didn't like, murdered entire families for not being of the "right tribe" and killed anyone trying to say it was not right.

Yes he managed to keep Libya under control. Yes he brought some better health care to SOME of his citizens (cause if you were not from the right tribe you could just die in the street). Yes it was probably stupid to go bomb the country like that.

But no he was not a great man you dumbass asshole...

[Snail2]

Dude... He was an horrible dictator that stole its people until he became one of the richest man in the world. He used torture on anyone he didn't like, murdered entire families for not being of the "right tribe" and killed anyone trying to say it was not right.

Yes he managed to keep Libya under control. Yes he brought some better health care to SOME of his citizens (cause if you were not from the right tribe you could just die in the street). Yes it was probably stupid to go bomb the country like that.

But no he was not a great man you dumbass asshole...

Sure mate. ...he also took candy from children and enjoyed kicking puppies. Saddam had piles of nukes, Assad gassed his own people, muslim immigrants in Europe are all very useful intellectuals and they have nothing to do with terrorism. Are you really believe everything what you've heard on the telly? Of course he wasn't a saint, actually quite far from that, but he was also far from the picture what the western media invented about him. His greatest sin was an initiative about gold currency and moving oil trade from USD to gold as well. That changed him from a more or less accepted bloke with funny clothes to the second most evil villain after Hitler .

[mOgliE]

Dude... He was an horrible dictator that stole its people until he became one of the richest man in the world. He used torture on anyone he didn't like, murdered entire families for not being of the "right tribe" and killed anyone trying to say it was not right.

Yes he managed to keep Libya under control. Yes he brought some better health care to SOME of his citizens (cause if you were not from the right tribe you could just die in the street). Yes it was probably stupid to go bomb the country like that.

But no he was not a great man you dumbass asshole...

Sure mate. ...he also took candy from children and enjoyed kicking puppies. Saddam had piles of nukes, Assad gassed his own people, muslim immigrants in Europe are all very useful intellectuals and they have nothing to do with terrorism. Are you really believe everything what you've heard on the telly? Of course he wasn't a saint, actually quite far from that, but he was also far from the picture what the western media invented about him. His greatest sin was an initiative about gold currency and moving oil trade from USD to gold as well. That changed him from a more or less accepted bloke with funny clothes to the second most evil villain after Hitler .

No he's greatest sin was probably to plan and conduct the genocide of some of the tribes he was supposed to lead.

I'm just answering the guy saying that "he was a great man" cause no he was not a great man! He was an horrible dictator. But not more horrible than most of middle East and African dictator I agree.

And Saddam had no nuke at all. Only the USA pretended he had nuke. The most dangerous thing he had were ak 47.

[galdur]

"""Let's review. Afghanistan, after the longest military campaign in US history, is being handed back to the Taliban. Iraq no longer exists as a sovereign nation, but has fractured into three pieces, one of them controlled by radical Islamists. Egypt has been democratically reformed into a military dictatorship. Libya is a defunct state in the middle of a civil war. The Ukraine will soon be in a similar state; it has been reduced to pauper status in record time—less than a year. A recent government overthrow has caused Yemen to stop being US-friendly. Closer to home, things are going so well in the US-dominated Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador that they have produced a flood of refugees, all trying to get into the US in the hopes of finding any sort of sanctuary.

Looking at this broad landscape of failure, there are two ways to interpret it. One is that the US officialdom is the most incompetent one imaginable, and can't ever get anything right. But another is that they do not succeed for a distinctly different reason: they don't succeed because results don't matter. You see, if failure were a problem, then there would be some sort of pressure coming from somewhere or other within the establishment, and that pressure to succeed might sporadically give rise to improved performance, leading to at least a few instances of success. But if in fact failure is no problem at all, and if instead there was some sort of pressure to fail, then we would see exactly what we do see."""

--- D. Orlov

[mOgliE]

"""Let's review. Afghanistan, after the longest military campaign in US history, is being handed back to the Taliban. Iraq no longer exists as a sovereign nation, but has fractured into three pieces, one of them controlled by radical Islamists. Egypt has been democratically reformed into a military dictatorship. Libya is a defunct state in the middle of a civil war. The Ukraine will soon be in a similar state; it has been reduced to pauper status in record time—less than a year. A recent government overthrow has caused Yemen to stop being US-friendly. Closer to home, things are going so well in the US-dominated Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador that they have produced a flood of refugees, all trying to get into the US in the hopes of finding any sort of sanctuary.

Looking at this broad landscape of failure, there are two ways to interpret it. One is that the US officialdom is the most incompetent one imaginable, and can't ever get anything right. But another is that they do not succeed for a distinctly different reason: they don't succeed because results don't matter. You see, if failure were a problem, then there would be some sort of pressure coming from somewhere or other within the establishment, and that pressure to succeed might sporadically give rise to improved performance, leading to at least a few instances of success. But if in fact failure is no problem at all, and if instead there was some sort of pressure to fail, then we would see exactly what we do see."""

--- D. Orlov

Well, coming into a country killing the population (cause they're was no real "official army" so US soldiers had no choice but to fight back against a militia hiding around the population), stealing primary resources and committing true atrocities and depravation doesn't help to stabilize a country...

[Snail2]

No he's greatest sin was probably to plan and conduct the genocide of some of the tribes he was supposed to lead.

I'm just answering the guy saying that "he was a great man" cause no he was not a great man! He was an horrible dictator. But not more horrible than most of middle East and African dictator I agree.

And Saddam had no nuke at all. Only the USA pretended he had nuke. The most dangerous thing he had were ak 47.

AFAIK the west was OK with that allegedly planned genocide. Turning to a gold-bug and promoting that idea between other oil producers was what blown the fuse .

Well, it appears being "the strong man of whatevershithole" or "the horrible whatevershitholian dictator" entirely depends on given bloke's allegiance to certain powers.

[galdur]

Yes, and concerns about "killing his own people" "self-determination" "the next hitler" and other favorite advertising slogans of the money/war industry never seem to apply to our scumbags.

[mOgliE]

No he's greatest sin was probably to plan and conduct the genocide of some of the tribes he was supposed to lead.

I'm just answering the guy saying that "he was a great man" cause no he was not a great man! He was an horrible dictator. But not more horrible than most of middle East and African dictator I agree.

And Saddam had no nuke at all. Only the USA pretended he had nuke. The most dangerous thing he had were ak 47.

AFAIK the west was OK with that allegedly planned genocide. Turning to a gold-bug and promoting that idea between other oil producers was what blown the fuse .

Well, it appears being "the strong man of whatevershithole" or "the horrible whatevershitholian dictator" entirely depends on given bloke's allegiance to certain powers.

It's different, you're talking about he perception of Western countries, which, I agree, totally depends on what you have to offer them.

I'm talking on a more objective point of view, he was not "a great man".

[BCEmporium]

Destroy is easy, rebuild not at all... 

[galdur]

On Monday, the Libyan military lost a MiG-23ML over the city of Derna, when it was shot down by one of the local Islamist factions. Today, they’ve lost another over Benghazi, amid another bombing campaign against Islamist forces.

ISIS is claiming credit for today’s shoot-down, though interestingly the warplane was bombing the Mujahedeen Shura Council, a separate faction that is seen more close to al-Qaeda than to ISIS. The military insists that the pilot again parachuted to safety, though they said they aren’t sure where he is now.

Unclear from the reports is how the plane was shot down. Monday’s plane was hit by stationary anti-aircraft guns, but ISIS is also believed to have access to a lot of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

The planes were under the control of the Tobruk-based parliament faction, which controls most of what’s left of the old Libyan Air Force. Though MiG-23s were a big part of Libya’s air power in the past, they were only believed to have four left at the start of this week, and thus are now down to two.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/02/12/isis-claims-downing-of-libyan-mig-23-over-benghazi/

[bryant.coleman]

Destroy is easy, rebuild not at all... 

Doesn't matter. The NATO guys are only interested in destruction. They are not very concerned about the rebuilding of the country. Rebuilding is up to the Libyans and the natives are expected to rebuild the infrastructure without any help from the outside. Also, the falling crude oil prices are not making this task any easier.

[galdur]

Destroy is easy, rebuild not at all... 

Doesn't matter. The NATO guys are only interested in destruction. They are not very concerned about the rebuilding of the country. Rebuilding is up to the Libyans and the natives are expected to rebuild the infrastructure without any help from the outside. Also, the falling crude oil prices are not making this task any easier.

NATO troops are pretty much useless on the ground. That has been confirmed in Afghanistan where they´ve been dicking around for years unable to secure anything except maybe the torture centers. They can´t even go on patrols with the local military forces because they can expect a bullet in the back at any moment. It´s exactly the same problem as when the Vietnam war was fizzling out.

[galdur]

A Hawk Named Hillary
As her record shows, Clinton has embraced destructive nationalist myths about America’s role in the world.

By Anatol Lieven NOVEMBER 25, 2014

Hillary Clinton is running for president not only on her record as secretary of state, but also by presenting herself as tougher than Barack Obama on foreign-policy issues. With this stance, she presumably plans to distance herself from a president increasingly branded as “weak” in his approach to international issues, and to appeal to the supposedly more hawkish instincts of much of the electorate.


It is therefore necessary to ask a number of related questions, the answers to which are of crucial importance not just to the likely course of a hypothetical Clinton administration, but to the future of the United States in the world. These questions concern her record as secretary of state and her attitudes, as well as those of the US foreign-policy and national-security elites as a whole. They are also linked to an even deeper and more worrying question: whether the country’s political elites are still capable of learning from their mistakes and changing their policies accordingly. I was brought up to believe that this is a key advantage of democracy over other systems. But it can’t happen without a public debate—and hence mass media—founded on rational argument, a respect for facts, and an insistence that officials take responsibility for evidently disastrous decisions.

The difficulties that a Democratic politician must overcome in designing a foreign and security policy capable of meeting the needs of the age are admittedly legion. These include US foreign-policy and national-security institutions that are bloated beyond measure and spend most of their time administering themselves and quarreling with one another; the weakness of the cabinet system, which encourages these institutions and means that decisions are constantly thrown in the lap of the president and a White House staff principally obsessed with the next election; an increasing political dysfunction at home, partly as a result of the unrelenting American electoral cycle; a Republican opposition that is positively feral in its readiness to use any weapon against a Democratic White House; a corporate media that, when not working for the Republicans directly, is all too willing to help turn minor issues into perceived crises; and problems in some parts of the world (notably the Middle East and Afghanistan) that are indeed of a hideous complexity.

* * *

Even more important and difficult than any of these problems may be the fact that designing a truly new and adequate strategy would require breaking with some fundamental American myths—myths that have been strengthened by many years of superpower status but that go back much further, to the very roots of American civic nationalism. These myths, above all, depict the United States as—in one of Clinton’s favorite phrases—the “indispensable nation,” innately good (if sometimes misguided), with the right and duty to lead humankind and therefore, when necessary, to crush any opposition.

It is the strength and centrality of these nationalist myths that have prevented our elites and the American public from learning or remembering the lessons of Vietnam—a failure that helped pave the way for the disaster of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the consequences of which are still unfolding in the Middle East today. And as Clinton’s entire record—all her writings and all the writings about her—show, she has made herself a captive of those nationalist myths beyond any possibility of escape. As she asserts in her new book, Hard Choices:


Everything that I have done and seen has convinced me that America remains the “indispensable nation.” I am just as convinced, however, that our leadership is not a birthright. It must be earned by every generation.

And it will be—so long as we stay true to our values and remember that, before we are Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, or any of the other labels that divide us as often as define us, we are Americans, all with a personal stake in our country.

It’s the same old nationalist solipsism: all we have to do is stick together and talk more loudly to ourselves about how wonderful we are, and the rest of the world will automatically accept our “leadership.” This is not a case—as has sometimes appeared with Obama—of a naturally cool and skeptical intellect forced to bow to the emotions of the masses. To all appearances, Clinton’s nationalism is a matter of profound conviction.

And let us be fair: this may help to get her elected president. Once she is, however, it is likely to constrain drastically her ability to shape a foreign policy appropriate to the new circumstances of the United States and the world. Above all, perhaps, it hampers her ability to learn from the past, and from her own and America’s mistakes—a defect blazingly on display in her latest memoir. Instead, even when (on very rare occasions) she does make the briefest and most formal acknowledgment of a US crime or error, it is immediately followed by the infamous statement that we must put this behind us and “move on.” This phrase is dear not only to Clinton, but to the foreign-policy establishment as a whole. It makes any serious analysis of the past impossible.

Of course, one hardly looks for great honesty or candor in what is, in effect, election propaganda—and one must always keep in mind the presence of a Republican Party and media ready to tear into even the slightest appearance of “apologizing for America.” Nonetheless, a passage early in the book did give me hope that it would contain at least some serious discussion of past US mistakes and their lessons for future policy. It concerned what Clinton acknowledges as her own greatest error—the decision to vote for the Iraq War:

As much as I might have wanted to, I could never change my vote on Iraq. But I could try to help us learn the right lessons from that war and apply them to Afghanistan and other challenges where we had fundamental security interests. I was determined to do exactly that when facing future hard choices, with more experience, wisdom, skepticism, and humility.

Neither in her book nor in her policy is there even the slightest evidence that she has, in fact, tried to learn from Iraq beyond the most obvious lesson—the undesirability of US ground invasions and occupations, which even the Republicans have managed to learn. For Clinton herself helped to launch US airpower to topple another regime, this one in Libya—and, as in Iraq, the results have been anarchy, sectarian conflict and opportunities for Islamist extremists that have destabilized the entire region. She then helped lead the United States quite far down the road of doing the same thing in Syria.


Clinton tries to argue in the book that she took a long, hard look at the Libyan opposition before reporting to the president her belief that “there was a reasonable chance the rebels would turn out to be credible partners”—but however long she looked, it is now obvious that she got it wrong. She has simply not understood the fragility of states—states, not regimes—in many parts of the world, the risk that “humanitarian intervention” will bring about state collapse, and the inadequacy of a crude and simplistic version of democracy promotion as a basis for state reconstruction. It does not help that the US record on democracy promotion and the rule of law—including Clinton’s own record—is so spotted that very few people outside the country take it seriously anymore.

Her book manages simultaneously to repeat the claim that the United States and its allies were only enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya and to try to take personal credit for destroying the Libyan regime. And she wonders why other countries do not entirely trust her or America’s honesty! There is also no recognition whatsoever in her book that those who opposed US military action were in fact right and not “despicable,” to use her phrase about Russian opposition to the US military intervention in Syria. Nor has her disastrous record on Iraq led her to take a more sensible stance toward Iran. On the contrary, in her anxiety to appear more hawkish than Obama, she has clearly aligned with those who would make a nuclear deal with Iran impossible and therefore leave the United States in the ridiculous and unsustainable position of trying to contain all the major forces in the Middle East simultaneously.

This kind of nationalist faith in American strength and American righteousness is no longer adequate to the challenges the country faces. Above all, such a faith makes it impossible to deal with other nations on a basis of equality—not only on global issues or those of great interest to Washington, but on issues that other countries regard as vital to their own interests.

This also makes it far more difficult for US officials to do what Hans Morgenthau declared is both a practical and moral duty of statesmen: through close study, to develop a capacity to put themselves in the shoes of the representatives of other countries—not in order to agree with them but to understand what is really important to them, the interests on which they will be able to compromise and those for which they will feel compelled to fight. Clinton displays not a shred of this ability in her book.

* * *

The greatest future challenge in this respect is our relations with China. The arrogance with which Washington treats other countries is at least understandable given that none of them are or are likely to be equals of the United States—though some, like Russia, can often compete successfully in their own regions. China is another matter. If, as now seems all but certain, its economy soon surpasses that of the United States, then on issues of interest to Beijing, it will indeed demand to be treated as an equal—and if Washington fails to do so, it will propel the two sides toward terrifying confrontations.


In terms of the day-to-day conduct of relations with Beijing, Clinton had a generally good record as secretary of state—though in this, she was following what has generally been a restrained policy by both political parties. But if Clinton’s day-to-day record was pragmatic, her long-term strategy may prove disastrous. This was the Obama administration’s decision—in which she was instrumental—to “pivot to Asia.” As Clinton’s writings make clear, “pivot” means the containment of China through the enhancement of existing military alliances in East Asia and the development of new ones (especially with India). This strategy is at present reasonably cautious and somewhat veiled, but if Chinese power continues to grow, and if collisions between China and some of its neighbors intensify, then a containment strategy will inevitably become harsher—with potentially catastrophic consequences.

This is not simply a case of a knee-jerk US reaction to the rise of a potential peer competitor. Some of China’s policies have helped to provoke the new strategy and also enabled it by driving China’s neighbors into America’s arms. This is above all true of Beijing’s territorial claims to various groups of uninhabited islands in the East and South China seas. While some of its claims seem reasonably well founded, others have no basis in international law and tradition; and by pushing all of them at once, Beijing has frightened most of its neighbors and created real fears that in East Asia, at least, its “peaceful rise” strategy has been abandoned.

But if aspects of China’s strategy have been aggressive, that does not necessarily make the US response to them wise—especially since Obama and Clinton’s announcement of the pivot to Asia, at least in part, preceded the new aggressiveness of Chinese policy. In particular, Clinton appears to have forgotten that a key difference between the Cold War with the USSR and the current relationship with China is that during the Cold War, Washington was careful never to involve itself in any claims by neighbors on Russian territory. In consequence (as I can testify from my work as a British journalist in the USSR during the years of its collapse), there was no successful mobilization of Russian nationalism against the United States. That has come later, when with monumental folly the United States (under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations) involved itself in the quarrels of the post-Soviet successor states.

As a senator, Clinton was entirely complicit in the disastrous strategy of offering NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, which led to the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 (and a de facto US strategic defeat) and helped set the scene for the Ukraine crisis of this year. This is not to excuse Russia’s mistaken and criminal reactions to US policy; but to judge by her book, Clinton never bothered to try to understand or predict likely Russian reactions—let alone, once again, to acknowledge or learn from her mistakes. On the Georgia War, she simply repeats the lie (which, to be fair, she may actually believe) that this was deliberately started by Putin and not by Georgia’s president at the time, Mikheil Saakashvili.


In her policy toward China, Clinton and the administration in which she served have embroiled the United States in the islands disputes. Formally, Washington has not taken sides concerning ownership of the islands. Informally, though, by emphasizing the US military alliance with Japan and its extensive character, it has done so—at least in the case of the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. As a result, Clinton may have helped put her country in a position where it will one day feel compelled to launch a devastating war to defend Japanese claims to uninhabited rocks, and at a time dictated by Tokyo.

As the Australian realist scholar Hugh White has suggested, underlying the other disputes between the United States and China is Washington’s refusal to accord legitimacy to China’s system of government, something repeatedly demonstrated in Clinton’s book. White argues that such recognition is essential if the two countries are to share power and influence in East Asia and avoid conflict.

This is admittedly a very difficult moral and political issue, given China’s human-rights abuses. Clinton made human-rights advocacy a hallmark of her tenure at the State Department (without, it seems, understanding the disastrous effects on this advocacy of the US international record). More substantial has been her contribution to raising global awareness of women’s rights; and perhaps most praiseworthy of all (because it is deeply unpopular with many Americans as well as others around the world) is her staunch defense of gay rights.

It would be an immense help, however, if American representatives could recognize the degree to which the US model at home and abroad is now questioned by enemies as well as concerned friends—at home due to political paralysis and the increasing and obvious inadequacy of an eighteenth-century Constitution to deal with a twenty-first-century world; abroad due to a series of criminal actions carried out in defiance of the international community, as well as the catastrophic failure of the US war and state-building effort in Iraq—and very likely in Afghanistan, too. There is not the slightest indication of such a recognition in Clinton’s book.

* * *

When it comes to the Obama administration’s dysfunctional policy toward Afghanistan, Clinton herself cannot be held chiefly responsible. As her work and books by others make clear (notably Vali Nasr’s The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat), this was a policy driven chiefly by the White House, and for domestic political reasons. Nonetheless, she can hardly evade all responsibility, since on issues that can in any way be presented as successes, she is so anxious to claim responsibility.

At the core of the administration’s failure (leaving aside the horribly intractable nature of the Afghan War itself) was the combination of a military surge with the announcement of early US military withdrawal. As far as hardline Taliban elements were concerned, this meant they only had to wait. As far as actual or potential moderates were concerned, Washington failed to accompany the surge with any serious attempt at a peace settlement.



For this failure, opposition by the US military and Afghanistan’s then-president, Hamid Karzai, was chiefly responsible, together with the fear of a political backlash in the United States. But as Clinton makes clear, there was no way that she would have supported any peace offer that even the most moderate Taliban elements would have discussed. In her words, “To be reconciled, insurgents would have to lay down their arms, reject al Qaeda and accept the Afghan Constitution.” In other words, not a settlement but surrender.

Such an offer should indeed have been made by the Bush administration in 2002 and 2003; it probably would have been accepted by many Taliban commanders, since at the time the Taliban appeared to have been thoroughly defeated. That opportunity was missed, and today—with the United States withdrawing, the Afghan “constitution” deep in crisis, and the Taliban conquering more and more of the east and south—it will not even be looked at. And this syndrome, of either pretending or genuinely believing that Washington is offering compromise when it is actually demanding surrender, is a leitmotif of Clinton’s work. It is very sensible to make such offers if you are winning, not so if you are retreating.

This is not to say that, in Afghanistan or the Middle East, there are easy answers that Clinton has somehow missed. In both cases, there are no real “solutions,” only better or worse management of crises based on a choice of lesser evils. Perhaps as president, Clinton would prove to be a competent manager of these crises; but on the basis of her record and writings so far, the verdict on this must at best be “unproven.” So far, her actions and those of the United States have succeeded only in making things worse.

Can the United States escape the trap created by its belief in its own supreme morality and right to lead? To do this would require its leaders to tell the American people a number of things that a majority of the country’s political classes (which on foreign policy can generally manage to impersonate the people) really do not want to hear: about the relative decline of US power and the need to adjust both policy and rhetoric to accommodate this development; about the consequent need to seek compromises with a number of countries that Americans have been taught to hate; about the insufficiency of the American ideology as a universal path for the progress of humankind; and, most important of all, about the long-term unsustainability of the US economic model and the absolute need to take action against climate change.


In an ideal world, an astute president with popular support should be able to reach past the elites to appeal to the generally sensible and generous instincts of the majority of Americans. As recent polls have demonstrated, on the question of arming Syrian rebels and of seeking a reasonable compromise with Iran, large majorities have shown much more cautious and pragmatic instincts than Clinton, let alone the Republicans. Only 8 percent of Americans want Washington to attempt to lead the world unilaterally, compared with overwhelming majorities in favor of seeking cooperation (and cost-sharing) with other powers.

But as Peter Beinart has shown in a recent essay in The Atlantic, there is a yawning gap on these issues between the American public and the political and media elites—and, most crucial of all, the big donors on whom candidates increasingly depend. If, as many now believe, the United States is heading toward a de facto oligarchy, then the views of that oligarchy on foreign-policy and security issues are clear—and they’re close to those of Hillary Clinton.

There is certainly little basis for the belief that she would be prepared to challenge the oligarchy on these issues. Thus, on the crucial question of climate change, she has indeed taken a rhetorical stand sharply different from the Republicans and a number of conservative Democrats. On the other hand, the chapter on it in Hard Choices begins with an extended passage in which Clinton crows about a tactical victory over China at the 2009 Copenhagen summit—a victory that did nothing to combat climate change and only managed to alienate further the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians. Clinton’s verbal commitment to this central issue is impressive and commendable, her actual record much less so. But again, the real question is whether any US statesman could do better, given that most Republicans—who now dominate Congress and control federal legislation on this issue—have managed to convince themselves that the problem does not even exist. How is it possible to implement rational policies if much of the political class has abandoned respect for facts and evidence?

Given the US record of the past dozen years, there is a great deal to be said in principle for a long period in which Washington simply pulls back from involvement in international crises. In practice, though, as several administrations have found, international affairs will not leave a US president alone. Crises blow up suddenly, and to craft an appropriate response requires a consistent philosophy, deep local knowledge, a firm grip on the US foreign-policy apparatus, and the ability to frame that response in ways that will gain the necessary support from the policy establishment, media and population. These are sufficiently great challenges in themselves. To expect in addition that a statesman will display originality, moral courage and a willingness to challenge national shibboleths is probably too much to ask of anyone. On the evidence to date, it is certainly too much to ask of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

http://www.thenation.com/article/hawk-named-hillary/

[BADecker]

Japan is west of America.   

[designerusa]

Taxpayer's money in work :/. To be honest I wouldn't oppose some plundering raids to such countries if we all can get a fair share in exchange for our crowdfunding efforts (aka taxes) from the loot, but in this case there are no loot, no plundering just destruction and hefty bills. I don't see the point why we went there.

yes, you dont have any reason to be there excpect exploiting their rich natural resources.. usa or any other western country must stay at their homeland. and leave middle east alone.. so these lands will turn better place for sure..

[bryant.coleman]

Japan is west of America.   

Japan is not a part of the NATO, and they were not involved in the military invasion of Libya. The Nipponese are intelligent. They learnt their lesson during the WW2. Invading the third world nations (south-east Asia, Korea, Pacific islands, Manchuria.etc) didn't worked for them then, and that is why they are refraining from repeating the same mistakes now. 

[hugoworld]

Taxpayer's money in work :/. To be honest I wouldn't oppose some plundering raids to such countries if we all can get a fair share in exchange for our crowdfunding efforts (aka taxes) from the loot, but in this case there are no loot, no plundering just destruction and hefty bills. I don't see the point why we went there.

yes, you dont have any reason to be there excpect exploiting their rich natural resources.. usa or any other western country must stay at their homeland. and leave middle east alone.. so these lands will turn better place for sure..

i completely agree with you.. western world must leave exploting middle east's oil or any other natural and human resources immediately if not we will wlecome ww3 soon.

[galdur]

Well, the current Japanese military doctrine, setup and training are totally geared for defense and largely useless for any offensive operations. Apart from small special units but they´re pretty inconsequential in the large picture.

[salinizm]

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

you are totally wrong.. muammar gaddafi is a modern times dictator who abused , murdered, exploit his own people not a peacuful politician..

[galdur]

From Whitewater to Benghazi: A Clinton-Scandal Primer
A former aide to Hillary Clinton has been granted immunity in a criminal investigation, and the FBI is expected to question Clinton herself soon.

All of Hillary Clinton’s emails are out there. Now, how bad will the fallout be?

On Monday, the State Department released the last batch of Clinton’s messages when she was secretary of state—a total of around 30,000. And late Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department has granted immunity to a former Clinton staffer to work with investigators, an indication of progress in the criminal case over the emails. Bryan Pagliano, the staffer, helped Clinton set up a server in her home in New York, which she used for her emails while running the State Department. Pagliano previously invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called to testify by congressional committees. A spokesman said the Clinton campaign was “pleased” that Pagliano was cooperating, though what else are they going to say?

Clinton herself is likely to be questioned by the FBI sometime in the next few weeks. The Post reports:

As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents will likely want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server, how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information in emails, current and former officials said.
Obviously this is not good news for Clinton. The question is just how bad it is.

Clinton is effectively fighting a two-front war. On one side, she’s running a political campaign for president. On the other, she’s working to defend herself against charges of wrongdoing in the email investigation, since criminal charges could effectively doom her campaign. The latest developments in the email case come just as things were starting to look good on the political side—Clinton has hit her stride in recent primaries and seems to have a solid edge over Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination.

What isn’t clear yet is who might face criminal charges: Clinton? Other aides? No one at all? There’s not yet any evidence of a grand jury being convened to handle the investigation.

The case of David Petraeus, the former CIA director who it was one speculated might run against Clinton, looms over the case, and its impact is unclear. The Post reports that Petraeus’s wrongdoing is seen as worse, and since he got off with a light sentence of two years’ probation and a $100,000 fine, officials felt it would be hard to go after Clinton. But Petraeus’s escape angered some in the Justice Department and FBI who alleged political interference, adding to the scrutiny in this case and the pressure for an independent process. The final decision rests with Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The fact that Clinton was using a private server for her work email emerged in the course of the investigation into the September 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, which killed four Americans. None of the content of the emails so far has been especially damning about Benghazi or anything else—though there are some embarrassing moments, including Clinton’s seeming technological ignorance and the flattery of friends like Sidney Blumenthal. But a total of 65 emails were not released because they contain information classified “secret.” Clinton and her aides insist she did not send any classified information, and that anything that is now secret had its classification changed later. Others, including the inspector general for the Intelligence Community, have disagreed.

The emails have become a classic Clinton scandal. Even though investigations have found no wrongdoing on her part with respect to the Benghazi attacks themselves, Clinton’s private-email use and concerns about whether she sent classified information have become huge stories unto themselves. This is a pattern with the Clinton family, which has been in the public spotlight since Bill Clinton’s first run for office, in 1974: Something that appears potentially scandalous on its face turns out to be innocuous, but an investigation into it reveals different questionable behavior. The canonical case is Whitewater, a failed real-estate investment Bill and Hillary Clinton made in 1978. While no inquiry ever produced evidence of wrongdoing, investigations ultimately led to President Clinton’s impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice.

With Hillary Clinton leading the field for the Democratic nomination for president, every Clinton scandal—from Whitewater to the State Department emails—will be under the microscope. (No other American politicians—even ones as corrupt as Richard Nixon, or as hated by partisans as George W. Bush—have fostered the creation of a permanent multimillion-dollar cottage industry devoted to attacking them.) Keeping track of each controversy, where it came from, and how serious it is, is no small task, so here’s a primer. We’ll update it as new information emerges.

Clinton’s State Department Emails


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton checks her phone on board a plane from Malta to Tripoli, Libya. (Kevin Lamarque / Reuters / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic)
What? Setting aside the question of the Clintons’ private email server, what’s actually in the emails that Clinton did turn over to State? While some of the emails related to Benghazi have been released, there are plenty of others covered by public-records laws that haven’t.

When? 2009-2013

How serious is it? Serious. Initially, it seemed that the interest in the emails would stem from damaging things that Clinton or other aides had said: cover-ups, misrepresentations, who knows? But so far, other than some cringeworthy moments of sucking up and some eye-rolly emails from contacts like Sidney Blumenthal, the emails have been remarkably boring. The main focus now is on classification. Sixty-five emails contain information that is now classified. The question is whether any of it, and how much of it, was classified at the time it was sent. Clinton has said she didn’t knowingly send or receive classified material on the account. The State Department and Intelligence Community have disagreed about that. In addition, the Intelligence Community’s inspector general wrote in a January letter that Clinton’s server contained information marked “special access program,” higher even than top secret. Some emails that Clinton didn’t turn over have also since surfaced.

Benghazi


A man celebrates as the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi burns on September 11, 2012. (Esam Al-Fetori / Reuters / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic)
What? On September 11, 2012, attackers overran a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Since then, Republicans have charged that Hillary Clinton failed to adequately protect U.S. installations or that she attempted to spin the attacks as spontaneous when she knew they were planned terrorist operations. She testifies for the first time on October 22.

When? September 11, 2012-present

How serious is it? Benghazi has gradually turned into a classic “it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup” scenario. Only the fringes argue, at this point, that Clinton deliberately withheld aid. A House committee continues to investigate the killings and aftermath, but Clinton’s marathon appearance before the committee in October was widely considered a win for her. However, it was through the Benghazi investigations that Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server became public—a controversy that remains potent.

Conflicts of Interest in Foggy Bottom


Kevin Lamarque / Reuters / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic
What? Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University, in which capacity she negotiated on the school’s behalf with the government of Abu Dhabi, where it was building a campus. In June 2012, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin’s status at State changed to “special government employee,” allowing her to also work for Teneo, a consulting firm run by Bill Clinton’s former right-hand man. She also earned money from the Clinton Foundation and was paid directly by Hillary Clinton.

Who? Both Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin are among Clinton’s longest-serving and closest aides. Abedin remains involved in her campaign (and she’s also married to Anthony Weiner).

When? January 2009-February 2013

How serious is it? This is arcane stuff, to be sure. There are questions about conflict of interest—such as whether Teneo clients might have benefited from special treatment by the State Department while Abedin worked for both. To a great extent, this is just an extension of the tangle of conflicts presented by the Clinton Foundation and the many overlapping roles of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The Clintons’ Private Email Server


Jim Young / Reuters / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic
What? During the course of the Benghazi investigation, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt learned Clinton had used a personal email account while secretary of state. It turned out she had also been using a private server, located at a house in New York. The result was that Clinton and her staff decided which emails to turn over to the State Department as public records and which to withhold; they say they then destroyed the ones they had designated as personal.

When? 2009-2013, during Clinton’s term as secretary.

Who? Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; top aides including Huma Abedin

How serious is it? It looks more serious all the time. The rules governing use of personal emails are murky, and Clinton aides insist she followed the rules. There’s no dispositive evidence otherwise so far. The greater political problem for Clinton is it raises questions about how she selected the emails she turned over and what was in the ones she deleted. The FBI has reportedly managed to recover some of the deleted correspondence. Could the server have been hacked? Some of the emails she received on her personal account are marked sensitive. Plus there’s a entirely different set of questions about Clinton’s State Department emails. The FBI is investigating the security of the server as well as the safety of a thumb drive belonging to her lawyer that contains copies of her emails. And the AP reports that the setup may have made the server vulnerable to hacking. Given the shabby state of State Department cybersecurity, she might not have been any better off using the official system.

Sidney Blumenthal


Blumenthal takes a lunch break while being deposed in private session of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. (Jonathan Ernst / Reuters / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic)
What? A former journalist, Blumenthal was a top aide in the second term of the Bill Clinton administration and helped on messaging during the bad old days. He served as an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and when she took over the State Department, she sought to hire Blumenthal. Obama aides, apparently still smarting over his role in attacks on candidate Obama, refused the request, so Clinton just sought out his counsel informally. At the same time, Blumenthal was drawing a check from the Clinton Foundation.

When? 2009-2013

How serious is it? Some of the damage is already done. Blumenthal was apparently the source of the idea that the Benghazi attacks were spontaneous, a notion that proved incorrect and provided a political bludgeon against Clinton and Obama. He also advised the secretary on a wide range of other issues, from Northern Ireland to China, and passed along analysis from his son Max, a staunch critic of the Israeli government (and conservative bête noire). But emails released so far show even Clinton’s top foreign-policy guru, Jake Sullivan, rejecting Blumenthal’s analysis, raising questions about her judgment in trusting him.

The Speeches


Keith Bedford / Reuters / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic
What? Since Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001, both Clintons have made millions of dollars for giving speeches.

When? 2001-present

Who? Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; Chelsea Clinton

How serious is it? Intermittently dangerous. It has a tendency to flare up, then die down. Senator Bernie Sanders made it a useful attack against her in early 2016, suggesting that by speaking to banks like Goldman Sachs, she was compromised. There have been calls for Clinton to release the transcripts of her speeches, which she was declined to do, saying if every other candidate does, she will too. For the Clintons, who left the White House up to their ears in legal debt, lucrative speeches—mostly by the former president—proved to be an effective way of rebuilding wealth. They have also been an effective magnet for prying questions. Where did Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton speak? How did they decide how much to charge? What did they say? How did they decide which speeches would be given on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, with fees going to the charity, and which would be treated as personal income? Are there cases of conflicts of interest or quid pro quos—for example, speaking gigs for Bill Clinton on behalf of clients who had business before the State Department?

The Clinton Foundation


A brooch for sale at the Clinton Museum Store in Little Rock, Arkansas (Lucy Nicholson / Reuters / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic)
What? Bill Clinton’s foundation was actually established in 1997, but after leaving the White House it became his primary vehicle for … well, everything. With projects ranging from public health to elephant-poaching protection and small-business assistance to child development, the foundation is a huge global player with several prominent offshoots. In 2013, following Hillary Clinton’s departure as secretary of State, it was renamed the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

When? 1997-present

Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary Clinton; Chelsea Clinton, etc.

How serious is it? If the Clinton Foundation’s strength is President Clinton’s endless intellectual omnivorousness, its weakness is the distractibility and lack of interest in detail that sometimes come with it. On a philanthropic level, the foundation gets decent ratings from outside review groups, though critics charge that it’s too diffuse to do much good, that the money has not always achieved what it was intended to, and that in some cases the money doesn’t seem to have achieved its intended purpose. The foundation made errors in its tax returns it has to correct. Overall, however, the essential questions about the Clinton Foundation come down to two, related issues. The first is the seemingly unavoidable conflicts of interest: How did the Clintons’ charitable work intersect with their for-profit speeches? How did their speeches intersect with Hillary Clinton’s work at the State Department? Were there quid-pro-quos involving U.S. policy? The second, connected question is about disclosure. When Clinton became secretary, she agreed that the foundation would make certain disclosures, which it’s now clear it didn’t always do. And the looming questions about Clinton’s State Department emails make it harder to answer those questions.

The Bad Old Days


Supporter Dick Furinash holds up cardboard cut-outs of Bill and Hillary Clinton. (Jim Young / Reuters / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic)
What is it? Since the Clintons have a long history of controversies, there are any number of past scandals that continue to float around, especially in conservative media: Whitewater. Troopergate. Paula Jones. Monica Lewinsky. Vince Foster. Juanita Broaddrick.

When? 1975-2001

Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary Clinton; a brigade of supporting characters

How serious is it? The conventional wisdom is that they’re not terribly dangerous. Some are wholly spurious (Foster). Others (Lewinsky, Whitewater) have been so exhaustively investigated it’s hard to imagine them doing much further damage to Hillary Clinton’s standing. In fact, the Lewinsky scandal famously boosted her public approval ratings. But the January 2016 resurfacing of Juanita Broaddrick’s rape allegations offers a test case to see whether the conventional wisdom is truly wise—or just conventional.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

[galdur]

Troops Trickle in as West Prepares for Libya War
Italy Insists War on Hold Until Unity Govt Formed

by Jason Ditz, March 03, 2016

Last week, major French newspaper Le Monde reported that the French government is engaged in a “secret war” in Libya, and has deployed special forces already. The Pentagon has also talked about its own presence in Libya, and Britain is understood to have some special forces there as well.

The numbers keep growing, and other assets for a Western war in Libya, which officials have been publicly championing for months, are being moved into place. It’s only a matter of time until the “secret war” becomes a public one, but how long?

That’s not clear, as leaked Italian documents confirm that they too are poised to send some ground troops across the Mediterranean, though officially the Italian Defense Ministry insists that there is no “war room” and that the conflict is awaiting the formation of a Libyan unity government.

These nations have all been emphasizing the growth of the ISIS affiliate in Libya, and indicating that they believe the ISIS war needs to be expanded there. The selling of the “merits” of the war seems to be running concurrent to the actual deployments in this case, indicating how perfunctory the whole PR effort is.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/03/03/troops-trickle-in-as-west-prepares-for-libya-war/

[bitsmichel]

Last week, major French newspaper Le Monde reported that the French government is engaged in a “secret war” in Libya, and has deployed special forces already. The Pentagon has also talked about its own presence in Libya, and Britain is understood to have some special forces there as well.

The numbers keep growing, and other assets for a Western war in Libya, which officials have been publicly championing for months, are being moved into place. It’s only a matter of time until the “secret war” becomes a public one, but how long?

That’s not clear, as leaked Italian documents confirm that they too are poised to send some ground troops across the Mediterranean, though officially the Italian Defense Ministry insists that there is no “war room” and that the conflict is awaiting the formation of a Libyan unity government.

What is so interesting about Libya? What are the gains for France and Italy?

[galdur]

Last week, major French newspaper Le Monde reported that the French government is engaged in a “secret war” in Libya, and has deployed special forces already. The Pentagon has also talked about its own presence in Libya, and Britain is understood to have some special forces there as well.

The numbers keep growing, and other assets for a Western war in Libya, which officials have been publicly championing for months, are being moved into place. It’s only a matter of time until the “secret war” becomes a public one, but how long?

That’s not clear, as leaked Italian documents confirm that they too are poised to send some ground troops across the Mediterranean, though officially the Italian Defense Ministry insists that there is no “war room” and that the conflict is awaiting the formation of a Libyan unity government.

What is so interesting about Libya? What are the gains for France and Italy?

Oil, obviously. Energy, what else are wars really about? Read this thread and you´ll see the real reasons for that mess they created in 2011. Now the ruins have bred enough terrorists that they need to start bombing again. Also it´s spring soon with calmer waters across the Mediterranean so they´re in a hurry to get more refugee business going.

[galdur]

Libya: How Hillary Clinton Destroyed a Country
She’s learned nothing from her blood-soaked failure

by Justin Raimondo, March 04, 2016

“We came, we saw, he died,” exclaimed an ebullient Hillary Clinton, as she exulted over the horrific death of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, who was sodomized with a bayonet before being brutally murdered by rampaging militiamen. Visiting Tripoli, the Libyan capital, the American Secretary of State was eager to take credit for the “liberation” of yet another Muslim country by Western powers acting in concert. An extensive and quite revealing New York Times investigation (Pt. 1 here, Pt. 2 here) reports on “a ‘ticktock’ that described her starring role in the events that had led to this moment. The timeline, her top policy aide, Jake Sullivan, wrote, demonstrated Mrs. Clinton’s ‘leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country’s Libya policy from start to finish.’ The memo’s language put her at the center of everything: ‘HRC announces … HRC directs … HRC travels … HRC engages,’ it read.”

These days, however, out on the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton is not quite so eager to take ownership of what can only be characterized as an unmitigated disaster, a case history dramatizing the perils of “liberal” interventionism from inception to bloody denouement.

Mrs. Clinton was easily won over by the Libyan rebels who presented a utopian view of what the post-revolutionary era would look like: there would be free elections, a free media, women would be able to “do it all,” and everyone would get a pony. They “’said all the right things about supporting democracy and inclusivity and building Libyan institutions, providing some hope that we might be able to pull this off,’ said Philip H. Gordon, one of her assistant secretaries. ‘They gave us what we wanted to hear. And you do want to believe.’”

Confirmation bias in a writer or reporter is fatal, but only to his/her own career: in a Secretary of State it is a death sentence for thousands. And that’s exactly how it turned out in Hillary’s case.

To this day, Clinton avers that “it’s too soon to tell” whether the Libya intervention qualifies as an unmitigated failure – even in the face of marauding militias, no less than two self-declared governments, the horrific death of an American ambassador at the hands of the very militias we empowered, and the incursion of the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and other terrorist outfits. She refused to be interviewed for the Times article.

While Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Vice President Joe Biden opposed regime change, Clinton took the side of the younger “back-benchers,” as the Times calls them, who wanted to go in there and “get on the right side of history.” The misnamed “Arab Spring” was in full bloom, and the media was pushing the idea that this was a great awakening of “democracy.”

Hillary, who had hesitated at first to jump on the bandwagon during the Egyptian events, made up for lost time in Libya. She “pressed for a secret American program that supplied arms to rebel militias, an effort never before confirmed,” the Times reports. Those arms would be used to attack a CIA outpost in Benghazi, where Ambassador Stevens would fall at the hands of these very militiamen.

While initially the US was purportedly acting only to prevent civilian deaths at the hands of Gaddafi – a “humanitarian disaster” that turned out to be nothing but media-driven war propaganda – Hillary and her staff soon fell down the slippery slope to actively aiding the rebels. The ‘responsibility to protect” soon became another regime change operation, as in Iraq.

“’We don’t want another war,’ she told [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov, stressing that the mission was limited to protecting civilians. ‘I take your point about not seeking another war,’ she recalled him responding. ‘But that doesn’t mean that you won’t get one.’”

The French were pushing particularly hard for a more muscular Western response, and in a meeting with French and British officials the frogs played their “trump card,” as the Times describes it. Although the meeting was convened to decide whether to act, Clinton was informed that “French fighter jets were already in the air” – but, added the French official, “this is a collective decision and I will recall them if you want me to.”

This certainly gives new meaning to the phrase “leading from behind” that administration officials used to describe our role. Clinton was supposedly “irritated,” but she capitulated readily enough.

“’I’m not going to be the one to recall the planes and create the massacre in Benghazi,’ she grumbled to an aide. And the bombing began.”

The Libyan leader, who had ruled his country for more than 40 years, knew what the outcome would be. His regime, “he railed to anyone who would listen,” was Libya’s sole defense against Islamist crazies who would overrun the country if not for him. But no one in the West was listening.

Clinton was jazzed that this was supposedly a model of “multilateralism,” with the Arab League as well as the Europeans in on the deal. But that proved to be the original mission’s undoing as Qatar – a little shithole of an oil-rich country long dependent on the US military for its miserable existence – starting funneling weapons to Islamist militias with dubious credentials. This is how we were pressured into going from “humanitarian intervention” to regime change. If we didn’t arm the “good” militias, Clinton argued, the bad ones being empowered by Qatar would prevail. Yet military officials were not convinced:

“NATO’s supreme allied commander, Adm. James G. Stavridis, had told Congress of “flickers” of Al Qaeda within the opposition. Mr. [Tom] Donilon, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, argued that the administration could not ensure that weapons intended for ‘the so-called good guys,’ as one State Department official put it, did not fall into the hands of Islamist extremists.”

As the Times makes all too clear, Clinton has a bias in favor of action, as well as relying on what can only be called a woman’s intuition. Her aides, the Times says, “described her as feeling her way through a problem without being certain of the outcome.” Another word for this is recklessness.

Clinton eventually succeeded in persuading President Obama, who signed a presidential finding authorizing a covert action to overthrow Gaddafi. US weapons poured into the country. The militias were unleashed, while Clinton hailed the elections that were staged shortly after the “liberation.” Yet as it turned out the elected officials had no real power: the guns were in the hands of the militias, who extorted government officials for more weapons in return for not being killed. The country went to pieces rather quickly, but our Secretary of State and would-be President had already moved on: she was too busy plotting regime change in Syria to be bothered with the unraveling of Libya.

Clinton wanted to make a deal with the Qataris that we would arm their favored radical Islamists in Syria if they would lay off aiding al-Qaeda-type crazies in Libya. But when the President vetoed her Syrian regime change plan, the proposed deal was off – and Libya continued to deteriorate into the Mad Max scenario we see today.

She quit the State Department after losing the internal debate over Syria, and is now campaigning for the highest office in the land on a platform of “love and kindness.”

Not that there’s much “love and kindness” in the country she destroyed almost single-handedly.

This Times story dropped like a stone: although normally one would expect such a damning account of a presidential candidate’s tenure as Secretary of State to be grist for the media mill, there wasn’t so much as a peep about it from anywhere else – including from the Republican candidates, never mind from Bernie Sanders.

A woman who could very well occupy the highest office in the land, with near total control of US foreign policy, basically committed an entire nation to perdition. Where’s the outrage? Who is drawing the lessons learned from all this?

Antiwar.com is almost alone in underscoring Hillary Clinton’s horrific foreign policy record. The Republicans, who mostly agree with her interventionist views, are screaming about "Benghazi! Benghazi!" without understanding what led to the death of an American ambassador. The liberal media, which is clearly rooting for Hillary, isn’t about to point to this horrific example of incompetence and hubris. So it’s left to us – our little singlejack operation here at Antiwar.com – to speak truth to power.

But we can’t do that without your help – your financial help. Yes, our fundraising campaign is still ongoing and we really need to bring it to a close. So please – give what you can as soon as you can. And remember: it’s tax-deductible.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/03/03/libya-how-hillary-clinton-destroyed-a-country/

[bryant.coleman]

muammar gaddafi was a great man who modernised libya and even managed to civilise the black savages somewhat which the arabs couldnt after 1000 years. you could say this refugee invasion europe is currently suffering is its penalty for murdering him.

you are totally wrong.. muammar gaddafi is a modern times dictator who abused , murdered, exploit his own people not a peacuful politician..

I don't believe any of the lies which are being spread through the western mainstream media. Why these media organizations remained silent when Qaddafi was alive? Once he was killed, these people started churning out all sort of stories about him. The same with Saddam Hussein as well. You are claiming that you are against the dictators. And at the same time, you are supporting the most evil dictator of all time (Salman of Saudi Arabia).

[galdur]

US-based companies & Turkish arms manufacturers 'breaking Libya embargo' – UN report

Published time: 12 Mar, 2016 14:09

Two US-based companied have allegedly broken the international arms embargo imposed on Libya during the Arab Spring revolution, UN investigators have reportedly concluded. The weapons were destined for two rival governments and allied militias fighting for control.
Investigators reportedly said the two US-based companies brokered an arms deal in 2011, as well as an Italian middleman working with a UK-based Libyan national on behalf of the Libyan authorities in control of Tripoli, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a UN report.

The oil-rich North African nation is currently ruled by two opposing governments: the internationally-recognized Council of Deputies (based in Tobruk) and the Tripoli-based General National Congress.

Libyan and international officials reportedly told UN investigators the government in Tobruk had been receiving equipment from abroad through its own procurement operations and from countries supporting it. Those countries allegedly include Egypt and the UAE, according to two sources cited in the report.

Turkish arms manufacturers meanwhile appear to have sold and shipped weapons to Libyan actors, according to the report cited by the Wall Street Journal. Turkish officials reportedly told the UN their government was committed to upholding the embargo, however, and that it was investigating the incidents detailed in the report.

Ukrainian companies are also said to be under investigation over alleged embargo violations.

Saad Sharada, a member of the congress based in Tripoli, reportedly confirmed that his political allies have received military personnel carriers, but denied they have procured any weapons.

“Arms and ammunition are continuing to be transferred to various parties in Libya, with the involvement of member states and complex networks of brokering companies that do not appear to be deterred by the arms embargo,” the report stated, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The large-scale research reportedly features over 100 pages of documentation, including copies of arms orders, invoices, end-user certificates and serial numbers and photos of armaments which were once held by national militaries but have ended up in the country. The report said, for instance, that Egyptian military hardware (including attack helicopters) ended up in the arsenal of the Tobruk regime, while the Sudanese government is alleged to have shipped ammunition, among other weaponry, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Officials from the government in Tobruk have allegedly confirmed they have received weapons from friendly allies but say such arms were necessary for self-defense. “I don’t think the [UN] Security Council should have any say in who the Libyan government buys or receives weapons from,” the Wall Street Journal quoted Abdulsalam Nasiya, an official with the House of Representatives in Tobruk, as saying.

The Security Council is expected to consider evidence presented in the report to decide what measures to take against UN member nations and individuals allegedly involved. The report, which was submitted to the Security Council in January, is set to be made public in the near future.

Libya has been in turmoil since October 2011, when a NATO air campaign helped the country’s opposition topple long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The battle for power between two rival governments in al-Bayda and Tripoli has led to 400,000 people being displaced, a spike in kidnappings, and the rise of radical groups, including Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently said in a report.

https://www.rt.com/news/335357-libya-arms-embargo-violations/

[galdur]

ISIS plans for mini-Caliphate gains momentum

Hafsa Kara-Mustapha

Hafsa Kara-Mustapha is a journalist, political analyst and commentator with a special focus on the Middle East and Africa. She has worked for the FT group and Reuters and her work has been published in the Middle East magazine, Jane's Foreign report, El Watan and a host of international publications. A regular pundit on TV and radio, Hafsa can regularly be seen on RT and Press TV.

Published time: 21 Mar, 2016 12:17

According to ISIS, the Caliphate needs to spread from Iraq all the way to the Atlantic. The terror network that emerged in Iraq in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of 2003, is moving West after establishing a firm base in Libya.
The organization that relies on US support to clear Arab ground before it settles has opted for Tunisia as its next outpost.

In early March, ISIS operatives carried out a daring attack on a small town in the south of Tunisia, close to the Libyan border.

Most of the assailants were eventually killed or captured, but the attack left Tunisia severely scarred. After suffering several attacks in the last twelve months, this latest foray well inside Tunisian territory clearly indicates ISIS is looking to settle in the small North African nation.

The Tunisian army, which in the past couple of years has been working in close collaboration with the Algerian military in a bid to stop both ISIS and Al Qaeda in the Maghreb from crossing their respective borders, failed this time to stop what numerous sources had been predicting for weeks.

ISIS terrorists entered Tunisia and attempted the take-over of the town of Ben Guedrane. The town itself is small and insignificant, but its capture would have signaled the permanent presence of ISIS inside a new nation.

The goal, as it turned out, was to establish a small Caliphate inside Tunisia.

Despite having an overtly anti-radical government Tunisia is the country that surprisingly has provided ISIS with its highest number of recruits.

The deepening economic crisis in which Tunisia was thrown into after the ouster of Ben Ali and the consequent Arab Spring meant that young unemployed Tunisians were increasingly attracted to the concept of 'jihad' that would guarantee them a regular income and potential for progression in the ranks of an organization with grand ambitions.

The disenfranchised youth of Tunisia were providing the ideal fertile ground for ISIS to not only inflate its numbers but act as the 'respectable' face of ISIS. As perfect Arab speakers, Tunisians can therefore claim to understand Arabic and the sacred texts used by the organization to justify its actions. Those recruits coming from Europe or Asia and who do not understand Arabic are therefore entirely reliant upon native speakers to translate or narrate the texts they will need to establish the much dreamed about Caliphate.

Interestingly, while the Tunisian recruits are neither scholars or even remotely versed in theological studies, their limited knowledge is what makes them prized recruits, teaching non- Arab speaking arrivals whatever is needed to be learned irrespective of its authenticity or not: packaging the teachings in Arabic is what makes the discourse appear authentic. The European recruits rely on Arab speakers to translate supposedly sacred texts their 'teachers' never actually read themselves.

In this opaque scene of selective learning, recruiters are able to manipulate the new arrivals as they wish, but the help of native Arab speakers is essential in making the deceit believable.

That some Tunisian recruits were in fact involved in a life of petty crime prior to their arrival in Syria or Iraq is neither a deterrent for ISIS' leadership or a barrier for progress. In fact, their murky pasts are often a boon to the organization as they become favorable to carrying out the worst crimes in a bid to prove their loyalty to their new - generous - employers.

Exploiting oil resources from Southern Iraq, as well as generating money from human trafficking, ISIS is a fabulously wealthy organization that can afford to reward its diligent recruits handsomely.

For those escaping what has now become abject poverty in Tunisia, the offer is attractive in particular as job opportunities in once prosperous Libya have dried up since the country was destroyed by a NATO-led war in 2011.

The fall of Ben Guedrane would have signaled a major victory for ISIS in particular as it is having to retreat from some areas of Syria, and is looking to develop its presence in Libya and further southwest into the African continent.

Meanwhile, Britain and the US are deploying troops with the official aim of destroying ISIS, implanted in Libya thanks to their military operation five years ago.

A return to peace in Libya is certainly not in Britain or the US' interest in light of the huge funds frozen by these governments when it was decided Gaddafi had to be removed.

Through the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), Gaddafi - thanks to the oil price hike of 2007-2010 - pumped billions into scores of projects. From stakes in major companies, to prime real estate in London, Paris or Rome, the funds currently frozen and unaccounted for run into several billions.

Pearson, one time owner of the Financial Times, even sold a 3 percent stake to the LIA.

Should ISIS target Tunisia in such a spectacular way, both the US and Britain will have no trouble in selling further military interventions in North Africa, even if it was those initial interventions in Iraq and later in Libya, which paved the way for ISIS' criminal enterprise.

During a meeting with British Premier David Cameron, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi warned against Western intervention in Libya.

Despite his apparent willingness to work with Western capitals, even Sisi recognises that US troops on Arab ground usually make bad situations far worse.

In an uncharacteristically candid remark to Cameron, Sisi explained why adding fuel to a raging fire was never a good idea, especially when the flames risk engulfing the rest of the region while both London and Washington will remain sheltered from its consequences.

At a time when the British government is approving major cuts to its welfare system, public opinion is wary of more costly foreign operations. However, the spectre of having an ISIS 'Caliphate' - however insignificant - so close to European shores would give Cameron the much-needed boost he needs in parliament should he put the motion to go into Libya to a vote.

In the US, Obama is in the last leg of his second and therefore final term in office. He is already more focused on his legacy than any short term plans for war. Thus, in order to get support for further intervention the casus belli would have to be substantial.

As Libya continues to sink ever deeper into lawlessness, Tunisia appears to be ISIS' next short term plan. Having considerably affected its vital tourism sector in the last year alone, forcing scores of young Tunisians into unemployment, the network will have to strike again and in a formidable way in order to indicate the Maghreb is its next treasured outpost.

Meanwhile, as war loving leaders and their lucrative partners in the military industrial complex continue to look for ways to justify further Arab interventions, no doubt ISIS - which has so far worked almost in tandem with those leaders -  will provide the much needed impetus for US troops on African ground.

In that respect, ISIS has never failed to disappoint.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/336426-isis-plans-caliphate-libya/

[galdur]

Hillary Clinton Email Archive

On March 16, 2016 WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive for 30,322 emails & email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State. The 50,547 pages of documents span from 30 June 2010 to 12 August 2014. 7,570 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton. The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the US State Department as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. The final PDFs were made available on February 29, 2016.

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/

[galdur]

UN envoy to Libya not allowed to land in Tripoli

AP, Benghazi Wednesday, 23 March 2016

The Islamist-linked government in the Libyan capital has declined to give permission for the UN envoy to Libya to land in Tripoli, the diplomat said on Wednesday.

The envoy, Martin Kobler, said on his Twitter account that he has had to cancel another flight to Tripoli because of this. He said he “wanted to help pave the way to peace” and stressed that the United Nations must be given access to the Libyan capital.

Kobler has been pressing Libya’s rival parliaments - the one in Tripoli and a second, based in the far eastern region of the country - to reconcile and accept a third, UN-back government that emerged from a December political agreement between Libya’s factions.

The new, UN-backed government is facing major challenges, however - including how to get into Tripoli, something that had been tentatively planned for later this week.

Earlier, Kobler had been slightly more optimistic, telling reporters in neighboring Tunisia on Tuesday that though he doesn't have the exact date, it’s “a matter of days, not weeks” for the unity government to install itself in Tripoli despite opposition from the city’s authorities.

Libya's chaos, five years after the uprising that led to the ouster and killing of longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi, has left the country deeply divided and ruled by an internationally recognized government and parliament based in the east and a rival government and parliament in Tripoli, backed by Islamist-allied militias.

The unity government, brokered by the U.N. and headed by a little-known Libyan technocrat, Fayez Serraj, is supposed to replace the two rival administrations.

ISIS has exploited the years of chaos in Libya and taken control of a central Libyan city and its surroundings, which in turn has given new impetus to Western countries and the U.N. to try to piece the country back together.

Kobler said that “it is urgent to stop the expansion” of the ISIS group into neighboring countries such as Tunisia. Serraj said that the world and the region “must react quickly” to stop the “cancer.” He called on Libyans to set aside differences and build a new, safe Libya.

The two spoke after a ministerial meeting of Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Chad, Sudan and Niger, all facing threats by extremists.

Tripoli authorities could not be immediately reached for comment on their refusal to allow Kobler to land. But a Tripoli-based media official, Jamal Zubia, said on his Facebook page that the UN envoy “will not visit Tripoli before Monday.”

There was no further explanation.

Last Update: Wednesday, 23 March 2016 KSA 16:08 - GMT 13:08

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/africa/2016/03/23/UN-envoy-to-Libya-not-allowed-to-land-in-Tripoli.html