Parry writes: "U.S. officials are pushing a dubious new scheme to 'unify' a
shattered Libya, but the political risk at home is that voters will finally
realize Hillary Clinton's responsibility for the mess."
A man surveys the scene after a NATO bombing in Libya. (photo: Jacobin)
Cleaning Up Hillary's Libyan Mess
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
02 April 16
Hillary Clinton's signature project as Secretary of State - the "regime
change" in Libya - is now sliding from the tragic to the tragicomic as her
successors in the Obama administration adopt increasingly desperate
strategies for imposing some kind of order on the once-prosperous North
African country torn by civil war since Clinton pushed for the overthrow and
murder of longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The problem that Clinton did much to create has grown more dangerous since
Islamic State terrorists have gained a foothold in Sirte and begun their
characteristic beheading of "infidels" as well as their plotting for terror
attacks in nearby Europe.
There is also desperation among some Obama administration officials because
the worsening Libyan fiasco threatens to undermine not only President Barack
Obama's legacy but Clinton's drive for the Democratic presidential
nomination and then the White House. So, the officials felt they had no
choice but to throw caution to the wind or - to mix metaphors - some Hail
Mary passes.
The latest daring move was a sea landing in Tripoli by the
U.S./U.N-formulated "unity government," which was cobbled together by
Western officials in hotel rooms in Morocco and Tunisia. But instead of
"unity," the arrival by sea threatened to bring more disunity and war by
seeking to muscle aside two rival governments.
The sea landing at a naval base in Tripoli became necessary because one of
those rival governments refused to let the "unity" officials fly into
Libya's capital. So, instead, the "unity" leaders entered Libya by boat from
Tunisia and are currently operating from the naval base where they landed.
With this unusual move, the Obama administration is reminding longtime
national security analysts of other fiascos in which Washington sought to
decide the futures of other countries by shaping a government externally, as
with the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s and the Iraqi National Congress in
2003, and then imposing those chosen leaders on the locals.
(When I heard about the sea landing, I flashed back on images of Gen.
Douglas MacArthur splashing ashore as he returned to the Philippines in
World War II.)
Making the Scheme Work
But the new mystery is how this Libyan "unity government" expects to
convince its rivals to accept its legitimacy without the military muscle to
actually take over governance across Libya.
The Obama administration risks simply introducing a third rival government
into the mix. Though the "unity government" drew participants from the other
two governments, U.S. resistance to incorporating several key figures,
including Gen. Khalifa Haftar, a military strongman in eastern Libya, has
threatened to simply extend and possibly expand the civil war.
The U.S. scheme for establishing the authority of the "unity government"
centers on using the $85 billion or so in foreign reserves in Libya's
Central Bank to bring other Libyan leaders onboard. But that strategy may
test the question of whether the pen - poised over the Central Bank's check
book - is mightier than the sword, since the militias associated with the
rival regimes have plenty of weapons.
Besides the carrot of handing out cash to compliant Libyan politicians and
fighters, the Obama administration also is waving a stick, threatening to
hit recalcitrant Libyans with financial sanctions or labeling them
"terrorists" with all the legal and other dangers that such a designation
carries.
But can these tactics - bribery and threats - actually unify a deeply
divided Libya, especially when some of the powerful factions are Islamist
and see their role as more than strictly political, though the Islamist
faction in Tripoli is also opposed to the Islamic State?
I'm told that another unity plan that drew wider support from the competing
factions and included Haftar as Libya's new commander-in-chief was rejected
by U.S. officials because of fears that Haftar might become another
uncontrollable strongman like Gaddafi.
Nevertheless, Haftar and his troops are considered an important element in
taking on the Islamic State and, according to intelligence sources, are
already collaborating with U.S. and European special forces in that fight.
After the sea landing on Wednesday, the "unity government" began holding
official meetings on Thursday, but inside the heavily guard naval base. How
the "unity" Prime Minister Fayez Sirraj and six other members of the
Presidency Council can extend their authority across Tripoli and then across
Libya clearly remained a work in progress, however.
The image of these "unity" officials, representing what's called the
Government of National Accord, holed up with their backs to the sea at a
naval base, unable to dispatch their subordinates to take control of
government buildings and ministries, recalls how the previous
internationally recognized government, the House of Representatives or HOR,
met on a cruise ship in Tobruk in the east.
Meanwhile, HOR's chief rival, the General National Congress, renamed the
National Salvation government, insisted on its legitimacy in Tripoli, but
its control, too, was limited to several Libyan cities.
On Wednesday, National Salvation leader Khalifa Ghwell called the "unity"
officials at the naval base "infiltrators" and demanded their surrender.
Representatives of the "unity government" then threatened to deliver its
rivals' names to Interpol and the U.N. for "supporting terrorism."
On Friday, the European Union imposed asset freezes on Ghwell and the
leaders of the rival parliaments in Tripoli and in Tobruk. According to some
accounts, the mix of carrots and sticks has achieved some progress for the
"unity government" as 10 towns and cities in western Libya indicated their
support for the new leadership.
Shortly after being selected by U.S. and U.N. officials to head the "unity
government," Sirraj reached out to Haftar in a meeting on Jan. 30, 2016, but
the move upset U.S. officials who favored isolating Haftar from the new
government.
Political Stakes
The success or failure of this latest Obama administration effort to impose
some order on Libya - and get the participants in the civil war to
concentrate their fire on the Islamic State - could have consequences
politically in the United States as well.
The continuing crisis threatens to remind Democratic primary voters about
Hillary Clinton's role in sparking the chaos in 2011 when she pressured
President Obama to counter a military offensive by Gaddafi against what he
called Islamic terrorists operating in the east.
Though Clinton and other "liberal interventionists" around Obama insisted
that the goal was simply to protect Libyans from a possible slaughter, the
U.S.-backed airstrikes inside Libya quickly expanded into a "regime change"
operation, slaughtering much of the Libyan army.
Clinton's State Department email exchanges revealed that her aides saw the
Libyan war as a chance to pronounce a "Clinton doctrine," bragging about how
Clinton's clever use of "smart power" could get rid of demonized foreign
leaders like Gaddafi. But the Clinton team was thwarted when President Obama
seized the spotlight when Gaddafi's government fell.
But Clinton didn't miss a second chance to take credit on Oct. 20, 2011,
after militants captured Gaddafi, sodomized him with a knife and then
murdered him. Appearing on a TV interview, Clinton celebrated Gaddafi's
demise with the quip, "we came; we saw; he died."
However, with Gaddafi and his largely secular regime out of the way, Islamic
militants expanded their power over the country. Some were terrorists, just
as Gaddafi had warned.
One Islamic terror group attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept.
11, 2012, killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other
American personnel, an incident that Clinton called the worst moment of her
four-year tenure as Secretary of State.
As the violence spread, the United States and other Western countries
abandoned their embassies in Tripoli. Once prosperous with many social
services, Libya descended into the category of failed state with the Islamic
State taking advantage of the power vacuum to seize control of Sirte and
other territory. In one grisly incident, Islamic State militants marched
Coptic Christians onto a beach and beheaded them.
Yet, on the campaign trail, Clinton continues to defend her judgment in
instigating the Libyan war. She claims that Gaddafi had "American blood on
his hands," although she doesn't spell out exactly what she's referring to.
There remain serious questions about the two primary incidents blamed on
Libya in which Americans died - the 1986 La Belle bombing in Berlin and the
bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
But whatever Gaddafi's guilt in that earlier era, he renounced terrorism
during George W. Bush's presidency and surrendered his unconventional
military arsenal. He even assisted Bush's "war on terror." So, Gaddafi's
grisly fate has become a cautionary tale for what can happen to a leader who
makes major security concessions to the United States.
The aftermath of the Clinton-instigated "regime change" in Libya also shows
how little Clinton and other U.S. officials learned from the Iraq War
disaster. Clinton has rejected any comparisons between her vote for the Iraq
War in 2002 and her orchestration of the Libyan war in 2011, saying that
"conflating" them is wrong. She also has sought to shift blame onto European
allies who also pushed for the war.
Though her Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, hasn't highlighted her key
role in the Libya fiasco, Clinton can expect a tougher approach from the
Republicans if she wins the nomination. The problem with the Republicans,
however, is that they have obsessed over the details of the Benghazi
incident, spinning all sorts of conspiracy theories, missing the forest for
the trees.
Clinton's ultimate vulnerability on Libya is that she was a principal author
of another disastrous "regime change" that has spread chaos not only across
the Middle East and North Africa but into Europe, where the entire European
Union project, a major post-World War II accomplishment, is now in danger.
Clinton may claim she has lots of foreign policy experience, but the hard
truth is that much of her experience has involved making grievous mistakes
and bloody miscalculations.
________________________________________
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories
for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest
book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from
Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
A man surveys the scene after a NATO bombing in Libya. (photo: Jacobin)
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/01/cleaning-up-hillarys-libyan-mess/https
://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/01/cleaning-up-hillarys-libyan-mess/
Cleaning Up Hillary's Libyan Mess
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
02 April 16
illary Clinton's signature project as Secretary of State - the "regime
change" in Libya - is now sliding from the tragic to the tragicomic as her
successors in the Obama administration adopt increasingly desperate
strategies for imposing some kind of order on the once-prosperous North
African country torn by civil war since Clinton pushed for the overthrow and
murder of longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The problem that Clinton did much to create has grown more dangerous since
Islamic State terrorists have gained a foothold in Sirte and begun their
characteristic beheading of "infidels" as well as their plotting for terror
attacks in nearby Europe.
There is also desperation among some Obama administration officials because
the worsening Libyan fiasco threatens to undermine not only President Barack
Obama's legacy but Clinton's drive for the Democratic presidential
nomination and then the White House. So, the officials felt they had no
choice but to throw caution to the wind or - to mix metaphors - some Hail
Mary passes.
The latest daring move was a sea landing in Tripoli by the
U.S./U.N-formulated "unity government," which was cobbled together by
Western officials in hotel rooms in Morocco and Tunisia. But instead of
"unity," the arrival by sea threatened to bring more disunity and war by
seeking to muscle aside two rival governments.
The sea landing at a naval base in Tripoli became necessary because one of
those rival governments refused to let the "unity" officials fly into
Libya's capital. So, instead, the "unity" leaders entered Libya by boat from
Tunisia and are currently operating from the naval base where they landed.
With this unusual move, the Obama administration is reminding longtime
national security analysts of other fiascos in which Washington sought to
decide the futures of other countries by shaping a government externally, as
with the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s and the Iraqi National Congress in
2003, and then imposing those chosen leaders on the locals.
(When I heard about the sea landing, I flashed back on images of Gen.
Douglas MacArthur splashing ashore as he returned to the Philippines in
World War II.)
Making the Scheme Work
But the new mystery is how this Libyan "unity government" expects to
convince its rivals to accept its legitimacy without the military muscle to
actually take over governance across Libya.
The Obama administration risks simply introducing a third rival government
into the mix. Though the "unity government" drew participants from the other
two governments, U.S. resistance to incorporating several key figures,
including Gen. Khalifa Haftar, a military strongman in eastern Libya, has
threatened to simply extend and possibly expand the civil war.
The U.S. scheme for establishing the authority of the "unity government"
centers on using the $85 billion or so in foreign reserves in Libya's
Central Bank to bring other Libyan leaders onboard. But that strategy may
test the question of whether the pen - poised over the Central Bank's check
book - is mightier than the sword, since the militias associated with the
rival regimes have plenty of weapons.
Besides the carrot of handing out cash to compliant Libyan politicians and
fighters, the Obama administration also is waving a stick, threatening to
hit recalcitrant Libyans with financial sanctions or labeling them
"terrorists" with all the legal and other dangers that such a designation
carries.
But can these tactics - bribery and threats - actually unify a deeply
divided Libya, especially when some of the powerful factions are Islamist
and see their role as more than strictly political, though the Islamist
faction in Tripoli is also opposed to the Islamic State?
I'm told that another unity plan that drew wider support from the competing
factions and included Haftar as Libya's new commander-in-chief was rejected
by U.S. officials because of fears that Haftar might become another
uncontrollable strongman like Gaddafi.
Nevertheless, Haftar and his troops are considered an important element in
taking on the Islamic State and, according to intelligence sources, are
already collaborating with U.S. and European special forces in that fight.
After the sea landing on Wednesday, the "unity government" began holding
official meetings on Thursday, but inside the heavily guard naval base. How
the "unity" Prime Minister Fayez Sirraj and six other members of the
Presidency Council can extend their authority across Tripoli and then across
Libya clearly remained a work in progress, however.
The image of these "unity" officials, representing what's called the
Government of National Accord, holed up with their backs to the sea at a
naval base, unable to dispatch their subordinates to take control of
government buildings and ministries, recalls how the previous
internationally recognized government, the House of Representatives or HOR,
met on a cruise ship in Tobruk in the east.
Meanwhile, HOR's chief rival, the General National Congress, renamed the
National Salvation government, insisted on its legitimacy in Tripoli, but
its control, too, was limited to several Libyan cities.
On Wednesday, National Salvation leader Khalifa Ghwell called the "unity"
officials at the naval base "infiltrators" and demanded their surrender.
Representatives of the "unity government" then threatened to deliver its
rivals' names to Interpol and the U.N. for "supporting terrorism."
On Friday, the European Union imposed asset freezes on Ghwell and the
leaders of the rival parliaments in Tripoli and in Tobruk. According to some
accounts, the mix of carrots and sticks has achieved some progress for the
"unity government" as 10 towns and cities in western Libya indicated their
support for the new leadership.
Shortly after being selected by U.S. and U.N. officials to head the "unity
government," Sirraj reached out to Haftar in a meeting on Jan. 30, 2016, but
the move upset U.S. officials who favored isolating Haftar from the new
government.
Political Stakes
The success or failure of this latest Obama administration effort to impose
some order on Libya - and get the participants in the civil war to
concentrate their fire on the Islamic State - could have consequences
politically in the United States as well.
The continuing crisis threatens to remind Democratic primary voters about
Hillary Clinton's role in sparking the chaos in 2011 when she pressured
President Obama to counter a military offensive by Gaddafi against what he
called Islamic terrorists operating in the east.
Though Clinton and other "liberal interventionists" around Obama insisted
that the goal was simply to protect Libyans from a possible slaughter, the
U.S.-backed airstrikes inside Libya quickly expanded into a "regime change"
operation, slaughtering much of the Libyan army.
Clinton's State Department email exchanges revealed that her aides saw the
Libyan war as a chance to pronounce a "Clinton doctrine," bragging about how
Clinton's clever use of "smart power" could get rid of demonized foreign
leaders like Gaddafi. But the Clinton team was thwarted when President Obama
seized the spotlight when Gaddafi's government fell.
But Clinton didn't miss a second chance to take credit on Oct. 20, 2011,
after militants captured Gaddafi, sodomized him with a knife and then
murdered him. Appearing on a TV interview, Clinton celebrated Gaddafi's
demise with the quip, "we came; we saw; he died."
However, with Gaddafi and his largely secular regime out of the way, Islamic
militants expanded their power over the country. Some were terrorists, just
as Gaddafi had warned.
One Islamic terror group attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept.
11, 2012, killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other
American personnel, an incident that Clinton called the worst moment of her
four-year tenure as Secretary of State.
As the violence spread, the United States and other Western countries
abandoned their embassies in Tripoli. Once prosperous with many social
services, Libya descended into the category of failed state with the Islamic
State taking advantage of the power vacuum to seize control of Sirte and
other territory. In one grisly incident, Islamic State militants marched
Coptic Christians onto a beach and beheaded them.
Yet, on the campaign trail, Clinton continues to defend her judgment in
instigating the Libyan war. She claims that Gaddafi had "American blood on
his hands," although she doesn't spell out exactly what she's referring to.
There remain serious questions about the two primary incidents blamed on
Libya in which Americans died - the 1986 La Belle bombing in Berlin and the
bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
But whatever Gaddafi's guilt in that earlier era, he renounced terrorism
during George W. Bush's presidency and surrendered his unconventional
military arsenal. He even assisted Bush's "war on terror." So, Gaddafi's
grisly fate has become a cautionary tale for what can happen to a leader who
makes major security concessions to the United States.
The aftermath of the Clinton-instigated "regime change" in Libya also shows
how little Clinton and other U.S. officials learned from the Iraq War
disaster. Clinton has rejected any comparisons between her vote for the Iraq
War in 2002 and her orchestration of the Libyan war in 2011, saying that
"conflating" them is wrong. She also has sought to shift blame onto European
allies who also pushed for the war.
Though her Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, hasn't highlighted her key
role in the Libya fiasco, Clinton can expect a tougher approach from the
Republicans if she wins the nomination. The problem with the Republicans,
however, is that they have obsessed over the details of the Benghazi
incident, spinning all sorts of conspiracy theories, missing the forest for
the trees.
Clinton's ultimate vulnerability on Libya is that she was a principal author
of another disastrous "regime change" that has spread chaos not only across
the Middle East and North Africa but into Europe, where the entire European
Union project, a major post-World War II accomplishment, is now in danger.
Clinton may claim she has lots of foreign policy experience, but the hard
truth is that much of her experience has involved making grievous mistakes
and bloody miscalculations.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories
for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest
book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from
Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
