"install client regimes that will subordinate the country’s wealth and labor to imperialist corporate interests"

That's all of American history, summed up in a single sentence.

I do not support Gadaffi because of the cult of personality, history of terrorism, and family stranglehold on leadership.

That said, Gadaffi wanted what was best for Libya and wanted a fair place in the modern world for Libya and its people. The religionists in Islam were also his enemy and domestic threat.

The western leaders that destroyed Libya knew exactly what they were doing and planned for western trans-national corporations to benefit from the easy profit from disaster capitalism.

He had dreams of ruling an empire. Libya was not his first concern.

Libya was a workers paradise.
What a load of crap.

We get sicker every day.

It is called that for a reason...

Was Naomi Klein the first to use that term?

Gaddafi is a prime example of a sociopath. Nobody loved Gaddafi more than Gaddafi.

That is still no excuse for using covert funding and ops to destabilize a relatively stable and blessed country and then bombing the people and infrastructure and leaving the mess to radical Islamists and drooling trans-national corporations.

Many Libyans and other Africans thought highly of Gadaffi.

The Islamic radical rebels we supported used the opportunity to practice genocide on the black Libyans and black African guest workers.

due to the "intervention" ; usually by many times over.

...punish rebellious eastern cities with a column of tanks, and an air force? There was no perfect solution in Libya. The US did what it could, and continues to work to unify the country against a worse external force: ISIS.

"Funny how sufferring (sic) is actually much worse due to the "intervention" ; usually by many times over..."

You of course, have an objective and peer-reviewed source to support your allegation, yes? Or (and I find this a wee bit more likely), you don't have the source material, but felt compelled to state as much due to the bias you allow to control you anyways.

Try 'Utopia in Power' by Heller and 'Rise and Fall of the Great Powers' by Kennedy-- both (both being objective, relevant and citing source material) seem to undermine your unsupported allegation. Actually, I'd urge to read. Anything peer-reviewed and/or objective. It helps to learn doing do (though it also shatters the biases held by weak minds, so there may be a win/lose scenario approaching)

R U effin kidding? Yr OP is a puff (or pufpuf) piece to Gadaffi & now you admit he's a sociopath?

WTF?

You might as well go Godwin and make a list of all the ways Hitler helped Germany--and Nazi supporters for years would say "he was good for the economy.

It's one thing to question the support for removing him as the dictator because of the instability, and another to post a stupid list of happy thoughts about Gaddafi's dictatorship.

awake, without anaesthesia, is not a nice guy.

Those gold revolvers were not decorative.


And the rapes and murders? How can anyone gloss over that with a "Hey, they got FREE ELECTRICITY!" argument?

Awwww, never mind these pesky details: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/15/libya-struggles-with-mass-gaddafi-era-rape-crimes.html




smh.

the one-sentence American history!

no alternative economic systems in her world! That is too complex for her Third-Wayed mind.

to those poor people.

Gadaffi cooperated with GWB Administration regards to terrorism.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/03/cia-libya-terror-suspect-renditions

The CIA worked closely with Muammar Gaddafi's intelligence services in the rendition of terrorist suspects including Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, the rebel commander in Tripoli, according to documents found in Tripoli.

The documents, found in the offices of the former head of Libyan intelligence Musa Kusa, also show that MI6 gave Gaddafi's regime information on Libyan dissidents living in the UK.

The files, uncovered by Human Rights Watch, provide details of the close relationship between western intelligence services, including MI6 and the CIA, and the ousted dictator's regime.

Two documents from March 2004 appear to be American correspondence to Libyan officials to arrange the rendition of Belhaj, the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a now-dissolved militant group with links to al-Qaida.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya_under_Muammar_Gaddafi

In early 2011, a civil war broke out in the context of the wider "Arab Spring". The anti-Gaddafi forces formed a committee named the National Transitional Council, on 27 February 2011. It was meant to act as an interim authority in the rebel-controlled areas. After a number of atrocities were committed by the government,[5][6] with the threat of further bloodshed,[7] a multinational coalition led by NATO forces intervened on 21 March 2011 with the aim to protect civilians against attacks by the government's forces.[8] At the same time, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Gaddafi and his entourage on 27 June 2011. Gaddafi was ousted from power in the wake of the fall of Tripoli to the rebel forces on 20 August 2011, although pockets of resistance held by forces loyal to Gaddafi's government held out for another two months, especially in Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, which he declared the new capital of Libya on 1 September 2011.[9] The fall of the last remaining cities under pro-Gaddafi control and Sirte's capture on 20 October 2011, followed by the subsequent killing of Gaddafi, marked the end of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

started years before.

He quit trying to confront the US and started playing nice. One of the few good things about the Iraq invasion.

They must have had their reasons. It couldn't have been all rainbows and puppies there under Gaddafi.

primarily the ones who will benefit from the crumbs of imperialism (and the owners of course who call the shots).

Inside Gaddafi’s Harem: The Story of a Girl’s Abduction:

Because the mass rape reports, supposedly ordered by Gaddafi, turned out to be largely false, I wonder if the "Gaddafi raped girls" is another one of those false allegations.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10734384

Last edited Thu May 12, 2016, 07:02 PM - Edit history (1)

a hell on earth because of western intervention?

I did some quick research on that woman and book and it smells of an opportunistic piece of propaganda for the masses.

I believe that Libya would have been better off without Gadaffi, a dictator and head of a family cult of personality, who was not going to let go easily.

What occurred is afar worse case for Libya than if Gadaffi had remained in control for his natural life.

The women of Libya were far better off prior to the radical Islamists that now have violent control of Libya.

The social gains and benefits, no matter how incomplete, are gone.

IMO the western interventionists did not seriously have the good of Libya in mind when backing radical Islamists and then interventing by a bombing campaign to destroy the modernizing country for all intents and purposes.

Here is your hero:

Hillary Clinton 2016 - "We came we saw he died" Laughing About Gadhafi Libya

"

"

This video is unavailable.

Funny that and just today.

On Edit: Cool the video is back at the same youtube address. I was a paranoid CT. Oops.

We came
We saw
He died
hahahahaha

That video shows the true person, and it literally turns my stomach.

What a disgrace.
I am ashamed.

On second thought, no I am not.
I have nothing to do with her.

Can you source more?

Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/01/06/new-hillary-emails-reveal-true-motive-for-libya-intervention/

We have abused our currency terribly.

I wrote in the "Michael Moore says he will vote for Hillary" thread that IMHO Hillary has a lot of blood on her hands. Next time I logged into DU I had a notification that "You have been unfriended by 4 people".

some pretty thin skinned worshipers out there.

Somebody replied "Well then I guess Obama does, too", to which I replied, yes, yes he does:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1944352

which I ended with "wouldn't it be nice if we could elect a president who would wage peace instead of war?"

It's the only time I've ever seen that. Maybe the world wasn't "unfriending"?

Thanks for this photo and thanks for this story and this thread. Americans sorely need realistic information like this to understand what the US is doing in Lybia and Syria and Iraq. This is why I cannot vote for her. I am eternally grateful for this story and for the solidarity on most of these posts. This is so important. Brown lives matter to me in the Middle East!

We came.
We saw.
He died.

Laugh...

She really is a sociopath.

Then bigger and bigger demonstrations of thousands of people before the government started firing on them.

Obviously a large number of Libyans wanted him gone.

...and labor to imperialist corporate interests.

All else is lies and deception.

How do we know that it wasn't our own government who incited such protests and violence?

Numerous offers for peace and to prevent the carnage were made by Qaddafi and rejected. And yes, the west did fund and even train Libyan 'rebels' to 'protest' and force the Libyan gov't to react. Peaceful protesters with legitimate concerns were used as an excuse to introduce the barbarians who hung Qaddafi loyalists in the street, burned them alive, kidnap, rape and torture them along with Africans who'd been let in to Libya to work for decades.

Libya was one of the '7 countries in 5 years' on the hit-list.

I still remember the glee here when the 30 some billion he'd been using to support the independence of the rest of Africa and improve the lives of, was frozen by Obama. It was rah-rahed that his 'personal wealth' was being taken - complete bullshit just like the rest of it all.

"How do we know that it wasn't our own government who incited such protests and violence? " It's possible but not likely. Occam's Razor would conclude thousands of people didn't like Gaddafi without needing some secret Obama Administration paying thousands of people to demonstrate.

However, if you are one who sees the US government as the source of all things, I doubt logic will convince you otherwise.

I'll go with conclusion that hundreds of thousands of protesters had reasons beyond some Obama administration plot.

The more you dig into events in the middle east the more you learn that what we see is a narrative that engenders our interests, not really the facts.

http://www.ibtimes.com/who-are-real-libyan-opposition-277421

provocateurs attacked police stations and government buildings. Cops shot some attackers. At funerals unidentified snipers killed some mourners who attacked cops again. Then gun battles and further sniper attacks on both sides. More agitation in the mosques next Friday. Instant civil war. Same concurrent chain of causation in Syria.

conforming to their radical goals. Of course, the west knew which ones of these to cultivate, fund and train for the 'protests'. In contrast to the hundreds of thousands who showed up to support him from the start, these western funded (bloodthirsty rebels) trickled in, as they bombed police headquarters and burned down gov't buildings. Yet the Libyan gov't was expected to do nothing.

"organic" internal movements. They are agitated often from external groups who have time and again embraced some really bad guys in order to achieve their goals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/many-libyans-appear-to-back-gaddafi/2011/03/24/ABHShlRB_story.html

Which is what some are doing.

“Seventy-five percent of the people are against him,” said one dissident, who was in the vanguard of the protest movement that was crushed in Tripoli last month and who agreed to a furtive meeting with journalists in a downtown cafe. “But there are some people who really do love him.

I'm sure many people supported him, but it's obvious many people didn't like him. I'm saying it's not like he had some utopia there where the everyone wanted him. They had reasons beyond, Oh the CIA paid them not to like Gaddafi.

At which point Hillary came, saw, and Ghaddafi died. Well, was sodomized with a bayonet according to reports. But we know all too well that arming militants can have consequences.

A lot of people don't like Obama and didn't like bush*. Maybe some country should arm our resident militants. What do you think??

If dictators provided a peaceful way to leave office, then the population wouldn't use non-peaceful methods. That's the fate of all Dictators and President's for Life. Their life can be short if that's the only way to remove them

BTW, we arm ourselves more than enough.

You're forgetting France, Quater, UAE, NATO and the US.

How are things in Libya now?

However, no one has listed any reasons why thousands of people were quick to rise up against him if Libya was such a utopia. Instead of coming back with valid issues with his regime, it's a simplistic....oooo, it must have been Obama / Hillary / CIA. Which is music to those who see the US behind everything bad in the world, but not very convincing to anyone else logically looking at the situation.

There's a concept. And the only ones saying the US is behind everything bad in the world is people claiming that others say that. I blame the US for everything bad in the world that the US has done. See the diff??

However, I don't believe that the US involvement was the primary reason hundreds of thousands of people rose up against the Libyan government. You give them far too much credit. If the US had that power, Reagan would have used it long ago.

Looking at the real factors is more work than saying CIA though.

Regime change is not a good enterprise. And I am sure all the situations are complicated. But they were stable and prosperous and looking to some kind of a N. African banking system that pissed off TPTB. As happened in Iraq. As happened here, some argue, to Kennedy.

A lot of people here wanted to see Bush gone for 8 very long years. Before that, I remember how badly a lot of other people wanted Bill Clinton gone, bad enough to impeach him.

And we finally got rid of Harper here in Canada which we managed without blowing up the infrastructure of the country.

It's easier to say it was an Obama administration plot than to look at legitimate reasons why people demonstrated in the first place.

make them independent from predatory austerity and the IMF and keep out AFRICOM and the foreign military bases and their capability to do what they always do in countries they 'protect'. He'd also created the amazing Great Man-Made River Project, a fantastic water delivery system that had changed lives of Libyans all across the country. Bombed by NATO. https://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/07/27/great-man-made-river-nato-bombs/

We were wating for an excuse.

(and even higher than Saudi Arabia, for example).

and roll your eyes and one can assume giggle.

in which someone claimed in all seriousness that Baltimore was just like North Korea. Srsly.

Counterpunch
Saturday, Oct 24, 2015

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_71969.shtml

(The 'imminent genocide' was a bunch of made up lies, just as were the 'viagra for rape claims'.)

Libya Table of Contents

The remaking of Libyan society that Qadhafi envisioned and to which he devoted his energies after the early 1970s formally began in 1973 with a so-called cultural or popular revolution. The revolution was designed to combat bureaucratic inefficiency, lack of public interest and participation in the subnational governmental system, and problems of national political coordination. In an attempt to instill revolutionary fervor into his compatriots and to involve large numbers of them in political affairs, Qadhafi urged them to challenge traditional authority and to take over and run government organs themselves. The instrument for doing this was the "people's committee." Within a few months, such committees were found all across Libya. They were functionally and geographically based and eventually became responsible for local and regional administration.

People's committees were established in such widely divergent organizations as universities, private business firms, government bureaucracies, and the broadcast media. Geographically based committees were formed at the governorate, municipal, and zone (lowest) levels. Seats on the people's committees at the zone level were filled by direct popular election; members so elected could then be selected for service at higher levels. By mid-1973 estimates of the number of people's committees ranged above 2,000.

In the scope of their administrative and regulatory tasks and the method of their members' selection, the people's committees embodied the concept of direct democracy that Qadhafi propounded in the first volume of The Green Book, which appeared in 1976. The same concept lay behind proposals to create a new political structure composed of "people's congresses." The centerpiece of the new system was the General People's Congress (GPC), a national representative body intended to replace the RCC.

The new political order took shape in March 1977 when the GPC, at Qadhafi's behest, adopted the "Declaration of the Establishment of the People's Authority" and proclaimed the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The term jamahiriya is difficult to translate, but American scholar Lisa Anderson has suggested "peopledom" or "state of the masses" as a reasonable approximation of Qadhafi's concept that the people should govern themselves free of any constraints, especially those of the modern bureaucratic state. The GPC also adopted resolutions designating Qadhafi as its general secretary and creating the General Secretariat of the GPC, comprising the remaining members of the defunct RCC. It also appointed the General People's Committee, which replaced the Council of Ministers, its members now called secretaries rather than ministers.

All legislative and executive authority was vested in the GPC. This body, however, delegated most of its important authority to its general secretary and General Secretariat and to the General People's Committee. Qadhafi, as general secretary of the GPC, remained the primary decision maker, just as he had been when chairman of the RCC. In turn, all adults had the right and duty to participate in the deliberation of their local Basic People's Congress (BPC), whose decisions were passed up to the GPC for consideration and implementation as national policy. The BPCs were in theory the repository of ultimate political authority and decision making, being the embodiment of what Qadhafi termed direct "people's power." The 1977 declaration and its accompanying resolutions amounted to a fundamental revision of the 1969 constitutional proclamation, especially with respect to the structure and organization of the government at both national and subnational levels.

Continuing to revamp Libya's political and administrative structure, Qadhafi introduced yet another element into the body politic. Beginning in 1977, "revolutionary committees" were organized and assigned the task of "absolute revolutionary supervision of people's power"; that is, they were to guide the people's committees, raise the general level of political consciousness and devotion to revolutionary ideals, and guard against deviation and opposition in the BPCs. Filled with politically astute zealots, the ubiquitous revolutionary committees in 1979 assumed control of BPC elections. Although they were not official government organs, the revolutionary committees became another mainstay of the domestic political scene. As with the people's committees and other administrative innovations since the revolution, the revolutionary committees fit the pattern of imposing a new element on the existing subnational system of government rather than eliminating or consolidating already existing structures. By the late 1970s, the result was an unnecessarily complex system of overlapping jurisdictions in which cooperation and coordination among different elements were compromised by ill-defined grants of authority and responsibility.

The changes in Libyan leadership since 1976 culminated in March 1979, when the GPC declared that the "vesting of power in the masses" and the "separation of the state from the revolution" were complete. Qadhafi relinquished his duties as general secretary of the GPC, being known thereafter as "the leader" or "Leader of the Revolution." He remained supreme commander of the armed forces. His replacement was Abdallah Ubaydi, who in effect had been prime minister since 1979. The RCC was formally dissolved and the government was again reorganized into people's committees. A new General People's Committee (cabinet) was selected, each of its "secretaries" becoming head of a specialized people's committee; the exceptions were the "secretariats" of petroleum, foreign affairs, and heavy industry, where there were no people's committees. A proposal was also made to establish a "people's army" by substituting a national militia, being formed in the late 1970s, for the national army. Although the idea surfaced again in early 1982, it did not appear to be close to implementation.

Remaking of the economy was parallel with the attempt to remold political and social institutions. Until the late 1970s, Libya's economy was mixed, with a large role for private enterprise except in the fields of oil production and distribution, banking, and insurance. But according to volume two of Qadhafi's Green Book, which appeared in 1978, private retail trade, rent, and wages were forms of "exploitation" that should be abolished. Instead, workers' self-management committees and profit participation partnerships were to function in public and private enterprises. A property law was passed that forbade ownership of more than one private dwelling, and Libyan workers took control of a large number of companies, turning them into state-run enterprises. Retail and wholesale trading operations were replaced by state-owned "people's supermarkets", where Libyans in theory could purchase whatever they needed at low prices. By 1981 the state had also restricted access to individual bank accounts to draw upon privately held funds for government projects.

http://countrystudies.us/libya/30.htm

This isn't rocket science.

As a message to any leader who wants to introduce a currency not owned by a bankster family.

I believe she must face justice for her acts.

Anything anyone wants to say good about Mussolini? Pinochet? The Kims? Stalin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Something else that's never mentioned on television...

The author was a Chicago Boy helping implement the privatization scam for Pinochet, ITT and the globalist crowd:

These guys and gals just want to ride herd on humanity. What better way than controlling the money spigot?

Gadaffi was a dictator.

Despite Gadaffi calling Libya a socialist democracy, Libya was for all intents and purposes a family-controlled dictatorship.

Regardless of those facts, what the western nations did to the country and common people was cold-heartedly malicious and the true goals and beneficiaries had nothing to do with the best interests of the Libyan people.

Look at the hell hole Libya has become and for the undetermined future.

That did not have to occur and was done willfully and with no responsibility taken in the aftermath save for "business opportunity".

It really is that simple and that shameful.

Stalin was one of the architects of victory in WW-II.

Pinochet honored the terms of the 1988 referendum and stepped down peacefully when he probably still possessed the power to not do so.





Al Capone setup soup kitchens during the Great Depression.

Genghis Khan was a prolific builder of libraries and schools.


None of these good deeds mean they were not monsters. But even bad people love puppies**.


Except the Khan. I think he gets a totally bad rap. When the Chinese killed Mongol traders, he was justified in punishing China. When they killed the ambassadors he left behind, he was justified in conquering China. If you kill ambassadors, how can you ever achieve peace? I consider that the greatest warcrime of all.

The Mongols, Napolean's defeat at Moscow before the first snows fell, the Germans defeat at Moscow before the first snows fell, every history ever written about the US Civil War by Confederate generals and politicians are examples where the history was written by the losers who got it mostly wrong.

History probably should be written by the winner. Napolean and the Chinese wanted to make themselves look better. The Nazis and Confederates did not know what they were talking about which may have played a factor in their losses.


[font size=1]**Except, of course, people who torture puppies. But I'm sure even those people have something good about them.[/font]

that considers anything anti-American as good. Putin, Gaddafi, Chavez. And that if you question that, you're a neocon.

Enough of them here for 90+ recs. A DU embarrassment

If you think Clinton - well aware of PNAC, the 'seven countries in five years' plan didn't know exactly how Libya was long planned for 'regime change', you weren't paying attention.

Start here:

Exposed: The "Humanitarian" War In Libya

Check this out - 'The Humanitarian War' = http://www.laguerrehumanitaire.fr/english It's horrifying. (Videos now here - I watched them on the original site when all of it was happening and posted these here at DU) http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29428.htm

Must watch videos, the western trained NTC 'Prime Minister' - 'word to ear!' was the source of the 'data (all unofficial and lies, of course) that led to the UN resolution.

A bunch of LIES submitted to the ICC ..... by the UN - who got their 'numbers and crimes' from the western trained NTC Prime Minister - 'word to ear'. Pages and pages redacted.

No Evidence? No Problem!!

How the CIA Used "Libyan Expatriates" To Engineer Consent For Regime Change

One of the main sources for the claim that Qaddafi was killing his own people is the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR), an organization linked to the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH). On Feb. 21, 2011, LLHR General Secretary Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir initiated a petition in collaboration with the organization U.N. Watch and the National Endowment for Democracy. This petition was signed by more than 70 NGOs.

Then a few days later, on Feb. 25, Dr. Bouchuiguir went to the U.N. Human Rights Council in order to expose the allegations concerning the crimes of Qaddafi’s government. In July 2011 we went to Geneva to interview Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir.

"How to circumvent international law and justice 101." - originally published by http://laguerrehumanitaire.fr

A film by Julien Teil

Official Website:
http://laguerrehumanitaire.fr
Official web:
http://thehumanitarianwar.com
Official TV:
http://laguerrehumanitaire-film.rutube.ru/


*************************************************************************************************
What you don't know about the Libyan crisis: (watch the timeline closely)

...

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The horror of Libya - to fulfill the PNAC objective of overthrowing yet another country. "7 countries in 5 years!" This was NO "Humanitarian Intervention", and certainly not for all those migrants Qaddafi had allowed in over decades, Qaddafi loyalists and others who were raped, tortured, mutilated, hung, burned to death .... all known of by the NATO 'humanitarian team'.

It was a bullshit, self-serving, western funded and backed coup against yet another sovereign nation not yet indebted to the IMF and controlling its own resources, not to mention not allowing U.S. bases 'Africom' into all of Africa.

Some of these links don't work anymore, but read and discover just what a sham this was and why. The video at the end is particularly interesting.

The Untold Story in Libya

Posted by polly7 in General Discussion
Tue Oct 18th 2011, 10:06 AM

In May 2010, Libya was voted on to the UN Human Rights Council by a huge majority. The UN Watch's campaign to remove Libya from the Human Rights Council began immediately.

In March, 2011, a report, containing positive quotes from UN diplomatic delegations in many countries, was due to be presented by the UN Human Rights Council, leading to a Resolution commending Libya's progress in a wide aspect of human rights (listed in the article). March 19, 2011, the attack on Libya began.

Libya was one of only five countries without a Rothschild model central bank, Quaddafi openly discussed, in 2009, the nationalization of US, UK, Germany, Spain, Norway, Canada and Italy's oil companies, switching to the gold dinar - a single African currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar and allow African nations to share the wealth. Libya has an abundance of water - Gaddafi’s Great Man-Made River Project project offers limitless amounts of water for Libyans and would allow them to be totally self-sufficient. In the near-future, water will be the next resource equated with money and power, other countries may be dependent on its reserves. A self-sufficient, dictator-ruled nation with control over some of the world’s most precious resource waves a big red warning flag.

In 2010 Gaddafi made a motion to the UN General Assembly to investigate the circumstances of the invasion of Iraq. He was also wasting the west's ....... 'libya's' oil on free education, housing, tolerance of immigrants, raising the standard of living in Africa, lowering infant mortality while raising life expectancy.

Many of these things are completely similar to what we learned of Iraq.

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Global Civilians For Peace In Libya

Posted on November 9, 2011 by globalciviliansforpeace

When analysing the standard of living in Libya it is important to put the achievements into context. During the 1950’s under the leadership of King Idris, Libya was among the poorest nations in the world with some of the lowest living standards. From the early 1980’s until 2003 Libya were placed under crippling sanctions by the US and UN which had the result of strangling Libya’s growing economy leading to an inevitable smothering of development projects and social welfare schemes. Despite this The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had achieved the highest living standard in Africa. Libya has also invested heavily in African development initiatives. The funding of infrastructure projects as well as African political and financial institutions was aimed at developing Africa independently and combating the economic exploitation of African resources and labour by outside powers. On January 4th, 2011 – just weeks before the conflict in Libya started –UN members praised Libya’s continued welfare provision and commitment to upholding human rights.

Public Health Care

Public Health Care in Libya prior to NATO’s “Humanitarian Intervention” was the best in Africa. “Health care is [was] available to all citizens free of charge by the public sector. The country boasts the highest literacy and educational enrolment rates in North Africa. The Government is [was] substantially increasing the development budget for health services…. (WHO Libya Country Brief )

According to the World Health Organization (WHO): Life expectancy at birth was 72.3 years (2009), among the highest in the developing World.

Under 5 mortality rate per 1000 live births declined from 71 in 1991 to 14 in 2009
(http://www.who.int/countryfocus/cooperation_strategy/ccsbrief_lby_en.pdf)

Education

The adult literacy rate was of the order of 89%, (2009), (94% for males and 83% for females). 99.9% of youth are literate (UNESCO 2009 figures, See UNESCO, Libya Country Report)
Gross primary school enrolment ratio was 97% for boys and 97% for girls (2009) .
(see UNESCO tables at http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=4340&BR_Region=40525

[Extract]

21 February 2011

During Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, Libya has made great strides socially and economically thanks to its vast oil income, but tribes and clans continue to be part of the demographic landscape.

Women in Libya are free to work and to dress as they like, subject to family constraints. Life expectancy is in the seventies. And per capita income – while not as high as could be expected given Libya’s oil wealth and relatively small population of 6.5m – is estimated at $12,000 (£9,000), according to the World Bank.

Illiteracy has been almost wiped out, as has homelessness – a chronic problem in the pre-Gaddafi era, where corrugated iron shacks dotted many urban centres around the country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-12528996

Proud nation

In August 1984, Muammar Al Qadhafi laid the foundation stone for the pipe production plant at Brega. The Great Man-Made River Project had begun.

Click here to see a map of the pipeline network

Libya had oil money to pay for the project, but it did not have the technical or engineering expertise for such a massive undertaking.

Foreign companies from South Korea, Turkey, Germany, Japan, the Philippines and the UK were invited to help.

Water is seen as key to the country’s future prosperity

It is hard to fault the Libyans on their commitment. They estimate that when the Great Man-Made River is completed, they will have spent almost $20bn. So far, that money has bought 5,000km of pipeline that can transport 6.5 million cubic metres of water a day from over 1,000 desert wells.

As a result, Libya is now a world leader in hydrological engineering, and it wants to export its expertise to other African and Middle-Eastern countries facing the same problems with their water.

Through its agriculture, Libya hopes to gain a foothold in Europe’s consumer market.

But the Great Man-Made River Project is much more than an extraordinary piece of engineering.

Adam Kuwairi argues that the success of the Great Man-Made River Project has increased Libya’s standing in the world: “It’s another addition to our independence; it gives us the confidence to survive.”

https://globalciviliansforpeace.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/the-standard-of-living-in-libya/

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Yes, simply put, Nato's member nations are trying to steer back Libya Central Bank into the mainstream financial structure, under the watching eyes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Funds, to provide (reconstruction) funds to Libya with hefty interests payments - and transform a country which was free of debts into a heavily indebted country - as done everywhere else in sub-Saharan African countries.

http://businessafrica.net/africabiz/graphs...
http://businessafrica.net/africabiz/arcvol...

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From a 'no fly zone to all out bombing of targets called out by rebels'. NATO's high-precision bombing preceeded 'rebel' incursions.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MH27Ak03.html

"It's now common knowledge that British SAS, French intelligence, US Central Intelligence Agency assets, Qatar special forces and mercenaries of all stripes were parachuted as boots on the ground for months, planning and training the "rebels" and in close coordination with that philanthropic prodigy, NATO.

That was never the UN mandate - but who cares? NATO/GCC paid the bills, NATO conducted the bombing and NATO/GCC will "stabilize" the mess, according to a 70-page plan leaked by the British to Rupert Murdoch'sz Times of London."

"Expect local - and global - fireworks as far as grabbing the loot is concerned. Without even considering the (still unexplored) oil and gas wealth, Libya's foreign assets are worth at least $150 billion. Libya's central bank, now about to be privatized, has no less than 143.8 tons of gold. Then there's at least a millennium supply of fresh water, which had started to be harnessed by Gaddafi via the spectacular, multibillion dollar Great Man-Made River (GMR) project."

Middle East
Aug 27, 2011

THE ROVING EYE
R2P is now Right 2 Plunder
By Pepe Escobar

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"Oil-rich but with a relatively small population of 6.6. million, Gadhafi's Libya welcomed hundreds of thousands of black Africans looking for work in recent decades. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/l...

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NATO’s War on Libya is an Attack on African Development–Dan Glazebrook

6 09 2011

http://globalciviliansforpeace.com/tag/afr... /

To prevent this ‘threat of African development’, the Europeans and the USA have responded in the only way they know how – militarily. Four years ago, the US set up a new “command and control centre” for the military subjugation of the Africa, called AFRICOM. The problem for the US was that no African country wanted to host them; indeed, until very recently, Africa was unique in being the only continent in the world without a US military base. And this fact is in no small part, thanks to the efforts of the Libyan government.
Before Gaddafi’s revolution deposed the British-backed King Idris in 1969, Libya had hosted one of the world’s biggest US airbases, the Wheelus Air Base; but within a year of the revolution, it had been closed down and all foreign military personnel expelled.
More recently, Gaddafi had been actively working to scupper AFRICOM. African governments that were offered money by the US to host a base were typically offered double by Gaddafi to refuse it, and in 2008 this ad-hoc opposition crystallised into a formal rejection of AFRICOM by the African Union.

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The force used by the occupier to displace the old regime always makes sure the new regime is supine and complaint. The National Transitional Council, made up of former Gadhafi loyalists, Islamists and tribal leaders, many of whom detest each other, will be the West’s vehicle for the reconfiguration of Libya. Libya will return to being the colony it was before Gadhafi and the other young officers in 1969 ousted King Idris, who among other concessions had let Standard Oil write Libya’s petroleum laws. Gadhafi’s defiance of Western commercial interests, which saw the nationalization of foreign banks and foreign companies, along with the oil industry, as well as the closure of U.S. and British air bases, will be reversed. The despotic and collapsed or collapsing regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria once found their revolutionary legitimacy in the pan-Arabism of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. But these regimes fell victim to their own corruption, decay and brutality. None were worth defending. Their disintegration, however, heralds a return of the corporate and imperial power that spawned figures like Nasser and will spawn his radical 21st century counterparts.

Libya: Here We Go Again

Monday 5 September 2011
by: Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed

http://www.truthout.com/libya-here-we-go-a...

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LIBYA: Rebels execute black immigrants while forces kidnap others

http://somalilandpress.com/libya-rebels-ex...

"Many Africans have virtually nothing after years in Libya, many have been looted, robbed, while others saw their living quarters and apartments go in flames. Now they are praying to God to send them home.
While the international leaders are busy drafting resolutions to dismantle Muammar Gaddafi, the African Union has not yet commented on the situation in Libya.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court is said to have started a formal inquiry into possible crimes against humanity in Libya that will investigate the Libyan regime."

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JohnPilger.com
8 September 2011

http://johnpilger.com/articles/hail-to-the...

..."I quote that not so much for its Orwellian quality but as a model of journalism's role in justifying "our" bloodbaths in advance.
This is Rupert's Revolution, after all. Gone from the Murdoch press are pejorative "insurgents". The action in Libya, says The Times, is "a revolution... as revolutions used to be". That it is a coup by a gang of Muammar Gaddafi's ex cronies and spooks in collusion with Nato is hardly news.

The self-appointed "rebel leader", Mustafa Abdul Jalil, was Gaddafi's feared justice minister. The CIA runs or bankrolls most of the rest, including America's old friends, the Mujadeen Islamists who spawned al-Qaeda.
They told journalists what they needed to know: that Gaddafi was about to commit "genocide", of which there was no evidence, unlike the abundant evidence of "rebel" massacres of black African workers falsely accused of being mercenaries. European bankers' secret transfer of the Central Bank of Libya from Tripoli to "rebel" Benghazi by European bankers in order to control the country's oil billions was an epic heist of little .

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Sirte a 'living hell,' says aid group

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/co...

Tuesday 04 October 2011 by Our Foreign Desk Printable Email

A Red Cross team finally entered the besieged Libyan town of Sirte yesterday and delivered urgently needed surgical supplies to treat about 200 wounded people.

Nato has repeatedly targeted Sirte in its seven-month bombing campaign that enabled armed rebels to topple the government of Muammar Gadaffi and gain control of most of the oil-rich state.

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Absolutely horrible to use rape as a propaganda weapon for war, while ignoring the reality of it for all those brutalized, raped and some, murdered by the NATO supported 'rebels' - just one example of their many atrocities.

********* http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2174087 **********

http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2011/08/26/lies-war-and-empire-nato’s-“humanitarian-imperialism”-in-libya

In early March of 2011, news headlines in Western nations reported that Gaddafi would kill half a million people.

<1> On March 18, as the UN agreed to launch air strikes on Libya, it was reported that Gaddafi had begun an assault against the rebel-held town of Benghazi. The Daily Mail reported that Gaddafi had threatened to send in his African mercenaries to crush the rebellion.<2> Reports of Libyan government tanks sitting outside Benghazi poised for an invasion were propagated in the Western media.<3> In the lead-up to the United Nations imposing a no-fly zone, reports spread rapidly through the media of Libyan government jets bombing the rebels.<4> Even in February, the New York Times – the sacred temple for the ‘stenographers of power’ we call “journalists” – reported that Gaddafi was amassing “thousands of mercenaries” to defend Tripoli and crush the rebels.<5>

Italy’s Foreign Minister declared that over 1,000 people were killed in the fighting in February, citing the number as “credible.”<6> Even a top official with Human Rights Watch declared the rebels to be “peaceful protesters” who “are nice, sincere people who want a better future for Libya.”<7> The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights declared that “thousands” of people were likely killed by Gaddafi, “and called for international intervention to protect civilians.”<8> In April, reports spread near and far at lightning speed of Gaddafi’s forces using rape as a weapon of war, with the first sentence in a Daily Mail article declaring, “Children as young as eight are being raped in front of their families by Gaddafi’s forces in Libya,” with Gaddafi handing out Viagra to his troops in a planned and organized effort to promote rape.<9>

As it turned out, these claims – as posterity notes – turned out to be largely false and contrived. Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International both investigated the claims of rape, and “have found no first-hand evidence in Libya that rapes are systematic and being used as part of war strategy,” and their investigations in Eastern Libya “have not turned up significant hard evidence supporting allegations of rapes by Qaddafi’s forces.” Yet, just as these reports came out, Hillary Clinton declared that the U.S. is “deeply concerned by reports of wide-scale rape” in Libya.<10> Even U.S. military and intelligence officials had to admit that, “there is no evidence that Libyan military forces are being given Viagra and engaging in systematic rape against women in rebel areas”; at the same time Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, “told a closed-door meeting of officials at the UN that the Libyan military is using rape as a weapon in the war with the rebels and some had been issued the anti-impotency drug. She reportedly offered no evidence to backup the claim.”<


Untrue, says US

US says Gadhafi troops issued Viagra, raping victims
Allegation suggests troops encouraged to turn to sexual violence, envoys say

By Louis Charbonneau
updated 4/28/2011 9:31:26 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. envoy to the United Nations told the Security Council Thursday that troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi were increasingly engaging in sexual violence and some had been issued the impotency drug Viagra, diplomats said.

Several U.N. diplomats who attended a closed-door Security Council meeting on Libya told Reuters that U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice raised the Viagra issue in the context of increasing reports of sexual violence by Gadhafi's troops.

"Rice raised that in the meeting but no one responded," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. The allegation was first reported by a British newspaper.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42809612/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa#.TqXeG96ImU8


US intel: No evidence of Viagra as weapon in Libya

http://www.msnbc .msn.com/id/42824884/ns/world_news-mide...

UN Ambassador Rice reportedly had said drug was being used in systematic rapes
NBC News and news services updated 4/29/2011 1:52:00 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS — There is no evidence that Libyan military forces are being given Viagra and engaging in systematic rape against women in rebel areas, US military and intelligence officials told NBC News on Friday.

Diplomats said Thursday that US Ambassador Susan Rice told a closed-door meeting of officials at the UN that the Libyan military is using rape as a weapon in the war with the rebels and some had been issued the anti- impotency drug. She reportedly offered no evidence to backup the claim.

While rape has been a weapon of choice in many other African conflicts, the US officials say they've seen no such reports out of Libya.


[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
The gap between Hillary Rodham Clinton's rhetoric warning of a Rwanda-like slaughter of civilians in Libya and the facts gathered by career intelligence staff is taking on significance as the former secretary of state prepares another bid for the White House and her national security credentials are re-examined. (Associated Press)



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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...
bvar22:

The Untold Story in Libya:

How The West Cooked Up The People's Uprising

http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/08/31/now-that-... ... /

The Global Disaster Capitalists never let a good disaster go to waste.
In the case of Libya, they used their Enforcement Arm (NATO & The US Military) to CREATE a disaster where there was none.

” For all his dictatorial megalomania, Gaddafi is a committed pan-African - a fierce defender of African unity. Libya was not in debt to international bankers. It did not borrow cash from the International Monetary Fund for any "structural adjustment". It used oil money for social services - including the Great Man Made River project, and investment/aid to sub-Saharan countries. Its independent central bank was not manipulated by the Western financial system. All in all a very bad example for the developing world.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/M...

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Libya: Oil, Banks, Water, the United Nations, and America’s Holy Crusade by Felicity Arbuthnot

Posted on April 5, 2011 by dandelionsalad

.."The country was commended: “for the progress made in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, namely universal primary education (and) firm commitment (to) health care.” There was “praise” for “cooperation with international organizations in combating human trafficking and corruption ..” and for cooperation with “the International Organization for Migration.”

“Progress in enjoyment of economic and social rights, including in the areas of education, health care, poverty reduction and social welfare” with “measures taken to promote transparency”, were also cited. Malaysia: “Commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for being party to a significant number of international and regional human rights instruments.” Promotion: “of the rights of persons with disabilities” and praise for “measures taken with regard to low income families”, were cited...

.."So how does the all tie together? Libya, in March being praised by the Majority of the UN., for human rights progress across the board, to being the latest, bombarded international pariah? A nation’s destruction enshrined in a UN., Resolution?
The answer lies in part with the Geneva based UN Watch.(vii) UN Watch is : “a non-governmental organization whose mandate is to monitor the performance of the United Nations.” With Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council, with ties to the UN Department of Public Information, “UN Watch is affiliated with the American Jewish Committee.” (AJC.)"

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/0... /

Interesting ..... the involvement in HR Watch of persons whose core values include securing energy resources.

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leveymg (34,352 posts)

9. Evidence State Dept was involved in organizing the rebellion from early April '11

This latest tranche of withheld and redacted "personal" emails from Sidney Blumenthal to Secretary Clinton shows he was part of efforts to overthrow the Ghadaffi regime from nearly the beginning, working as a liaison between the USG, western corporations, and Blackwater-type mercenaries to train and coordinate the uprising. The NYT summarizes some of his April 2011 email to Clinton this way:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/politics/what-sidney-blumenthals-memos-to-hillary-clinton-said-and-how-they-were-handled.html




Doesn't sound comical or non-lethal to me. But, what it shows is that by early April, the State Dept. had already taken the lead, at least publicly, in aiding the Libyan opposition. The President didn't authorize "non-lethal" aid until April 26th, and that, we were told at the time, did not include training the rebels: http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/05/11/libyan-rebels-get-first-tranche-of-u-s-aid-10000-mres/



In fact, by the time the State Department acknowledged the delivery of "non-lethal" US aid to Libya, special emissary Chris Stevens had already settled in in Benghazi, where he immediately commenced coordination of US assistance to rebel groups. Plans were clearly afoot by April 1 to send Stevens to Eastern Libya, and the danger posed by by US aid to Jihadist extremist groups being doled out by arriving State Dept. personnel. The Department briefing ended on this ominous note: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2011/04/159596.htm



Three weeks later, at a April 21 press briefing, State Dept. spokesman Mark Toner alluded to the release of the $25 tranche of US aid to opposition groups in that eastern Libyan city: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2011/04/161440.htm#LIBYA




A few questions later, Toner responded to a second question about Stevens and the State Department team that had arrived in Benghazi:




Note that, as the NYT reported, Blumenthal's emails to Clinton were routed to Stevens, among other Department officials assigned to Libya. This would indicate that both Clinton and Stevens were aware of private contractor plans to train opposition militias.

In addition, Blumenthal's emails to Hillary confirm what he had learned about the activities of the military and intelligence services of Egypt, Qatar, Britain and France in providing direct military assistance to the rebels, and MI6's ongoing mechanizations to replace the regime with figures backed by London.

In an April 8 email to Clinton, titled in part, "Egypt moves in", Blumenthal describes the intervention of Egyptian special forces in the civil war, and the their training and equipping of the opposition. He also explicitly warned about the danger in Libya of the rise of the very same al-Qaeda groups that would later coalesce into ISIS: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/19/us/politics/libya-related-messages-hillary-clinton-email-account.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article

Here, Sid references a meeting he had earlier that day with a member of the opposition:




According the UK Telegraph, Blumenthal had an active line of information into "UK game playing" in the uprising and plans to "break up" Libya, news that he passed on to Secretary Clinton. Not surprisingly, this email was also withheld: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/hillary-clinton/11616018/Britain-hid-secret-MI6-plan-to-break-up-Libya-from-US-Hillary-Clinton-told-by-confidante.html



On April 21, the first known report of intervention on the side of the rebels by foreign "mercenary" forces from Egypt was published: http://www.eurasiareview.com/21022011-civil-war-in-libya-gaddafi-uses-pak-and-bd-mercenaries/ Three weeks later, the Washington Post reported that Qatar was training and equipping the rebellion's militias in Eastern Libya, as well as conducting airstrikes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/qatari-military-advisers-on-the-ground-helping-libyan-rebels-get-into-shape/2011/05/11/AFZsPV1G_story.html

Why wouldn't Hillary want to withhold this and related email? Think about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1128037

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http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/gaddafi-killed-bayonet-stab-anus-libya-395224



The Grand finale - sodomized with a bayonet, beaten, tortured and murdered in the street - "We came, we saw ....... he died, lol".



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Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/09/the-wicked-war-on-syria/

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Britain, Libya and the Mediterranean - The Creation of a Humanitarian Emergency

by Dan Glazebrook / May 1st, 2015



Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/britain-libya-and-the-mediterranean/

Behind Every Refugee Stands an Arms Trader

http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/behind-every-refugee-stands-an-arms-trader/

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Trapped in Libya: the flotsam of the West’s wars

By Vijay Prashad
Source: al-Araby
May 14, 2015





Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/trapped-in-libya-the-flotsam-of-the-wests-wars/


On Monday, a New York Times story demonstrated more specifically why Clinton's interactions with Blumenthal may have been a bad idea. Blumenthal, the Times reports via solid sources, was advising the Secretary of State both before and after former Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi's death while also advising a group of private individuals who hoped to make money by obtaining reconstruction-type contracts in a post-Qaddafi Libya.

Much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government. The venture, which was ultimately unsuccessful, involved other Clinton friends, a private military contractor and one former C.I.A. spy seeking to get in on the ground floor of the new Libyan economy ...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/05/18/hillary_clinton_sidney_blumenthal_libya_unofficial_adviser_represented_business.html


The detritus of regime change in Libya

By Vijay Prashad
Source: al-Araby
November 1, 2015





Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-detritus-of-regime-change-in-libya/


Deadliest Terror in the World: The West’s Latest Gift to Africa

by Dan Glazebrook / November 30th, 2015






Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/11/deadliest-terror-in-the-world-the-wests-latest-gift-to-africa/


http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/the-problem-with-hillarys-friends/393635/





WE CAME, WE SAW, HE DIED’ 10.20.15 6:00 PM ET

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

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









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

Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.

Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: "We came, we saw, he died."

Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary's relentless promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria. Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful. In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must "get out of the way," backed by secret CIA operations.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/hillary-candidate-war-machine

Just as much a sham as Iraq, with the exact same results. And on ........ to Syria.


Cheese Sandwich (8,079 posts)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511413353#post13