By Kurt Nimmo
The following summary is from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report, “Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK’s future policy options.”
In March 2011, the United Kingdom and France, with the support of the United States, led the international community to support an intervention in Libya to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. This policy was not informed by accurate intelligence. In particular, the Government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element. By the summer of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change. That policy was not underpinned by a strategy to support and shape post-Gaddafi Libya. The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa. Through his decision making in the National Security Council, former Prime Minister David Cameron was ultimately responsible for the failure to develop a coherent Libya strategy.Sound familiar?
It’s the same rationale the neocons used prior to invading Iraq.
“Evidence is now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a ‘bloodbath’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold,” the Boston Globe reported on April 14, 2011.
“Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.”
Hillary Clinton was “one of the main instruments in spreading chaos and extremism in Libya when the U.S. secretary of state personally pushed for the ousting of late Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi,” teleSUR reported in March. Declassified emails released in January and February “reveal that she and her staff were aware that civilians they claimed to be protecting were not actually in danger from government forces.”Khadafy’s acts were a far cry from Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Bosnia, and other killing fields. Libya’s air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire — each one a tragedy — but that is urban warfare, not genocide. Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The “no mercy’’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya’s leader promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away.’’ Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight “to the bitter end.’’
Clinton and her top advisor, Sidney Blumenthal, who was not employed by the state department but by the private Clinton Foundation, collaborated on the invasion of Libya despite knowing there was not a humanitarian crisis unfolding.
Blumenthal played politics with the lives of the Libyan people—30,000 would ultimately perish—and urged an invasion in order to boost Obama’s sagging approval ratings.
Ousting the Libyan strongman, argued Blumenthal, would further establish “security in North Africa, securing democracy in Egypt and Tunisia, economic development, effect throughout Arab world and Africa, extending U.S. influence, counter-balancing Iran, etc.”The declassified emails reveal Blumenthal’s financial interest in the attack.
Further highlighting his complete and utter disregard for the human cost of the intervention, in the same email Blumenthal informed Clinton about the horrors committed by U.S.-backed forces in Libya, which included members of al-Qaida.
“Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries in the fighting.” Such actions are considered war crimes and in violation of international resolutions and conventions.
The emails also reveal that the Obama administration and Clinton were aware of the threat of al-Qaida in the eastern part of the country, which had for years been suppressed by the Libyan leader.
The emails also show that claims made by NATO at the time, including alleged atrocities committed by Gadhafi’s forces such as rape and mass killings, were rumors used by Clinton and the Obama administration to help sell the intervention to the world.
It is clear the NATO intervention was not intended for humanitarian purposes. So what were the intentions of Clinton and the Obama administration? The same as most U.S. interventions: financial interest.In other words, Sidney Blumenthal is a war profiteer and Clinton a war criminal.
The emails reveal that most of the intelligence Clinton received on Libya was from Blumenthal, who was preparing to make substantial financial gains from the fall of the Libyan leader.
According to Vice News, the intel briefs on Libya were “prepared by Blumenthal’s business partner and former CIA operative Tyler Drumheller, a consultant with plans to take advantage of economic opportunities in a post-war Libya.”
Both men worked with the U.S.-based security company Osprey, a start-up that hoped to profit from medical and military contracts with Libyan rebels amid the chaos of the conflict, according to Vice News.
If Clinton is elected in November, we can expect more wars, more criminal opportunism, and more mass murder.
Kurt Nimmo is the editor of Another Day in the Empire, where this article first appeared. He is the former lead editor and writer of Infowars.com.
