Now after the death of Gaddafi there maybe 6000 ISIS fighters in Libya

[UglyGreed]

is this the foreign policy expertise we really need in the White House?


Size of ISIS force declining in Iraq and Syria, according to new intel

{snip}

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence officials believe there are 5,000 to 6,000 ISIS fighters in Libya, up from previous estimates of 2,000 to 3,000.

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2016/02/04/new-intel-shows-isis-force-declining-iraq-syria/79819744/

[polly7]

1. As well as thousands of Boko Haram in areas in Africa as equally brutal.

We'll probably never know the number of victims because of that ongoing disaster.

[artislife]

8. Yes, the fact that we skim right over it is telling.

They burned children alive.

This is a harsh effing world.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

2. Point to Hillary Clinton

She's the expert in foreign affairs. I know this, because it's been reported 100x100 times.

[joshcryer]

3. In Gaddafi's HOME TOWN no less!

[senz]

4. One of Hillary's few "accomplishments."

[Purveyor]

6. Well I did hear Bill say that 'there is nothing Hillary has touched

that didn't get better' just a couple of days ago at a campaign event...

[H2O Man]

5. Recommended.

This was an extremely serious error in American foreign policy. It ranks second to the invasion of Iraq.

[UglyGreed]

7. I can't help but think this

is all by design.....

[polly7]

9. I've always been sure it was.

As WhoWhatWhy previously reported, former NATO commander General Wesley Clark has revealed that the Pentagon had a plan dating back even before the attacks of September 11, 2001, to invade seven different countries in the region. According to Clark, it was “all about oil.” (Vice President Dick Cheney, chairing a secret energy task force, tried mightily to pin blame for 9/11 on Iraq — and though there was no truth to that claim, ended up persuading a fair chunk of the American public otherwise.)

http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/10/28/secret-email-leaked-from-hillarys-server-the-real-story-of-bush-blair-and-big-oils-iraq-agenda/

[UglyGreed]

11. Yes I recall seeing

a video of Clark explaining that very thing. PNAC also comes to mind.

[polly7]

13. With not one single second of thought as to how the people in all those nations

would fare after having their countries blown apart and the power-vacuums left behind, imho. To me, that's almost as horrible as starting it. We used the worst of the worst to elevate 'civil unrest' and create lying propaganda that let us in, and we turned a blind eye to their atrocities until they became too well known to the rest of the world. Now, we get to go in again (some hope - those who benefit in some way - weapons dealers, the MIC) and do it all over again. Not ONE second of thought to the millions and millions for whom we'll never even be able to imagine the level of suffering. Over and over and over.

And yes ........ definitely, PNAC.

[H2O Man]

10. In my opinion,

it is an unintended consequence of a swallow, stupid policy. In time, the American public will learn more about weapon sales that were involved, and will come back to haunt us.

[Doctor_J]

15. One man's human rights disaster is another's "business opportunity"

Last edited Fri Feb 5, 2016, 02:15 PM - Edit history (1)

[restorefreedom]

12. yup. this is the kind of foreign pol experience we need! nt

[Jefferson23]

14. She has a horrific world view, vote for peace and no more fucking "interventions".

Western Companies See Prospects for Business in Libya

By SCOTT SHANEOCT. 28, 2011



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/world/africa/western-companies-see-libya-as-ripe-at-last-for-business.html?_r=0

[Maedhros]

16. The destruction of Libya led to instability in Mali, which led to a coup in Birkina Faso.

Convenient, because it justified the massive increase in U.S. military presence in Africa:

http://www.thenation.com/article/us-carried-out-674-military-operations-africa-last-year-did-you-hear-about-any-them/

In recent years, the United States has been involved in a variety of multinational interventions in Africa, including one in Libya that involved both a secret war and a conventional campaign of missiles and air strikes, assistance to French forces in the Central African Republic and Mali, and the training and funding of African proxies to do battle against militant groups like Boko Haram as well as Somalia’s al-Shabab and Mali’s Ansar al-Dine. In 2014, the United States carried out 674 military activities across Africa, nearly two missions per day, an almost 300% jump in the number of annual operations, exercises, and military-to-military training activities since US Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established in 2008.

Despite this massive increase in missions and a similar swelling of bases, personnel, and funding, the picture painted last month before the Senate Armed Services Committee by AFRICOM chief General David Rodriguez was startlingly bleak. For all the American efforts across Africa, Rodriguez offered a vision of a continent in crisis, imperiled from East to West by militant groups that have developed, grown in strength, or increased their deadly reach in the face of US counterterrorism efforts.

“Transregional terrorists and criminal networks continue to adapt and expand aggressively,” Rodriguez told committee members. “Al-Shabab has broadened its operations to conduct, or attempt to conduct, asymmetric attacks against Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and especially Kenya. Libya-based threats are growing rapidly, including an expanding ISIL presence… Boko Haram threatens the ability of the Nigerian government to provide security and basic services in large portions of the northeast.” Despite the grim outcomes since the American military began “pivoting” to Africa after 9/11, the United States recently signed an agreement designed to keep its troops based on the continent until almost midcentury.
. . .
All this, mind you, is AFRICOM’s own assessment of the situation on the continent on which it has focused its efforts for the better part of a decade as United States missions there soared. In this context, it’s worth reemphasizing that, before the United States ramped up those efforts, Africa was—by Washington’s own estimation—relatively free of transnational Islamic terror groups.

[moondust]

17. To be fair...

I'm sure it wasn't all up to her. As I recall, President Obama wanted to protect Benghazi from being incinerated by Gaddafi. Fine. But then the U.S. seemed to get sucked into the bigger fight being waged by the French and others in support of the rebels. I don't know if she could have stopped that mission creep or not but I don't remember hearing her calling for it to end.

Her IWR vote alone was more than enough to lose me.

[UglyGreed]

18. New Hillary Clinton Emails Show She Wanted Credit for Libya Intervention in 2011. Now She Doesn’t.

Now that Libya has descended into chaos, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is at pains to dispel the notion that, as secretary of state, she led the U.S. intervention that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Yet the latest tranche of emails from Clinton’s private server, released by the State Department on October 30, shows there’s one individual who would strongly object to those efforts: the Hillary Clinton of 2011 and 2012.

A report in June by the New York Times revealed that in August 2011, Clinton’s advisors had urged her to take credit for what was then seen as a military success in Libya. Now, the newly released emails show that the former secretary of state was herself intent on emphasizing her key role in the affair—and that her team used cozy relationships with the media to help her do so.

In one exchange, on April 4, 2012, a frustrated Clinton complains to her staffers that they’d omitted a number of key details in a timeline titled “Secretary Clinton’s leadership on Libya.” The timeline, which aims to show that Clinton “was instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition and tightening the noose around Qadhafi [sic] and his regime,” would later be provided to media.

“Did I meet in Paris w Jabril [sic] (brought to hotel by BHL) on 3/14? It's not on timeline,” she writes in the April 4 email, referring to Mahmoud Jibril, the prime minister for Libya’s National Transitional Council during the country’s civil war, and Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL), the French philosopher who helped drive France’s own involvement in the conflict. In fact, Clinton’s meeting with Jibril was listed on the original timeline produced by advisor Jacob Sullivan, suggesting Clinton was either referring to a different version of the timeline or, more likely, failed to see it on the document.

“This timeline is totally inadequate (which bothers me about our recordkeeping),” Clinton writes three minutes later. “For example, I was in Paris on 3/19 when attack started. That's not on timeline. What else is missing? Pls go over it asap.” Twenty-three minutes later, Sullivan sent Clinton an updated version of the timeline with the March 19 incident added in.

Clinton emailed her advisors twice more within six minutes, saying, “What bothers me is that S/P [the State Department’s Bureau of Policy Planning staff] prepared the timeline but it doesn't include much of what I did.” Among the items that were left out, she notes phone calls and meetings with Arab officials, as well as her role in securing a March 12 Arab League resolution, which called for a U.N.-imposed no-fly zone over Libya.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18592/new-clinton-emails-expose-collaboration-with-media-on-benghazi-coverag1

[moondust]

19. I see.

That clears some things up. Seems to support the characterization of her as a short-sighted hawk and media manipulator with poor judgment, among other things.

Thanks for the link, UG.

[UglyGreed]

20. You're Welcome

moondust

[amborin]

24. HRC pushed Obama to depose Qaddafi. HRC acted badly on intel that was ob viously unreliable

[mainer]

21. I predicted this chaos when we got involved. Why couldn't Hillary?

I'd been to Libya and saw it under Gaddafi. I remember arguing with numerous DUers that bringing him down was a stupid move and would lead to chaos, warlords, and destruction. I deplored the demonization of Gaddafi.

I'm not some foreign policy expert. I was just a traveler on the ground there where I kept my eyes and ears open and could see what the landscape would look like in a power vacuum after Gaddafi was gone.

It's the same way so many of us could predict the disaster that the Iraq War would lead to.

Hillary, with all her contacts and her intelligence sources, couldn't make the same predictions. What kind of judgment does that display?

[amborin]

22. this is HRCs real crime in Libya. she toppled Qaddafi based on intel everyone knew was flawed

[VulgarPoet]

23. k/r. I staunchly believe there is the blood of millions on her hands.

If intentional, she does not deserve the Oval Office, because the last time we put a murderer in office, we proceeded to lose hundreds of thousands of American souls in neocolonial interventionism; which Clinton and the rest of the turncoat Third Wayers who voted for the war share complicity in.

If unintentional, she sure as HELL doesn't deserve the Oval Office, because it doesn't take a genius to know that destabilizing a region will create a vacuum where bad things will happen.