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Thread: America's Little-Known Mission to Support Al Qaeda's Role in Libya

  1. #1

    America's Little-Known Mission to Support Al Qaeda's Role in Libya

    America's Little-Known Mission to Support Al Qaeda's Role in Libya
    The rebellion in Libya was led by Islamist veterans of wars in the Middle East. Thus, the United States and its allies, not realizing it at the time, intervened to support a group of terrorists.
    by Alan J. Kuperman - August 13, 2019

    THE 2011 intervention in Libya, authorized by the United Nations and led by the United States and some NATO allies, has been criticized for two main reasons. First, it was justified on phony grounds—that Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi was slaughtering civilians, when in fact he was carefully targeting rebels who had attacked first. Second, the interveners aimed at regime change and thus failed in their ostensible humanitarian mission, instead magnifying the death toll at least ten-fold while fostering anarchy that persists until the present day. Yet perhaps the most profound drawback has remained hidden: the intervention rescued a rebellion that was actually led by Al Qaeda militants, not by pro-Western liberals as reported at the time.

    This starkly contradicts the press narrative of 2011, which claimed that Libya’s unrest had started with peaceful protests over the arrest of a human rights lawyer. Allegedly, the regime used lethal force against these nonviolent demonstrators, compelling them to reluctantly take up arms in self-defense. These amateur rebels then supposedly seized control of eastern Libya within days, prompting Qaddafi to deploy forces to commit genocide, which was stopped only by intervention. In reality, however, scholars and human rights groups have long disproved key parts of this story: the uprising was violent from the first day, the regime targeted militants rather than peaceful protesters and Qaddafi never even rhetorically threatened unarmed civilians.

    The remaining mystery has been who actually launched the rebellion in eastern Libya—that is, which militants did the interveners rescue from defeat and help overthrow Qaddafi? The conventional narrative improbably suggests that Libyan human rights lawyers, reacting spontaneously to regime violence, somehow acquired arms and conquered half the country in a week. The truth makes much more sense: the rebellion was led by Islamist veterans of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Thus, the United States and its allies, not realizing it at the time, intervened to support Al Qaeda.

    This remarkable story has remained obscured for eight years due to deceit and gullibility.
    ...
    After years of research, I unraveled this mystery starting with an unlikely source: YouTube. Perhaps not surprisingly, in the age of smartphones, some rebels videoed their exploits and uploaded them in near real time. Western analysts largely overlooked this evidence because it was unconventional, posed language barriers and contradicted the conventional wisdom. However, the videos suggest an alternative history, which I was able to confirm using retrospective interviews and fragments of contemporaneous reporting that had been overwhelmed at the time by the flood of propaganda.

    This evidence reveals that the Islamists planned the launch of the rebellion prior to any peaceful protests and then used snowball tactics, targeting a series of increasingly important security installations by obtaining weapons from each facility to use against the next larger one. At many such targets, some of the defending forces defected out of fear or sympathy, further bolstering the rebels for their next assault. The militants initially attacked police stations with rocks and petrol bombs to get firearms, which they used against internal-security forces to acquire higher-caliber weapons. In turn, they utilized this materiel to attack an army barracks to acquire even heavier weapons and armored vehicles, which they then deployed to capture eastern Libya’s main garrison and four air bases—all during the week of February 15–21, 2011.

    The Islamists timed their rebellion to coincide with a planned, nonviolent “Day of Rage” on February 17, 2011, which had been organized online for several weeks mainly by Libyan expatriates in Europe inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
    ...
    THE HIDDEN Al Qaeda roots of Libya’s revolution highlight several important lessons. First, media reporting about emerging crises can be dangerously inaccurate. One reason is that journalists tend to gravitate to big cities—in this case, Benghazi, where the biggest protests initially were peaceful—and thus overlook key events in the hinterlands such as the Islamist rebellion. Massive nonviolent demonstrations also offer great visuals that tend to dominate international news coverage even when they are not actually driving events on the ground. In addition, some journalists love David vs. Goliath stories so much that they may be blinded to the reality of Goliath vs. Goliath. Another problem is that Western reporters in authoritarian countries tend to sympathize with and become dependent on local dissidents, who may then feed them disinformation. The upshot is that consumers of news—especially policymakers—need to carefully vet media claims before responding with action as monumental as military intervention.

    The senior U.S. officials who advocated for intervention—in particular, White House special assistant Samantha Power, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama—appear to have suffered from two major misperceptions. They did not realize that Libya’s rebellion was led by Islamist militants, and they believed that Qaddafi’s forces were targeting innocent civilians. These fundamental errors had two conceivable causes. One possibility is that the U.S. intelligence community misunderstood what was happening, perhaps being misled by rebel propaganda, and thus provided bad guidance to policymakers. The alternative explanation is that U.S. spy agencies got it right, but administration officials instead relied on press accounts because they failed to read or distrusted the intelligence reports. In either case, an inspector general needs to pinpoint the cause of this massive policy failure, so that steps can be taken to avoid any repetition.

    Another uncomfortable lesson for Western liberals is that two of their policy prescriptions for Libya backfired by facilitating Al Qaeda’s rebellion. First, Qaddafi pursued political reconciliation with Islamists by releasing hundreds of prisoners—but they reciprocated by overthrowing and killing him. Second, in early 2011, Qaddafi refrained from robust retaliation against the armed uprising to avoid harming civilians, but this gifted the insurgents momentum and encouraged other Libyans to join in, helping them quickly conquer the east. Had Qaddafi instead ignored liberal counsel by keeping most jihadis locked behind bars and brutally attacking the rest, the Al Qaeda insurgency might never have gotten off the ground.
    ...
    Much more: https://nationalinterest.org/feature...le-libya-73271
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.



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  3. #2
    A long article, that goes into much of the details and tactics of the rebels in taking over Libya.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  4. #3
    In either case, an inspector general needs to pinpoint the cause of this massive policy failure, so that steps can be taken to avoid any repetition.
    Hold the presses! A call for an inspector general investigation into Obama and Hillary’s Libya fiasco? No wonder this story can’t be found using a Google search.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    Hold the presses! A call for an inspector general investigation into Obama and Hillary’s Libya fiasco? No wonder this story can’t be found using a Google search.
    As much as i’d like to see that...

    Don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

  6. #5
    Thus, the United States and its allies, not realizing it at the time, intervened to support a group of terrorists.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    The author is, shall we say, generous with his speculation on what Obama, Hillary and friends knew. As with the death of Epstein, he is going with the incompetence excuse. Granted, when it comes to government and people, that explanation should be the first to explore. It is the highest probability.

    These fundamental errors had two conceivable causes. One possibility is that the U.S. intelligence community misunderstood what was happening, perhaps being misled by rebel propaganda, and thus provided bad guidance to policymakers. The alternative explanation is that U.S. spy agencies got it right, but administration officials instead relied on press accounts because they failed to read or distrusted the intelligence reports.
    Sure, but there are more possibilities than that. If we are to believe that one of those were the case, Obama was incompetent beyond belief. Al-Qaeda used the exact same strategy in successfully taking over Kosovo, with the same help from the Clintons. Is it conceivable that Hillary never heard about this? That would be very hard to believe. Much more believable that she knew and didn’t care. Obama? Come on, he grew up in a Muslim country.

    But since the author has been very moderate in his analysis, perhaps his call for an investigation will carry more weight at some point. Seeing as the major search engines have blacked out this story, the memory hole is the more likely destination for this article.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The author is, shall we say, generous with his speculation on what Obama, Hillary and friends knew. As with the death of Epstein, he is going with the incompetence excuse. Granted, when it comes to government and people, that explanation should be the first to explore. It is the highest probability.



    Sure, but there are more possibilities than that. If we are to believe that one of those were the case, Obama was incompetent beyond belief. Al-Qaeda used the exact same strategy in successfully taking over Kosovo, with the same help from the Clintons. Is it conceivable that Hillary never heard about this? That would be very hard to believe. Much more believable that she knew and didn’t care. Obama? Come on, he grew up in a Muslim country.

    But since the author has been very moderate in his analysis, perhaps his call for an investigation will carry more weight at some point. Seeing as the major search engines have blacked out this story, the memory hole is the more likely destination for this article.
    Maybe he is going soft to try and increase the odds of an investigation.

    But in politics I have always found that the correct approach is "Never attribute to stupidity that which is better explained by malice".
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  9. #8
    We have supported radical Islamists in afgnaistan, Bosnia, Libya, & in Syria

    Not good.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by vita3 View Post
    We have supported radical Islamists in afgnaistan, Bosnia, Libya, & in Syria

    Not good.
    Don’t forget Kosovo.

    Where’s @AngryCanadian?
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  12. #10

  13. #11
    This is Treason!If I was president people like Hillary Clinton,Obama & George W Bush would be in jail!

  14. #12
    This article in discussed by Ron Paul in the followed episode of The Liberty Report:

    http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...reating-Misery
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by vita3 View Post
    We have supported radical Islamists in afgnaistan, Bosnia, Libya, & in Syria

    Not good.
    Purist isolationislist mindset, sometimes global interventions are necessary to defend our way of life and freedoms.
    We can't put a price tag on freedom

    Related
    Prepare for 100 Month Alliance with Radical Islam & "ISIS CIA Asset Story"

    Poll: Who will win: Syrian people or Al-Qaeda-Zionist alliance?


    Fakenews


    Commander in chief Trump should contact our ally why their media is pushing such fakenews:

    US military allegedly promoting ISIS in Afghanistan
    There are allegations that weapons are often transferred to the territory of Afghanistan by helicopters without identifying insignia.
    ET Bureau|
    Apr 22, 2019
    https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/68986884.cms







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