Our regime change success in Libya...

[CosmicCowboy]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/special-report-we-all-thought-libya-had-moved-on--it-has-but-into-lawlessness-and-ruin-8797041.html

As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria.

In an escalating crisis little regarded hitherto outside the oil markets, output of Libya’s prized high-quality crude oil has plunged from 1.4 million barrels a day earlier this year to just 160,000 barrels a day now. Despite threats to use military force to retake the oil ports, the government in Tripoli has been unable to move effectively against striking guards and mutinous military units that are linked to secessionist forces in the east of the country.

Libyans are increasingly at the mercy of militias which act outside the law. Popular protests against militiamen have been met with gunfire; 31 demonstrators were shot dead and many others wounded as they protested outside the barracks of “the Libyan Shield Brigade” in the eastern capital Benghazi in June.

Though the Nato intervention against Gaddafi was justified as a humanitarian response to the threat that Gaddafi’s tanks would slaughter dissidents in Benghazi, the international community has ignored the escalating violence. The foreign media, which once filled the hotels of Benghazi and Tripoli, have likewise paid little attention to the near collapse of the central government.

The strikers in the eastern region Cyrenaica, which contains most of Libya’s oil, are part of a broader movement seeking more autonomy and blaming the government for spending oil revenues in the west of the country. Foreigners have mostly fled Benghazi since the American ambassador, Chris Stevens, was murdered in the US consulate by jihadi militiamen last September. Violence has worsened since then with Libya’s military prosecutor Colonel Yussef Ali al-Asseifar, in charge of investigating assassinations of politicians, soldiers and journalists, himself assassinated by a bomb in his car on 29 August.

Rule by local militias is also spreading anarchy around the capital. Ethnic Berbers, whose militia led the assault on Tripoli in 2011, temporarily took over the parliament building in Tripoli. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has called for an independent investigation into the violent crushing of a prison mutiny in Tripoli on 26 August in which 500 prisoners had been on hunger strike. The hunger strikers were demanding that they be taken before a prosecutor or formally charged since many had been held without charge for two years.

The government called on the Supreme Security Committee, made up of former anti-Gaddafi militiamen nominally under the control of the interior ministry, to restore order. At least 19 prisoners received gunshot shrapnel wounds, with one inmate saying “they were shooting directly at us through the metal bars”. There have been several mass prison escapes this year in Libya including 1,200 escaping from a prison after a riot in Benghazi in July.

The Interior Minister, Mohammed al-Sheikh, resigned last month in frustration at being unable to do his job, saying in a memo sent to Mr Zeidan that he blamed him for failing to build up the army and the police. He accused the government, which is largely dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, of being weak and dependent on tribal support. Other critics point out that a war between two Libyan tribes, the Zawiya and the Wirrshifana, is going on just 15 miles from the Prime Minister’s office.

Diplomats have come under attack in Tripoli with the EU ambassador’s convoy ambushed outside the Corinthia hotel on the waterfront. A bomb also wrecked the French embassy.

One of the many failings of the post-Gaddafi government is its inability to revive the moribund economy. Libya is wholly dependent on its oil and gas revenues and without these may not be able to pay its civil servants. Sliman Qajam, a member of the parliamentary energy committee, told Bloomberg that “the government is running on its reserves. If the situation doesn’t improve, it won’t be able to pay salaries by the end of the year”.

[Winehole23]

leaving behind failed states in a grand swath from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, seems to be the pattern of the last ten years. any chance that was intentional?

[Wild Cobra]

Kadafi is definitely not a kind leader. however, the US and UN are now interfering with a sovereign nations rights to defend itself against enemies, foreign and domestic.

I'll give 5:1 odd that if Kadafi is overthrown, we will have a worse government in the aftermath to deal with than under his leadership.

post # 13 Link: 112 Cruise missiles - What a mistake (www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174977)

The same with these other nations we are aiding the overthrow of, especially Syria.

[ElNono]

leaving behind failed states in a grand swath from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, seems to be the pattern of the last ten years. any chance that was intentional?

exactly

[Das Texan]

leaving behind failed states in a grand swath from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, seems to be the pattern of the last ten years. any chance that was intentional?


Try the last 30 years.

[cheguevara]

pre Arab Spring, leaving failed states was not across the Middle East policy, quite the opposite

the prefered strategy before was leave a puppet dictator in power. But the Arab Spring taught the US, Saudi and Israel a big lesson, social media and internet has changed the game. Don't get me wrong, Russia, China and Iran even took note of the Spring.

the rulers are now trying to reign in the power of internet and social media through the spying and surveillance programs and the scaremongering of the Muslim terrorist hiding under the bed. But even this strategy is failing, so now it seems the new strategy is crash, burn and leave the hordes of barbarians to keep fighting as long as they don't empower themselves.

pretty sadistic if u ask me knowing that the women and children are being left for the hordes of barbarians to feed on, US, Saudi and Israel pretty much became to nations, what Jigsaw from the Saw movies is to his victims

[Clipper Nation]

Are we supposed to be shocked that nation-building doesn't work? Newsflash: it never has....

[Winehole23]

Try the last 30 years.which failed states are you referring to?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Would you guys consider Iraq a poor job at nation building? Does the nation of Iraq seem to be a good country. Does it seem to be a good country as opposed to the other nations around it?

[TDMVPDPOY]

wattabout that country was it sudan or congo that the french came in fighting any liberation resistence....still a shithole just like 2000 years ago

[Wild Cobra]

You cannot change these nations without changing their culture. Fat chance of that.

[exstatic]

which failed states are you referring to?

Iraq? Afghanistan?

[boutons_deux]

You cannot change these nations without changing their culture. Fat chance of that.

exactly, but they sit on "our" oil, we refuse to reduce our dependence on their (or any) oil, so taxpayers (US military) pay for taking their oil.

[Winehole23]

Iraq? Afghanistan?those are the ones I was referring to. Das Texan seemed to be referencing failed states created by US foriegn policy in the 20 years before 9/11. I'm not sure what he meant.

[Das Texan]

Central American dictator ships we put in power. I mean we fucking basically put Saddam in power in the 80s.


Fucking Reagan started this shit by getting involved in everyone else's fucking business.

[boutons_deux]

we fucking basically put Saddam in power in the 80s.


bullshit

"In 1968, Saddam participated in a bloodless coup ... by 1969 Hussein clearly had become the moving force behind the party. ... He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein

Saddam grabbed power all by himself.

[Wild Cobra]

exactly, but they sit on "our" oil, we refuse to reduce our dependence on their (or any) oil, so taxpayers (US military) pay for taking their oil.
LOL...

We buy other nations oil, yopu complain.

We try to drill more oil, you complain.

You're on both sides of the fence!

[boutons_deux]

LOL...

We buy other nations oil, yopu complain.

We try to drill more oil, you complain.

You're on both sides of the fence!

because my side of the fence is anti-BigCarbon energy.

[Wild Cobra]

because my side of the fence is anti-BigCarbon energy.

Please.

We all know you are the champion of making bullshit causes.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You cannot change these nations without changing their culture. Fat chance of that.

Iraq sure seems the same now doesn't it.....

[ElNono]

Iraq sure seems the same now doesn't it.....

:lol when I pointed this out way back when, dude was all like ":cry but who's gonna protect the women and children from ruthless dictator :cry"

lmao @ grasping what the problem is now that team blue is in the house...

[EVAY]

There may be some occasion 50 years from now when some historian or other writes of the demise of the Soviet Union, and the complete and utter lack of understanding of the Arab and muslim countries by anybody in the West. Our last several presidents now have no clue whatsoever about the cultures we are dealing with, and we seem hell-bent-for-election on repeating every damn mistake the British (and then Soviet) empires made in the region.

This whole phenomenon is truly a bipartisan cluster-f%$#. Reagan did precious little in response to the Lebanese attack on U.S. interests in Beirut. GHW Bush was probably the best, but his response to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait and corresponding placement of U.S. MIlitary forces (read Infidels) in the Arab holy cities was the overt rationale for Osama Bin Laden. Clinton didn't have a clue what to do (although doing nothing, in retrospect, might have accidentally been a good thing), Bush was a disaster, and is being followed by Obama being a disaster, and the only real option to Obama would have been McCain, who (god love him) just wants a war all over the world all the time.

[EVAY]

And all the while this is going on with America spending her treasure and her young people's bodies in nonsensical wars, Russia has gone back to a totalitarian state (Putin is really like a czar) and China keeps motoring along becoming the world's biggest economy.

[ElNono]

There may be some occasion 50 years from now when some historian or other writes of the demise of the Soviet Union, and the complete and utter lack of understanding of the Arab and muslim countries by anybody in the West. Our last several presidents now have no clue whatsoever about the cultures we are dealing with, and we seem hell-bent-for-election on repeating every damn mistake the British (and then Soviet) empires made in the region.

This whole phenomenon is truly a bipartisan cluster-f%$#. Reagan did precious little in response to the Lebanese attack on U.S. interests in Beirut. GHW Bush was probably the best, but his response to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait and corresponding placement of U.S. MIlitary forces (read Infidels) in the Arab holy cities was the overt rationale for Osama Bin Laden. Clinton didn't have a clue what to do (although doing nothing, in retrospect, might have accidentally been a good thing), Bush was a disaster, and is being followed by Obama being a disaster, and the only real option to Obama would have been McCain, who (god love him) just wants a war all over the world all the time.

Don't underestimate Israeli influence on the matter. While responsibility ultimately falls in the persons you listed, IMO, it's undeniable they're trying to re-shape the ME by proxy. You could make the argument about oil in Iraq, but the rest?

[EVAY]

Don't underestimate Israeli influence on the matter. While responsibility ultimately falls in the persons you listed, IMO, it's undeniable they're trying to re-shape the ME by proxy. You could make the argument about oil in Iraq, but the rest?

I agree. I shouldn't have left them out. Personally I am amazed that U.S. Foreign Policy for the last 60 years or so has us being the Israeli Army proxy. We would have a lot fewer enemies over there if we didn't fight all of Israel's wars for them, but I know that we do partly because we have been dependent on the oil in the Arab countries (less now than at any time in the last 50 years) but also because if we didn't back Israel, she could/would be destroyed by her Arab neighbors, and we won't let that happen. Nor do I think we necessarily should let it happen. It is just that it has been awfully expensive for us in the long run, and you are right to point it out.

[cheguevara]

Don't underestimate Israeli influence on the matter. While responsibility ultimately falls in the persons you listed, IMO, it's undeniable they're trying to re-shape the ME by proxy. You could make the argument about oil in Iraq, but the rest?

"anti-semite!"

[cheguevara]

I agree. I shouldn't have left them out. Personally I am amazed that U.S. Foreign Policy for the last 60 years or so has us being the Israeli Army proxy. We would have a lot fewer enemies over there if we didn't fight all of Israel's wars for them, but I know that we do partly because we have been dependent on the oil in the Arab countries (less now than at any time in the last 50 years) but also because if we didn't back Israel, she could/would be destroyed by her Arab neighbors, and we won't let that happen. Nor do I think we necessarily should let it happen. It is just that it has been awfully expensive for us in the long run, and you are right to point it out.

Israel could take on every single country in the Middle East and send each and every single one to oblivion 10 times over

50+ nukes, top 5 air force, the most sophisticated air defense in history, bunkers for every single woman/child/puppy, food and water storage for decades, etc, etc

if Apocalypse happened today, Israelis and cockroaches would be the only 2 species to survive.

the problem is right now they cannot do this since destroying Middle East governments would just result in hordes of barbarians raiding every single American base and American oil field in the region. that would upset Uncle Sam at this point since fat americans would not be able to fill their humongous SUVs with gas in order to drive to the nearest KFC to stuff their and their children's faces :lol

[cheguevara]

didn't you mofos watch World War Z?

Israel was the only country left alive until Bratt Pitt showed up and distracted the Israeli Commander :lmao

[Axegrinder]

Everyone knows you dont sing around zombies

[Winehole23]

Central American dictator ships we put in power. Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala do come to mind I mean we fucking basically put Saddam in power in the 80s.


Fucking Reagan started this shit by getting involved in everyone else's fucking business.Good example. Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala do come to mind, though I'm not sure how they rate as failed states. Compared to say, Somalia and Iraq, they're not so bad.

We're about knee deep in Honduras right now.

The more things change, etc....

[Winehole23]

AP:


Libya's interim government says it is considering requesting the international community to send troops to the country after three days of fighting destroyed large parts of the capital's airport.

In a statement posted on its official website early Tuesday, the government also urged all rival parties to cease hostilities, saying commanders who violate its orders would face charges of "crimes against humanity." It added that a national committee would supervise the withdrawal of militias from the airport area to outside the city.


The government also said that 90 percent of the aircraft at the airport were hit in the shelling, while several buildings, including the customs house, were completely destroyed.

http://www.wjtv.com/story/26020250/libya-considers-calling-for-international-troops

[Winehole23]

US evacuates the Embassy in Tripoli:


While the world has been paying attention to Ukraine, Gaza, and Iraq over the past several weeks, the political and military situation in Libya has also been deteriorating. Militia groups from Misrata and other parts of the country have been battling government forces for weeks now, with much of the recent fighting centering around Tripoli’s airport. (http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/20/world/libya-fighting/) In recent days, though, it seems that the situation inside the capital itself has deteriorated to such an extent that the United States has chosen to evacuate all personnel from the embassy: (http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/26/world/africa/libya-us-embassy-evacuation/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)



The U.S. Embassy in Libya evacuated its personnel on Saturday because of heavy militia violence raging in the capital, Tripoli, the State Department said.


About 150 personnel, including 80 U.S. Marines were evacuated from the embassy in the early hours of Saturday morning and were driven across the border into Tunisia, U.S. officials confirm to CNN.
CNN has learned the plan to evacuate the Americans was in the works for several days, but the decision to carry out the plan was made just in the last few days as the security situation around the embassy deteriorated.


http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/u-s-evacuates-embassy-in-tripoli-amid-renewed-violence/

[Winehole23]

NYT/Glenn Greenwald read the tea leaves:


Worried about a growing threat from the Islamic State in Libya, the United States and its allies are increasing reconnaissance flights and intelligence collecting there and preparing for possible airstrikes and commando raids, senior American policy makers, commanders and intelligence officials said this week. … “It’s fair to say that we’re looking to take decisive military action against ISIL in conjunction with the political process” in Libya, [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph] Dunford said. “The president has made clear that we have the authority to use military force.”



Just as there was no al Qaeda or ISIS to attack in Iraq until the U.S. bombed its government, there was no ISIS in Libya until NATO bombed it. Now the U.S. is about to seize on the effects of its own bombing campaign in Libya to justify an entirely new bombing campaign in that same country. The New York Times editorial page, which supported the original bombing (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/opinion/29tue1.html) of Libya, yesterday labeled (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/opinion/opening-a-new-front-against-isis-in-libya.html?_r=0) plans for the new bombing campaign “deeply troubling,” explaining: “A new military intervention in Libya would represent a significant progression of a war that could easily spread to other countries on the continent.” In particular, “this significant escalation is being planned without a meaningful debate in Congress about the merits and risks of a military campaign that is expected to include airstrikes and raids by elite American troops” (the original Libya bombing not only took place without Congressional approval, but was ordered by Obama after Congress rejected such authorization (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-rejects-authorizing-us-libya-threatens-cut-funding/story?id=13923365)).

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/27/the-u-s-intervention-in-libya-was-such-a-smashing-success-that-a-sequel-is-coming/

[Winehole23]

This was supposed to be the supreme model of Humanitarian Intervention. It achieved vanishingly few humanitarian benefits, while causing massive humanitarian suffering, because — as usual (http://www.salon.com/2012/05/02/the_fraud_of_humanitarian_wars/) — the people who executed the “humanitarian” war (and most who cheer-led for it) were interested only when the glories of bombing and killing were flourishing but cared little for actual humanitarianism (as evidenced by their almost complete indifference to the aftermath (https://theintercept.com/2015/02/16/hailed-model-successful-intervention-libya-proves-exact-opposite/) of their bombing). As it turns out, one of the few benefits of the NATO bombing of Libya will redound to the permanent winners in the private-public axis that constitutes the machine of Endless Militarism: It provided a pretext for another new war.

[boutons_deux]

Going back, Repugs invading Iraq for "regime change" behind the lies of WMD, etc was only part of the PNAC strategy, which included regime changing Syria, Iran, and Libya, to establish USA hegemony over the Middle East and Libya.

and the regime change in Egypt installed American friend al Sisi
Five Years On, the Spirit of Tahrir Square Has Been All but Crushedhttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34597-five-years-on-the-spirit-of-tahrir-square-has-been-all-but-crushed

[Winehole23]

Obama's been faithful to the strategy. His party has backed him up all the way. Until 2006, backed up everything Bush did too.

[boutons_deux]

Obama's been faithful to the strategy. His party has backed him up all the way. Until 2006, backed up everything Bush did too.

The Repug regime changing has unleashed tsunami of bullshit, violence, instability that has huge momentum that any succeeding President just can't ignore and walk away from.

Then add in the predatirt MIC pushing hard at all levels to continue USA's imperial wars so they can sell $100Bs to the govt, and the momentum becomes totally irresistible.

[boutons_deux]

USA support al Sisi

Hundreds Vanishing in Egypt as Crackdown Widens, Activists Say

When Mr. Khalil finally emerged, four months later, at a police station in the port city of Alexandria, Egypt (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/egypt/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), he looked dirty and emaciated, according to his brother Nour, and reported that interrogators had suspended him from his arms and his legs, and administered electric shocks to his genitals.

“He didn’t look like the Islam I know,” Nour Khalil recalled in a recent interview.

Mr. Khalil is one of hundreds of Egyptians who have recently been subjected to what human rights groups call “enforced disappearance,” a harsh tactic that has become increasingly prevalent in Egypt as the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi widens its crackdown on opponents, real or imagined.


Instead of being held in the formal legal system — where tens of thousands of people have been detained under Mr. Sisi — people like Mr. Khalil have disappeared into a network of secretive detention centers, run by the security forces, where they are held incommunicado, without charge or access to a lawyer, for weeks and sometimes months, according to the rights groups.

There, interrogators use the detainee’s isolation and lack of legal protections to interrogate them harshly. Some have been forced to open their Facebook pages, and other social media sites, to identify friends and relatives. Many say they have been tortured.

The detainees are usually released within months or, like Mr. Khalil, charged with a crime — usually membership in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/muslim_brotherhood_egypt/index.html?inline=nyt-org), the accusation Mr. Sisi’s government lays against many of its opponents. But others stay missing much longer, such as the political activist Ashraf Shehata, who disappeared in January 2014. And some turn up dead, their bodies dumped in morgues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/world/middleeast/hundreds-vanishing-in-egypt-as-crackdown-widens-activists-say.html

[Winehole23]

The Repug regime changing has unleashed tsunami of bullshit, violence, instability that has huge momentum that any succeeding President just can't ignore and walk away from.

Then add in the predatirt MIC pushing hard at all levels to continue USA's imperial wars so they can sell $100Bs to the govt, and the momentum becomes totally irresistible.it's one big happy war party. pretending it's not is delusional.

[Winehole23]

intervention and the aftermath was the real scandal. too bad Republicans blew their wad on a fake one.


Did you even know, dear reader, that the U.S. bombed portions (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html?_r=0) of Libya in the middle of February this year? The Obama administration is trying to contain the continuing disaster created by the Clinton-led intervention in Libya five years ago. Republicans, however, are plunged into their own civil war over The Donald, and have no time to point out that President Obama is still cleaning up after the mess Secretary Clinton made of his foreign policy. The Libyan state has crumbled, ISIS has moved in, gobbling up untold materiel from the ruins of the Gadhafi regime, neighboring countries like Mali have been severely destabilized, and the refugee crisis in Europe has been exacerbated by Libyan disorder.


"There was one arsenal that we thought had 20,000 shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles, SA-7s, that basically just disappeared into the maw of the Middle East and North Africa," said (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/libya-isis-hillary-clinton.html) former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.http://theweek.com/articles/610496/how-republican-party-blew-best-shot-defeating-hillary-clinton

[Wild Cobra]

leaving behind failed states in a grand swath from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, seems to be the pattern of the last ten years. any chance that was intentional?
Either way, it will prove just how stupid the American voter is... Anyone who votes for Hillary...

[Winehole23]

if voting for Hilary is for morons, who's the thinking person's candidate?

[Wild Cobra]

if voting for Hilary is for morons, who's the thinking person's candidate?

None of the above.

Just have to decide who the lesser of evils is.

[Winehole23]

regime change success continues...


During a four-month span in 2016, for example, there were approximately 300 drone strikes in Libya, according to US officials. That’s seven times more than the 42 confirmed US RPA attacks carried out in Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan combined for all of 2016, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalismhttps://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180621-us-conducted-more-than-550-drone-strikes-in-libya-since-2011/

[Winehole23]

regime change success continues...

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180621-us-conducted-more-than-550-drone-strikes-in-libya-since-2011/Erik Prince faces UN sanctions for violating Libya sanctions.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-n-report-accuses-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-of-libya-weapons-ban-violations-diplomat-says-11613784585


https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/erik-prince-trump-ally-violated-libya-arms-embargo-u-n-report-says/

[Winehole23]

Amazing American success, how are they doing now?

1503406772572373009

[SnakeBoy]

Amazing American success, how are they doing now?

1503406772572373009

USA good
Putin bad

You sound like a Putin supporter

[Winehole23]

USA good
Putin bad

You sound like a Putin supporterwhat does Putin have to do with Libya, silly?

[Thread]

USA good
Putin bad

You sound like a Putin supporter

Snake

[ElNono]

Amazing American success, how are they doing now?

1503406772572373009

I get denouncing that excursion and the killing, but trying to paint Gaddafi as a saint in the same thread sort of undervalues the whole thing, tbh...

[ChumpDumper]

Amazing American success, how are they doing now?

1503406772572373009

500,000 dead or injured seems high. Like 10x high.

[Winehole23]

500,000 dead or injured seems high. Like 10x high.posted as a foil, not for informational purposes, so sure. 50,000 casualties is still a lot. we bombed the fuck out of Libya.

[ChumpDumper]

posted as a foil, not for informational purposes, so sure. 50,000 casualties is still a lot. we bombed the fuck out of Libya.That kind of exaggeration blunts the effect.

[Winehole23]

That kind of exaggeration blunts the effect.yep