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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumRobert Parry: "Cleaning Up Hillary's Libya Mess"
Cleaning Up Hillarys Libyan Mess
April 1, 2016
Exclusive: U.S. officials are pushing a dubious new scheme to unify a shattered Libya, but the political risk at home is that voters will finally realize Hillary Clintons responsibility for the mess, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Hillary Clintons signature project as Secretary of State the regime change in Libya is now sliding from the tragic to the tragicomic as her successors in the Obama administration adopt increasingly desperate strategies for imposing some kind of order on the once-prosperous North African country torn by civil war since Clinton pushed for the overthrow and murder of longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The problem that Clinton did much to create has grown more dangerous since Islamic State terrorists have gained a foothold in Sirte and begun their characteristic beheading of infidels as well as their plotting for terror attacks in nearby Europe.
There is also desperation among some Obama administration officials because the worsening Libyan fiasco threatens to undermine not only President Barack Obamas legacy but Clintons drive for the Democratic presidential nomination and then the White House. So, the officials felt they had no choice but to throw caution to the wind or to mix metaphors some Hail Mary passes.
The latest daring move was a sea landing in Tripoli by the U.S./U.N-formulated unity government, which was cobbled together by Western officials in hotel rooms in Morocco and Tunisia. But instead of unity, the arrival by sea threatened to bring more disunity and war by seeking to muscle aside two rival governments.
The sea landing at a naval base in Tripoli became necessary because one of those rival governments refused to let the unity officials fly into Libyas capital. So, instead, the unity leaders entered Libya by boat from Tunisia and are currently operating from the naval base where they landed.
With this unusual move, the Obama administration is reminding longtime national security analysts of other fiascos in which Washington sought to decide the futures of other countries by shaping a government externally, as with the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s and the Iraqi National Congress in 2003, and then imposing those chosen leaders on the locals.
snip
The U.S. scheme for establishing the authority of the unity government centers on using the $85 billion or so in foreign reserves in Libyas Central Bank to bring other Libyan leaders onboard. But that strategy may test the question of whether the pen poised over the Central Banks check book is mightier than the sword, since the militias associated with the rival regimes have plenty of weapons.
Besides the carrot of handing out cash to compliant Libyan politicians and fighters, the Obama administration also is waving a stick, threatening to hit recalcitrant Libyans with financial sanctions or labeling them terrorists with all the legal and other dangers that such a designation carries....
The continuing crisis threatens to remind Democratic primary voters about Hillary Clintons role in sparking the chaos in 2011 when she pressured President Obama to counter a military offensive by Gaddafi against what he called Islamic terrorists operating in the east.
Though Clinton and other liberal interventionists around Obama insisted that the goal was simply to protect Libyans from a possible slaughter, the U.S.-backed airstrikes inside Libya quickly expanded into a regime change operation, slaughtering much of the Libyan army.
Clintons State Department email exchanges revealed that her aides saw the Libyan war as a chance to pronounce a Clinton doctrine, bragging about how Clintons clever use of smart power could get rid of demonized foreign leaders like Gaddafi. But the Clinton team was thwarted when President Obama seized the spotlight when Gaddafis government fel
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/01/cleaning-up-hillarys-libyan-mess/
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Robert Parry: "Cleaning Up Hillary's Libya Mess" (Original Post)
amborin
Apr 2016
OP
One More Glaring Example of Not Only Hillary's Poor Judgement But Also her Arrogance
CorporatistNation
Apr 2016
#1
CorporatistNation
(2,546 posts)1. One More Glaring Example of Not Only Hillary's Poor Judgement But Also her Arrogance
Very inappropriate behavior by the former appointed Secretary of State in this video when asked about Khadaffi...
Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)2. i find this slightly more important than Bernie's 1040 form
KnR
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)3. Parry. LOL...nt
Sid
pkdu
(3,977 posts)4. Robert Parry......byline.." I used to be relevant in the 80s , please buy my book" Nt
Octafish
(55,745 posts)6. 'Money Trumps Peace'
Libya was ripe for picking.
"Libya has some of the biggest and most proven oil reserves 43.6 billion barrels outside Saudi Arabia, and some of the best drilling prospects."
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/component/acymailing/archive/view/listid-3-alerts-precis/mailid-74-three-little-words-wikileaks-libya-oil.html
MisterP
(23,730 posts)7. starting no doubt with that chair
she wanted a capital-D Doctrine of her own, like Truman and Reagan and so on
killbotfactory
(13,566 posts)8. Obama and NATO own that mess
But Hillary led the charge, and has made it abundantly clear how she would use military force if she were President.