Hillary Clinton And The War On Libya
By Lucas Bonnet
3/8/2016
Hillary Clinton defended the intervention in Libya during her term as Secretary of State;
In the Fox News town hall she justified the seven month NATO bombing campaign which removed the government and crippled much of the countries infrastructure. Her justification was that the intervention prevented Libya from becoming a war like Syria and that the killing of Ghaddafi was justified because he was a dictator.
In order to understand why the comparison with Syria is inaccurate we must first recall the context which created both those situations. The Arab Spring was a series of revolutionary movements in the Middle East and North Africa, beginning with Tunisia and ultimately including Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Bahrain, Turkey, and many more. In a few places the movement succeeded in overthrowing the government, namely Egypt and Tunisia, however in Syria and Libya the rebels became entrenched in an increasingly violent battle with government troops.
In this desperate moment the United States and NATO decided to intervene in Libya on behalf of the rebels, this seemingly altruistic action is suspicious when compared with US/NATO inaction in the small state of Bahrain, where similar levels of violent repression occurred, including a direct invasion by Saudi Arabian military to quell decent, however Bahrain is home to a Naval Base which houses the US 5th fleet, therefore as a key ally the repressive dictatorship in that country was ignored and preserved. In Libya US/NATO became effectively an airforce for the rebels, and made sure that Ghaddafi was soundly defeated.
In Libya the President was handed over to Rebel forces and Executed with no legal process. This act was praised by Hillary Clinton on video.
The value of Ghaddafies testimony in court would have been immeasurable, as would have been the legitimacy created by trying him in a legal process, instead he was essentially lynched by militants. Hillary denies responsibility for these acts, yet she was Secretary of State and a key architect of those policies, her assertion that it was NATO bombing which prevented Libya from ending up like Syria is a not easily verified, there are a myriad of destabilizing factors feeding the Syria war, the US invasion of Iraq, the intervention of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the Israel/Palestine conflict, these intensify the war in Syria and make it an inaccurate comparison to Libya
In the years after the victorious revolution Libya has been torn apart by civil war and now represents a key destabilizing factor for North Africa, Islamic extremists use Libya as a base to stage operations throughout the region and Boko Haram, the largest terrorists group in the world gained much of its influence in the aftermath of the Libyan war. The historical parallels to the criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent spread of ISIL cannot be ignored.
In 2003 the United States had invaded Iraq and destroyed the country to a huge degree, this gave rise to the Iraqi Insurgency, otherwise known as ISIL, which spread to Syria and became the Islamic State, a well known Jihadist organisation responsible for brutal violence; This factor helped create the multi polar nightmare which is now the Syrian regional war.
In 2013 the Obama administration with Hillary Clinton at the helm attempted to bomb Syria and remove the government, much the same as they had in Libya. This policy was widely resisted by the global public, leaders across the world and even high ranking figures within the US establishment. Due to this pressure the United States did not bomb Syria and the government there is regaining some semblance of power though diminished in size by magnitudes.
With the Islamic State threatening to overrun all of Syria, the United States was forced to change its tactics to adapt its stance on the Syrian government. The only reason there is an option to fall back on is because the government was not removed, now diplomatic solutions can be found and pressure put on the Assad regime to hold fair elections, otherwise the fighting will continue and Assad will never step down under any circumstances.
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly and clearly demonstrated that she believes in using the pretext of removing dictators to topple enemies of American business interests, while turning a blind eye to the abuses of dictators around the world who support American interests. As she condemns Ghaddafi and Assad, Clinton ignores the abuses of dictatorships in places like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, selectively claiming to oppose dictatorship in a transparent attempt to advance American foreign policy.
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