Tag: Libya

From The Ashes

I have been a critic of the so-called “security contractors”….these people are nothing more than mercenaries….hired soldiers to fight wars for the rich and powerful…..they fight for money not some noble excuse like fighting communism or terrorism…..money is the only motivation.

To save space and my typing finger I will send you to an op-ed I recently wrote on this subject…..

Source: Rise of the American Mercenary – In Saner Thought

After so much bad PR the mercenaries in the Blackwater group changed their name to Xe and then sort of dropped off the world stage press coverage….

But did they?

Appears Blackwater guys have been working off the radar so to speak……

On Jan. 11, 2017, Intelligence Online — a professional journal covering the world’s intelligence services — revealed that the pilots of Air Tractor attack planes flying from Al Khadim air base in Libya are private contractors working for Erik Prince, the founder of the company formerly known as Blackwater.

War Is Boring’s own sources in Libya confirmed the assertion. Our sources said that the pilots flying the United Arab Emirates Air Force IOMAX AT-802 Air Tractors — converted crop-dusters — are mercenaries and aren’t Arabs.

Source: Erik Prince’s Mercenaries Are Bombing Libya

Once again we have an American company supplying mercenaries to fight in wars…an American company profiting off of the science of war….just an extension of the M-IC.

There use to be a punishment for fighting in a war that was not of your home nation…loss of citizenship…may I suggest that it is time for this to be reconsidered.

Terminate The Libyan Campaign

We have been involved in the armed conflict in Libya from the beginning in 2011…..it was our participation along with our allies that brought about the end of Qaddafi….and it was our our participation that led to the rise of ISIS in the country and the ensuing civil war…..after 6 years it looks like we will pull our fighting out of the conflict….

A new statement from US Africa Command (Africom) has declared the US military campaign against ISIS in Libya to be “concluded,” following the fall of the last ISIS territory in the city of Sirte in recent weeks. 495 airstrikes were launched over the course of the conflict.

The US launched its war in Libya back in August, promising to defeat ISIS and support the “unity government” in taking the rest of the nation over. That government announced it’s “final push” against ISIS back in early September, but the fighting continued for months more. Even then, ISIS forces mostly withdrew from the city.

Despite nominally presenting the conflict as “over,” Africom’s statement also promised to continue US military involvement in Libya to help the “unity government” fight against ISIS across the country. In effect, they are just rebranding it as something short of a full military campaign.

It may also spell the end of the US directly trying to prop up the “unity government,” one of several factions which styles itself the rightful rulers of the country, and which controls part of the city of Tripoli, along with Sirte.

(antiwar.com)

One down about about 5 major others to go.  At least that is what we are told.

Why Saddam And Gaddafi Failed To Get The Bomb

Earlier this year while I was lecturing a student asked me this very same question…..she said that since Libya and Iraq had massive oil money they could afford the trip….

I told her that Iraq had tried to build a nuke facility and the Israelis destroyed it….

Then she asked …so then is Israel the force to worry about?

Yes and no…..no they are not a power in the region….only in their own minds….and yes they are a force because the West is deathly afraid if being criticized for not supporting Israel…..you would be surprised the weight that a call of antisemitism can be…..

The more I thought about it I decided that it is an excellent question that needs an answer……

I recall reading an article recently that asked this question and gave an excellent explanation…..

Imagine if Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi had nuclear weapons in 2003. The invasion of Iraq may not have been possible, and states would have been much more reluctant to bomb Libya in 2011. The Middle East would be a very different place today. As it happens, both leaders had sought nuclear weapons for decades, but neither got the bomb. Why?

In fact, Iraq came close to the nuclear weapons threshold. If Saddam hadn’t invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990, Iraq would most likely have acquired nuclear weapons during the mid-1990s. In contrast, Libya’s program failed, over and over again, for three decades before the Gaddafi regime ultimately abandoned the program in late 2003.

Source: Why Saddam and Gaddafi Failed to get the Bomb

Libya: What Went Wrong?

It has been 5 years since the rule of Qaddafi came to an end…..what began as a popular uprising against a dictator descended into chaos….and what started out as the promise of a more democratic government quickly went south and into the typical death and destruction of the War on Terror…..

It has been nearly five years since Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed by Libyan rebels near his hometown of Sirte on Oct. 20, 2011. Sadly, Libya remains a deeply divided country, both politically and institutionally, and does not have a functional representative government in place. Tragically, Libya’s democratic transition process failed to create an environment conducive for democracy and the rule of law. Instead, Libya became a country where militias ruled, extremist groups flourished and living conditions deteriorated significantly. The country also suffers from a major political crisis, with various competing governments each claiming legitimacy and control over key institutions such as the Central Bank, the National Oil Corporation and the Libyan Investment Authority.

Today, Libyans are forced to choose between two extremes: either chaos with militias and Islamist extremists as the dominant forces, or military rule. No other convincing options are on offer. The choice is quite clear in Libya’s eastern region of Cyrenaica (Barqa in Arabic), where the military is now the dominant armed and political force on the ground, expanding its control over democratically elected and civilian institutions without any public opposition and with clear public support for their actions. On June 19, the president of the Libyan parliament in Tobruk, in his claimed capacity as supreme commander of the armed forces, declared a state of emergency and appointed the Libyan National Army Chief of Staff Abdulrazaq Nadori as military governor for the eastern region. Nadori now has the power to appoint civilian and military committees and can replace local municipal councils with military governors. He also can prohibit demonstrations that do not have prior written consent from his office.
What started as a humanitarian crisis morphed into a hunt for Qaddafi and his death….and then the country broke into factions and the conflict ensued…the same conflict that has inflicted Iraq and Syria…..
Once again NATO has brought death, destruction and confusion to another country….and then it backs out and lets it descend into further chaos to the point that their intervention is seen as giving help to the helpless…..it all looks like the same plan that NATO is using around the world.
Found this article after I posted my thoughts on Libya…..after reading I see that it should have been included…..
On 20 October 2011, former Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qadhafi was dragged out of his sewage-pipe hideout to meet his inglorious end. Five years on and things in Libya couldn’t be much worse. There is still no centralised authority; killing, abduction and torture are rife; the economy is almost on its knees; and the country has fragmented beyond repair. The triumphalism that accompanied Qadhafi’s removal from power can hardly have been more misplaced.

Much of the chaos that has enveloped the country is down to the Libyans themselves. The blame for the incessant squabbling and local turf wars that have eclipsed all sense of a national good must be laid squarely at the door of Libya’s new powerbrokers. There is also the legacy of forty years of rule by a ruthless dictator whose uncompromising vision of the state stripped the country of functioning institutions and its population of a political culture. In addition, the sudden toppling of a highly centralised authority was always going to mean that the country would struggle to get back on its feet.

Libya: “You’ve Come A Long Way Baby”

I begin my week and I hope all had a good weekend…..

Think back to those hectic days of 2011……forces decided that Qaddafi had to go and the uprising began…..after lots of violence and destruction the US convinced everyone of its allies that there was a humanitarian crisis brewing in Libya…..and as they say…..the rest is history.

Since the death of Qaddafi the country has slipped into an ever tightening web of violence, deceit and destruction…..the country is divided along East-West lines…..in the East the government is headed by a Col. Haftar a CIA asset for many years….Haftar became the general of the army of the East and now he has been promoted again…this time to the rank of field marshal….

Let’s look at this gentleman shall we?

I am writing about Libyan Col. Haftar and his journey to supreme leader of Libya…..Born in 1943 in the eastern town of Ajadbiya, Haftar was one of the group of officers led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi which seized power from King Idris in 1969.

Gaddafi put Haftar – recently promoted to field marshal – in charge of the Libyan forces involved in the conflict in Chad in the 1980s. This proved to be his downfall, as Libya was defeated by the French-backed Chadian forces, and Haftar and 300 of his men were captured by the Chadians in 1987.

Having previously denied the presence of Libyan troops in the country, Gaddafi disowned him. This led Haftar to devote the next two decades towards toppling the Libyan leader.

He did this from exile in the US state of Virginia. His proximity to the CIA’s headquarters in Langley hinted at a close relationship with US intelligence services, who gave their backing to several attempts to assassinate Gaddafi.  Actually he was recruited By the pres. of Chad on behalf of the CIA where his main objective was leading troops against Qaddafi.

After the start of the uprising against Gaddafi in 2011, Haftar returned to Libya where he became a key commander of the makeshift rebel force in the east.

With Gaddafi’s downfall, Haftar faded into obscurity until February 2014, when he outlined on TV his plan to save the nation and called on Libyans to rise up against the elected parliament, the General National Congress (GNC), whose mandate was still valid at the time.

His dramatic announcement was made at a time when Libya’s second city, Benghazi, and other towns in the east had in effect been taken over by the local al-Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al-Sharia, and other Islamist groups who mounted a campaign of assassinations and bombings targeting the military, police personnel and other public servants.

What I want to state is that Khalifa Haftar may not be the man he seems to be. He could act pursuing more selfish intents, aiming to concentrate military and political power only on himself. So let it see from which point of view Haftar’s behavior should be judged. First of all, we should stop to refer to him as a “retired official”: he has been on fully active duty for a year and now he has military powers and firearms supplies at his disposal granted by the internationally recognized Tobruk government and by Egypt, Algeria and United Arab Emirates. Considering him an old retired general could bring the idea of a legendary entity, of a patriot who bravely fights for the unity of his country, even if he is not a soldier anymore. It may be very unwary if we have this way of thinking, not realizing that we should be afraid of Haftar, rather than trust him. Then, I will focus on the ambiguous ideological basis of his action: the fight against every Islamic extremism in favor of the “secularist actors”. Anyone who studies and has studied Libya should know very well that this is a deeply Islam-based country. Although Gaddafi tried to do everything in order to eradicate traditional Islam, willing to spread a personal vision of religion, now Libya can be considered as a conservative country from a religious point of view. Not Islamist (like Saudi Arabia for example) or extremist, but conservative. Thus, it seems that Haftar’s action, often publicized as a secularist crusade against Islamic extremism, might be only a pretext to gain some popularity and support between Europe and the US, where the killing of ambassador Chris Stevens perpetrated by Salafist group Ansar al-Sharia still hurts the White House.

I think that Haftar is playing the CIA like a cheap drum….his only concern is gaining power anyway he can…..the CIA is just a tool along that path.

Libya: The Clinton Folly

Last week the candidates met for a forum for military and veterans to ask them national security questions…..the plan was that this would educate the voting public on the stands that our candidates hold.

First, the Forum while an excellent idea it was a dismal bust…the moderator was a bit timid in calling the candidates out when they gave some pretty BS answers.  I can understand why….the MSM is way to invested in corporate America to be a neutral arbiter…..

One of my favorite answers came from the Dems “golden child”…..Hillary Clinton….when she was asked about Libya…..

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton defended the 2011 invasion of Libya on Wednesday night by arguing that if the United States hadn’t intervened, there would be a civil war in the country today.

There is a civil war in Libya today.

“With respect to Libya, again, there’s no difference between my opponent and myself,” Clinton told NBC News’ Matt Lauer at the Commander-in-Chief Forum. “He’s on record extensively supporting intervention in Libya, when Gadhafi was threatening to massacre his population. I put together a coalition that included NATO, included the Arab League, and we were able to save lives. We did not lose a single American in that action.”

I loved her answer….may I ask one now?

What in the Hell do you call what is happening in Libya today if not a civil war?

All this talk about Libya got me to thinking about a piece I read in The American Conservative……

The Libyan war was an important factor in the worsening of relations with Russia at the end of Obama’s first term. It was not lost on the Russians that they had acquiesced in a Western intervention that they believed was sold to them dishonestly. Russia and China could have vetoed UNSCR 1973 and deprived the U.S. and its allies of the U.N. authorization they desired, but instead they chose to abstain because of the improved relations between Washington and Moscow that had come into being over the previous year. If one wants to identify when when the mostly successful “reset” with Moscow collapsed, there is a good argument to be made that it happened in the spring and summer of 2011 with the U.S./NATO intervention in Libya.

Source: The Lingering Costs of Clinton’s Libyan War | The American Conservative

Regardless to how she tries to slice this manure sandwich she is at least partially to blame for the conditions in Libya today.

Something the voter should be aware of before that all important vote….don’t ya think?

Libya’s Chaos

I am proud to say that IST recently got a Libyan born person to comment and follow….I am pleased to have a person that can offer first hand observation and knowledge of the conflict raging in Libya…..I look forward to his input…..

Libya is a situation that has been made worse by the involvement of the US and its NATO thugs…..but they, powers that be, would prefer a “light footprint” in this conflict….meaning they want to work from behind the scene…..

Over the past two weeks, the Obama administration has introduced a significant escalation of U.S. involvement in the ongoing Libyan conflict. On August 1, U.S. forces launched Operation Odyssey Lightning, a campaign of limited airstrikes in support of Libyan militias against Islamic State fighters ensconced along the Libyan coast in Sirte, the birthplace of Muammar Qaddafi. This week, Pentagon officials also acknowledged that U.S. Special Operations Forces are on the ground in Libya, providing direct intelligence support to forces loyal to Libya’s fragile Government of National Accord (GNA). Those actions represent another manifestation of the Obama administration’s “light footprint” approach to military force—the use of standoff strike capabilities in support of allied ground troops—and they highlight the limitations of that approach.

Source: Libya and the Limits of the Light Footprint | World Affairs Journal

But once again the US has had to put troops on the ground in Libya……

A small number of U.S. special operations teams have been seen on the ground in northeast and western Libya for the better part of a year, conducting patrols and advising local militias as part of the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State — or ISIS or ISIL — picks up steam, even as the U.S. and its European allies revealed Monday they have begun shipping weapons and equipment to Libya’s fragile unity government to battle the jihadi threat, despite U.N. sanctions.

Source: U.S. troops deployed to Libya in campaign against ISIS – Washington Times

Once again the excuse is that we have only  “a small amount of US Troops” on the ground…..how many times has that one statement come back to bite us in the ass?

For those that have NO idea what is going on in Libya….other than the Benghazi attacks of several years ago…..maybe this will help explain what is happening in the country.

Source: Libya’s chaos, explained in five graphics – CNN.com

Another problem for the US in Libya is their hand-picked crony to run the country…..

As the US war in Libya moves into its third week, officials and analysts are seeing a lot of problems with their plans, but perhaps the biggest problem is one of their own creation, the Libyan Army and its leader, long-time CIA asset Gen. Khalifa Hifter.

Hifter was a general of Moammar Gadhafi until 1987, when he was captured by Chad. The next year, he became a US proxy for an anti-Gadhafi insurgency, and after that collapsed, moved to Virginia, with occasional trips back to Libya for other failed US-backed plots.

When NATO imposed regime change in 2011, Gen. Hifter was quick to make his grand return, and has been trying to consolidate his power ever since. He announced a coup in 2014, which didn’t amount to much, and is now at the head of the army loyal to the UN-backed Tobruk government.

(antiwar.com)

The last time the CIA did anything right as far as “regime change” goes was the 1950’s and in Guatemala….since then it has been one disaster after another…..so how do you think this situation will play out?

Libya: Here We Go Again

Remember 2011?  It was the year before the election for Obama’s second term and the US used NATO to overthrow and kill Qaddafi….the excuse used to get involved was an age old one….a humanitarian crisis.

Most people will know very little about the country of Libya other than the Benghazi tragedy……that has gotten more press than a Kardashian.

Today there is major fighting going on all over the country…..three separate wars are raging…one against ISIS, one against rebels and one against what is called the “government”.

The recognized government is run by a CIA plant, a general Haftar, so that should help figure out who actually runs the country.

I bring all this up because the US has returned to using air power to help the “government”…..

The Pentagon has announced today that the US has begun conducting military airstrikes against Libya with the stated intent of defeating ISIS in that country. According to the Pentagon spokesman, the Libyan “Government of National Accord” requested that the US begin airstrikes against what they claim is an ISIS stronghold in the Libyan town of Sirte, the birthplace of murdered Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Pentagon Spokesman Peter Cook has indicated that this is the beginning of a more sustained US air campaign against Libya and that each US airstrike is approved by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Source: US Airstrikes Hit Libya To Bolster UN-Created Government – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

While the US set it sights on the “bad guys” there may be a new problem brewing which could start the whole Qaddafi process over again…..

Qaddafi’s son Seif will be released from prison…..will he want to re-do his father’s rule?

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, has been released from jail in Zintan, a town in western Libya, after spending nearly five years there since his capture in November 2011. After his father was killed on Oct. 20, 2011, by rebel groups that captured his hometown Sirte with NATO help, Seif tried to leave Libya.

In August 2015, the young Gadhafi was sentenced to death by firing squad by a Tripoli-based court. However, the sentence was not carried out and was condemned by Human Rights Watch that accused the self-proclaimed government of politicizing the courts.
Libya will be many things….but it appears to be heading for a much longer and much bloodier future……and the US has started yet another lengthy involvement in yet another country….

Nearly five years after the Libyan city of Sirte was left in ruins following hundreds of NATO bombing raids and heavy fighting in the 2011 campaign to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Pentagon announced a major new US military escalation on 1 August against Daesh (Isis/Isil) terrorists who have reportedly made Sirte their prime Libyan stronghold.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said that US airstrikes were already underway in the coastal city of Sirte at the request of the Libyan government, and he further raised eyebrows among the press corps by adding that the air campaign did not have “an end point at this particular moment in time”.

“The 800”

Nope not some history lesson about the Greeks butchering those Muslim Persians (wait to see how long it takes for some to grasp the idea)…it is not a tale of undying heroism…..nope it is about a saga that took 2 years and countless hearings and a final 800 pages of document…..the infamous Benghazi Affair……

The Select Committee on the Benghazi Incident has finally issued a final report……it was released to the press before it was released to their colleagues min the Congress….aren’t the political games just fascination?

If my reader would like a synopsis of the report then here’s your link……plus if one would like to read the whole thing (highly unlikely for most Americans do not have the attention span it takes to rational read)……

Source: Select Committee on Benghazi Releases Proposed Report | Select Committee on Benghazi

For the more lazy out there…..

Two years after they began an investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Libya, Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee on Tuesday unveiled an 800-page report laying into the White House for its handling of the incident and presenting previously undisclosed facts from testimony.

The document is heavy on details from the night itself, in a report Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign dismissed as a redux of discredited “conspiracy theories.”

We all recall that were told the Qaddafi and his supporters were pricks and not to be trusted, right?
Part of this report, all 800 pages, that most Americans will not read or hear……

Americans rescued from the facility in Benghazi were saved by Gaddafi loyalists — not the Libyan government or the militia group contractually obligated to provide security, the final report from the House Select Committee on Benghazi reveals.

After lethal mortar attacks, a special operator in Benghazi testified that: “We decided that the situation we had was untenable to stay at the compound. We didn’t have enough shooters and there were too many wounded, and we were definitely going to lose our State Department wounded if we had stayed there much longer.”

The Americans in the annex, though, did not have the security vehicles and “gun trucks” necessary to evacuate to the airport in Benghazi.  Help would eventually arrive.

“The forces that arrived at the Annex shortly after the mortar attacks were able to transport all State Department and CIA personnel safely to the airport. The forces, known as Libyan Military Intelligence, arrived with 50 heavily-armed security vehicles,” the select committee’s report says.

(Daily Caller)
So Americans were saved by the very people that we spent so much time and resources trying to eliminate…..go figure!

Professor’s Continuing Battlefront Diary

This is a series that I write to keep my readers up on the conflicts that the US is involved in….most times the media does not report on this stuff….and by media I mean the mainstream media…you know the crap they feed you at 6 p.m.

The US was involved in the humanitarian effort that brought down Qaddafi…..and we have never left….we are handling one of the “leaders” a Col. Haftar through the CIA and now we are sending in more combat troops…..

Adding to the details about the US deployment of special forces into Libya to prepare for a ground invasion of the country, officials today revealed that two “military outposts” have been established in the country since late 2015, each containing “fewer than 25” troops.

Details are scant, but the bases are said to be located near Misrata and Benghazi, respectively. It is noteworthy that neither of these areas are under the control of either of the UN-backed governments, though Misrata is largely aligned with the Tripoli parliament, a third government that the UN doesn’t recognize.

How long will it be before we have a Libyan surge?

A good question and here is the start……

Officially, the US supports the “unity government” in Libya, whose territory includes a single naval base in Tripoli and a few nearby buildings. In practice, the US is seen backing the two other extent would-be governments just a seriously.

That’s becoming more and more obvious as the Pentagon is increasingly open about its ongoing ground operations in Libya, where they are “meeting a variety of Libyans.” Less important that the sight-seeing is that the US has established two bases, one in Misrata and one near Benghazi.

You’ll notice that neither of those places is right next to the naval base in Tripoli. Rather, the Misrata base is in territory held by the Tripoli parliament, a rival government, and the site near Benghazi is in the sphere of the Tobruk parliament, another “UN-backed government.”

Yet another country that we will occupy and not be held responsible….

When do old enemies become new friends?

President Barack Obama appears poised to begin selling weapons to an old enemy and a new friend: Vietnam.

Obama, who will embark this weekend on his first trip to the Communist country, is weighing an end to a United States’ ban on selling weapons that started in 1975 at the close of the Vietnam War, which left nearly 60,000 Americans dead and scarred a generation.

Vietnam has long sought an end to the moratorium. But the request took on a more urgent tone in recent years after its neighbor, China, repeatedly threatened or attacked ships in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and started picking territorial fights with Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan.

US arming an old enemy that killed 60,000 of our countrymen…..will this come back and bite us in the ass?
The New World War 3 will begin May 2017……(so sez a past NATO commander)
Former NATO deputy commander Gen. Sir Alexander Richard Shirreff has published a new book, called 2017 War With Russia, in which he predicts a full-scale nuclear war between NATO and Russia, saying the sides are heading “inexorably” for a nuclear exchange, and that the war will start next May.
The book’s narrative follows the same expectations as other NATO officials who have been angling for bigger budgets and more military buildup, claiming Russian President Vladimir Putin will just randomly invade NATO member nations and start a huge war out of the blue.
Sir Richard says Russia feels “encircled” by NATO, and will invade Latvia in May, and threaten nuclear war if NATO isn’t okay with that. NATO won’t be okay with that, and so the world will basically end with the same nuclear holocaust NATO has hung over our heads for generations.
Is this yahoo trying to sell books or is he prophetic?
Ant then there is Afghanistan….there has been a lot of rhetoric about the US ending its involvement in the country…most of which is BS……
2016 is almost half way over, and the war in Afghanistan is going as bad as ever. Though it’s not as high-profile a topic of discussion at NATO meetings 15 years into the failing occupation, the alliance once again agreed to extend the military operation, which was scheduled to end at the end of 2016.

The US, of course, had no intention of withdrawing at the end of 2016 at any rate, and has already punted their end date to the end of 2017, and later extending it to an indefinite point in the future. The NATO announcement just means they’ll have company from the other nations, at least the ones still willing to throw troops at the war.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also confirmed that the alliance is separately debating a plan to extend the subsidy of Afghanistan’s military beyond the present end date of 2020. After 15 years of occupation, NATO has created a huge Afghan military, but the nation has virtually no economy, no tax base, and no chance of paying for it on their own. Most analysts agree this subsidy is going to continue for decades to come.

All the news that no one will use…..