Nigerias Boko Haram is now officially the deadliest terror group in the world. That they have reached this position is a direct consequence of Cameron and Cos war on Libya and one that was perhaps not entirely unintended. According to a report just released by Global Terrorism Index, Boko Haram were responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014, compared to 6,073 attributed to ISIS, representing a quadrupling of their total killings in 2013. In the past week alone, bombings conducted by the group have killed eight people on a bus in Maiduguri; a family of five in Fotokol, Cameroon; fifteen people in a crowded marketplace in Kano; and thirty-two people outside a mosque in Yola. In 2009, the year they took up arms, Boko Haram had nothing like the capacity to mount such operations, and their equipment remained primitive; but by 2011, that had begun to change. As Peter Weber noted in The Week, their weapons shifted from relatively cheap AK-47s in the early days of its post-2009 embrace of violence to desert-ready combat vehicles and anti-aircraft/ anti-tank guns. This dramatic turnaround in the groups access to materiel was the direct result of NATOs war on Libya. A UN report published in early 2012 warned that large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Libyan stockpiles were smuggled into the Sahel region, including rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with anti-aircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives (Semtex), and light anti-aircraft artillery (light caliber bi-tubes) mounted on vehicles, and probably also more advanced weapons such as surface-to-air missiles and MANPADS (man-portable air-defense systems). NATO had effectively turned over the entire armory of an advanced industrial state to the regions most sectarian militias: groups such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram. The earliest casualty of NATOs war outside Libya was Mali. Taureg fighters who had worked in Gaddafis security forces fled Libya soon after Gaddafis government was overthrown, and mounted an insurgency in Northern Mali. They in turn were overthrown, however, by Al Qaedas regional affiliates - flush with Libyan weaponry - who then turned Northern Mali into another base from which to train and launch attacks. Boko Haram was a key beneficiary. AS Brendan O Neill wrote in an excellent 2014 article worth quoting at length: Boko Haram benefited enormously from the vacuum created in once-peaceful northern Mali following the Wests ousting of Gaddafi. In two ways: first, it honed its guerrilla skills by fighting alongside more practiced Islamists in Mali, such as AQIM; and second, it accumulated some of the estimated 15,000 pieces of Libyan military hardware and weaponry that leaked across the countrys borders following the sweeping aside of Gaddafi. In April 2012, Agence France-Presse reported that dozens of Boko Haram fighters were assisting AQIM and others in northern Mali. This had a devastating knock-on effect in Nigeria. As the Washington Post reported in early 2013, The Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria has entered a more violent phase as militants return to the fight with sophisticated weaponry and tactics learned on the battlefields of nearby Mali. A Nigerian analyst said Boko Harams level of audacity was high [in late 2012], immediately following the movement of some of its militants to the Mali region. That NATOs Libya war would have such consequences was both thoroughly predictable, and widely predicted. As early as June 2011, African Union Chairman Jean Ping warned NATO that Africas concern is that weapons that are delivered to one side or another are already in the desert and will arm terrorists and fuel trafficking. And both Mali and Algeria strongly opposed NATOs destruction of Libya precisely because of the massive destabilization it would bring to the region. They argued, wrote ONeill, that such a violent upheaval in a region like north Africa could have potentially catastrophic consequences. The fallout from the bombing is a real source of concern, said the rulers of Mali in October 2011. In fact, as the BBC reported, they had been arguing since the start of the conflict in Libya that is, since the civil conflict between Benghazi-based militants and Gaddafi began that the fall of Gaddafi would have a destabilizing effect in the region. In an op-ed following the collapse of Northern Mali, a former Chief of Staff of UK land forces, Major-General Jonathan Shaw, wrote that Colonel Gaddafi was a lynchpin of the informal Sahel security plan, whose removal therefore led to a foreseeable collapse of security across the entire region. The rise of Boko Haram has been but one result and not without strategic benefits for the West. Nigeria was once seen by the US as one of its most dependable allies on the African continent. Yet, following a pattern that is repeated across the entire global South, in recent years the country has been moving ever closer to China. The headline grabbing deal was the $23 billion contract signed in 2010 with the Chinese to construct three fuel refineries, adding an extra 750,000 barrels per day to Nigerias oil producing capacity. This was followed up in 2013 with an agreement to increase Nigerian oil exports to China tenfold by 2015 (from 20,000 to 200,000 barrels per day). But Chinas economic interests go far beyond that. A Nigerian diplomat interviewed by China-Africa specialist Deborah Brautigam told her that The Chinese are trying to get involved in every sector of our economy. If you look at the West, its oil, oil, oil and nothing else. In 2006, China issued an $8.3billion low-interest loan to Nigeria to fund the building of a major new railway, and the following year China built a telecommunications satellite for Nigeria. Indeed, of last years $18 billion worth of bilateral trade between the two countries, over 88% was in the non-petroleum sector, and by 2012 Nigerian imports from China (its biggest import partner) totaled more than that of its second and third biggest import partners, the US and India, combined. This kind of trade and investment is of the type that is seriously aiding Africas ability to add value to its products and is thereby undermining the Western global economic order, which relies on Africa remaining an under-developed exporter of cheap raw materials. Not has Chinas co-operation been limited to economics. In 2004, China supported Nigerias bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, and in 2006, Nigeria signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership with China the first African country to do so. It is a partnership with a solid base of support according to a BBC poll conducted in 2011, 85 percent of Nigerians have a positive view of China; perhaps not surprising when even pro-US security think-tanks like the Jamestown Foundation admit that Chinas links with Nigeria are qualitatively different from the Wests, and as a result, may potentially produce benefits for the ordinary people of Nigeria. Symbolizing the importance of the relationship, current Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made Nigeria his first foreign destination after taking up the role in 2013. This growing South-South co-operation is not viewed positively by the US, which is witnessing what it once saw as a dependable client state edge increasingly out of its orbit. The African Oil Policy Initiative Group a consortium of US Congressmen, military officials and energy lobbyists had already concluded in a 2002 report that China was a rival of the US for influence in West Africa that would need to be deterred by military means, and China has been increasingly viewed by US policymakers as a strategic threat to be contained militarily ever since. A report by US Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey just this July highlighted China as one of the major security threats to US domination, for example - although Obamas Pivot to Asia policy had already made this clear back in 2013. Is it such a stretch, then, to think that the US might actually want to cripple its strategic rival, China, by destabilizing her allies, such as Nigeria? After all, despite continued US links to Nigeria, it is China, more than any other foreign partner, who has the most to lose from the Boko Hara insurgency, as the Jamestown Foundation makes clear: Unlike most other foreign actors in the country, [the Chinese] are investing in fixed assets, such as refineries and factories, with the intention of developing a long-term economic relationship. Consequently, stability and good governance in Nigeria is advantageous for Beijing because it is the only way to guarantee that Chinese interests are protected. If the US increasingly sees its own strategy in terms of undermining Chinese interests and there is every sign that it does the corollary of this statement is surely that instability in Nigeria is the only way to guarantee that Chinese interests are threatened and, therefore, that US strategic goals are served. The USs lackluster efforts in backing Nigerian efforts against Boko Haram - from blocking arms deliveries last year, to funding the fight in all of Nigerias neighbors, but not Nigeria itself as well as its suspension of Nigerian crude oil imports from July 2014 (a decision that helped plunge Nigeria into one of its most severe financial crises, according to one national daily) would certainly indicate that. https://www.rt.com/op-edge/323656-deadliest-terror-boko-haram/
Good article.. Boko Haram are bad news.. but I don't think this is a US plot against China's influence. China has invested huge amounts of money in Africa over the past decade or so. There's just no benefit in the US trying to destabilize Nigeria.
I know. But the fact that remains is that what's happening in Nigeria is direct result of what happened to Gaddafi. We know that was planned by the west. Gaddafi was trying to unify Africa under a single golden dinar. Which would have spelled disaster to europe. ISIS crisis is worse in Nigeria than it is in middle east with more people being killed. But no one seemed to notice....Wonder why? Is middle east more popular to people on this forum? No one cares for ol'Nigeria
All the oil producing countries have had gold sovereigns or dinars for 100 years. That some crap that has no merit. The West didn't plan to get rid of Gadaffi.. but there was NO way they could keep him in power short of a huge occupation force.. The Libyans just hated him and they'd had enough after 42 years.
Let me tell you some fact about Gaddafi ■Gaddafi nationalized his nation’s oil reserves and used the revenue to build schools, universities, hospitals, and infrastructure. ■Money from Libya’s oil revenue is deposited into the bank account of every citizen. ■He raised the literacy rate from 20 per cent to 83 per cent. ■He built one of the finest health care systems in the “Third World.” ■All people have access to doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines—free of charge. If a Libyan needs surgery that is unavailable in Libya, funding is provided for the surgery overseas. ■He raised the life expectancy from 44 to 75 years of age. ■Basic food items were subsidized and electricity was made available throughout the country. ■He developed huge irrigation projects in order to support a drive towards agricultural development and food self-sufficiency. ■Recognizing that water, not oil, would be the scarcest resource of the future, Gaddafi initiated the construction of the Great Man Made River, which took years to complete. Referred to as a wonder of the modern world, this river pumps millions of gallons of water daily from the heart of the Sahara desert to the coast, where the land is suitable for agriculture. ■Any Libyan who wanted to become a farmer was and still is given free use of land, a house, farm equipment, livestock and seed. ■Gaddafi vowed that his own parents, who lived in a tent in the desert,would not be housed until every Libyan was housed. He fulfilled that promise. ■Under Gaddafi, Libya has now attained the highest standard of living in Africa. ■Gaddafi put up a communications satellite—the first in Africa—to bring the continent of Africa into the 21st century of technology. This also interrupted the massive fees that European companies had been charging the Africans. ■He gave women full access to education and employment, and he has enabled women to serve in the armed forces. ■Gaddafi started and financed the African Union to tie all of the Mother continent into an eventual body with a common purpose called the “United States of Africa.” ■He was the first and only leader in the Arab world to formally apologize for the Arab role in the trade of African slaves. He acknowledged that Blacks were the true owners of Libya and proclaimed in his Green Book, “the Black race shall prevail throughout the world.” Nelson Mandela called Muammar Gaddafi one of the 20th century’s greatest freedom fighters, and insisted that the eventual collapse of South Africa’s apartheid system owed much to Gaddafi and Libyan support. Analysts say introducing the gold dinar as the new medium of exchange would destroy dependence on the U.S. dollar, the French franc and the British pound and threaten the Western world. It would “finally swing the global economic pendulum” that would break Western domination over Africa and other developing economies. Attacking Col. Gadhafi can be understood in the context of America and Europe fighting for their survival, which an independent Africa jeopardizes. "Gadhafi's creation of the African Investment Bank in Sirte (Libya) and the African Monetary Fund to be based in Cameroon will supplant the IMF and undermine Western economic hegemony in Africa.” —Gerald Pereira, an executive board member of the former Tripoli-based World Mathaba “Gadhafi's creation of the African Investment Bank in Sirte (Libya) and the African Monetary Fund to be based in Cameroon will supplant the IMF and undermine Western economic hegemony in Africa,” said Gerald Pereira, an executive board member of the former Tripoli-based World Mathaba. The moves are also bad for France because when the African Monetary Fund and the African Central Bank in Nigeria starts printing gold-backed currency, it would “ring the death knell" for the CFA franc through which Paris was able to maintain its neocolonial grip on 14 former African colonies for the last 50 years. “It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi,” said Prof. Jean-Paul Pougala of the Geneva School of Diplomacy. “The idea, according to Gaddafi, was that African and Muslim nations would join together to create this new currency and would use it to purchase oil and other resources in exclusion of the dollar and other currencies,” said political analyst Anthony Wile in an editorial for The Daily Bell online. According to the International Monetary Fund, Libya's Central Bank is 100 percent state-owned and estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. If Col. Gadhafi changed the purchasing terms of his oil and other Libyan commodities sold on the world market and only accepted gold as payment; a policy like that wouldn't be welcomed by the power elites who control the world's central banks. “That would certainly be something that would cause his immediate dismissal,” said Mr.Wile. http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/World_News_3/article_7886.shtml March 02, 2011 “Pravda” — How can you call someone a dictator leader who overthrew a corrupt monarchy, modernized the country, won the highest HDI in Africa, and applied a direct democracy system of government? Gaddafi has always supported revolutionary movements around the world. When the media – in the service of the U.S. – praised the apartheid regime South Africa, young Gaddafi in Libya trained and sent them back with the best weapons to win freedom in South Africa. Suddenly the press began a daily attack on the leader Muammar Gaddafi, to distill hatred, spreading lies, forging videos for what? What does it prove? The crimes of the Libyan government? Apparently this journalistic line was caused by popular uprisings in Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt. In fact, it is more a question of one more terrorist strategy of the government of the United States of America to recover influence in the Arab world. In Egypt, the government fell in U.S. confidence. Mubarak was merely an agent of U.S. and Israel interests in the region. With the fall of Mubarak, Iranian ships began to circulate in the vicinity of Israel, causing unease and anger in the diplomatic environments subservient to imperialism and Zionism. After losing Egypt, the U.S. government tries to divide and weaken Libya, and this effort receives support from the supporters of Bin Laden, and thousands of Egyptian refugees that over the years have taken refuge in eastern Libya, fleeing the repression in Egypt. After the Egyptians came Algerians, Tunisians and Somalis, followers of Al Qaeda. They enjoyed the hospitality of the Libyans and then the next thing they stabbed them in the back, triggering a revolt that has left tens of victims, through sabotage, terrorism and destruction of public property. But who is this Qaddafi that the media suddenly started to attack in all forms, and even in a most cowardly form? Gaddafi led a revolution to overthrow King Idris, a puppet of Italian and American interests in the region. At the time, the largest U.S. military base abroad was in Libya, Qaddafi and his supporters surrounded the base and gave 24 hours for all invading foreigners to leave the country. In power, Gaddafi did not like the Arab monarchs, did not build palaces with gold, not buy luxury yachts or collections of imported cars. He devoted himself to rebuilding the country, ensuring better living conditions for the people. Today Qaddafi is not president or prime minister of Libya, but the media wants him to resign a post which does not exist. The lies of the media cannot hide the fact that Gaddafi has supported the struggles of peoples for liberation in Nicaragua, Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and many other countries, specifically concretely helping the people who fought for liberation. In practice, Gaddafi has always been a benefactor of mankind, but for the mercenary media, a benefactor is one who creates wars in search of profits for the arms industry or to dominate the world, as were the wars created by the U.S. in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Nicaragua and many other countries. This utterly ridiculous gossip of wealth and strange customs have always been exploited by the media, it was with Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and etc. It is enough to be a serious ruler that does not seriously kneel down and cower in fear before the United States and is not intimidated to be demonised and disparaged by the mercenary media. Another fact that the media cannot falsify is the HDI (Human Development Index) measured by UN officials. These data indicate, for example, that Libya had in 1970, a situation a little worse than Brazil (HDI of 0.541, against 0.551 of Brazil.) The Libyan index surpassed the Brazilian years later, and in 2008 was well ahead: 0.810 (ranked 43rd), compared to 0.764 (ranking 59th). All three sub-indices that comprise the HDI is higher in the African country: income, longevity and education. In the HDI recast the difference remains. Libya is ranked the 53rd (0.755) and Brazil 73rd (.699). Libya is the country with the highest HDI in Africa. Therefore, the best distribution of income, and health and public education are free. And almost 10% of Libyan students receive scholarships to study in foreign countries. So what kind of dictatorship is this? A dictatorship would never allow this kind of policy for the benefit of the people. Gadhafi wrote the Green Book, the Third Universal Theory, which deals with controversial and real issues. He complains, for example, about the falsification of democracy through parliamentary assemblies. In most countries that consider themselves democratic, including the United States of America, political parties are organized criminal gangs to loot the people’s money in legislative assemblies, City Councils, House of Representatives, etc. This observation – and a book in publication – certainly irritate and anger them? The defenders of parliamentary democracy? The Green Book, written by Gaddafi, says that workers should be involved and self-employed, and that the land must be of those who work it and those who live in the house. And power shall be exercised by the people directly, without intermediaries, without politicians, through popular congresses and committees, where the whole population decides the fundamental issues of the district, city and country. These words, which everyone knows are true, revolt and irritate those few who benefit from the falsification of democracy, especially the capitalist regimes. But the press will keep on on forging the news, boiling hatred by spreading lies, because it is following orders from the U.S. government, very interested in the large oil reserves of Libya. Major newspapers and television channels in the world use news agencies from the United States, all biased, misleading and deceptive. The lies that the news agencies sell buy public opinion, and most people? By naivete or misinformation they behave like puppets, repeating whatever the U.S. government determines and imposes. This is not the first nor will it be the last, the Libyan Arab people face powerful foreign powers. Again the Libyan people will win, because they have the leadership of Muammar Qaddafi, an effective, strong and honorable guide. *In a rare interview with Western journalists in January 1986, only months before the U.S. terrorist bombing of Libya, the Leader of the Revolution spoke frankly about his life and how he had been misunderstood by the West. Meeting the journalists in his tent he told of how he admired former US Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and of other world leaders he admires like “Egypt’s late Gamal Abdul Nasser, India’s Mahatma Gandhi, Sun Yat-Sen of China and Italy’s Garibaldi and Mazzini.” (Really, I’m a Nice Guy, Kate Dourian, Tripoli, Libya.) He spoke of his favourite book The Outsider by British author Colin Wilson and others he likes such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Roots. Throughout this interview the profound thinking and innate humanity of Muammar Qadhafi shone through. He also stated in another interview: “I see the press as being the messengers between me and the world to tell them the truth.” Killing of Gadaffi was one of the greatest tragedies.
The West has been very generous to Africa. It's given trillions of dollars in aid over the last 50 years. And still Africa can't get its act together. From Africa, all we get in the U.S. are tropical diseases and hurricanes.
"Generous" after raping the continent of its treasure? Apartheid, slavery, the Zulu wars all in the name of Empire. Not forgetting the blood diamonds.
Gaddafi nationalized Libyan oil prematurely in 1970 and nearly destroyed Libyan oil.. He did so on advice from Abdullah Tariki his new oil minister who had been fired by the Saudi King for being extremely anti-American. Production plunged from 3 million bpd to less than a million and stayed there for a decade. Gadaffi took credit for literacy and social programs put in place by King Idris.. Read Gadaffi's Green Book for yourself .. its rambling and emarkably incoherent.. Then read the Libyan Constitution that Gadaffi threw out and which had been the most enlightened in the ME and North Africa. His military and police were all foreign mercenaries. Gadaffi was an ignorant, barefoot Bedouin boy... and of course he claimed that he was "misunderstood".. Some gaffe over him drinking from the finger bowl at a state dinner would send him into rages where he threatened asassinations of other heads of state. His healthcare system was a front of empty hospitals, no doctors, no equipment and no emergency services. Libya is not self sufficient.. It still imports 90% of its food.
Treasure? There never was much gold or oil in Africa. Slavery existed in Africa long before the West was there and it still exists today after the West is gone. Apartheid? South Africa was probably better off with apartheid. Now that the whites are gone, South Africa is a hell hole. I have family from there.
Before NATO finally acted, conflict had broken out, Libyan refugees were flooding into Italy and 7 oil companies plus the Chinese had pulled out... and, Gadaffi said that the streets would run with blood. I crossed my fingers and prayed that Gadaffi would step down and that the Libyans would move quickly to reinstate the Libyan Constitution of Idris. That was really all anyone could do.. is hope for the best. Don't believe that crap about the "threat of the Gold dinar".. They all have sovereigns or gold dinars, but you can buy and sell oil or import food hauling gold.. the interest would eat you alive.. And, if you read the history of banking in Libya.. Idris established banking .
Sound like you've watched too much CNN and FOX news. So occurring to you Gadaffi was was bad because he didn't produce as much oil? And he imported most of his food? Show me credible proof. ■Gaddafi nationalized his nations oil reserves and used the revenue to build schools, universities, hospitals, and infrastructure. ■Money from Libyas oil revenue is deposited into the bank account of every citizen. ■He raised the literacy rate from 20 per cent to 83 per cent. ■He built one of the finest health care systems in the Third World. ■All people have access to doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicinesfree of charge. If a Libyan needs surgery that is unavailable in Libya, funding is provided for the surgery overseas. ■He raised the life expectancy from 44 to 75 years of age. ■Basic food items were subsidized and electricity was made available throughout the country. ■He developed huge irrigation projects in order to support a drive towards agricultural development and food self-sufficiency. ■Recognizing that water, not oil, would be the scarcest resource of the future, Gaddafi initiated the construction of the Great Man Made River, which took years to complete. Explains why he cut back on oil? □Referred to as a wonder of the modern world, this river pumps millions of gallons of water daily from the heart of the Sahara desert to the coast, where the land is suitable for agriculture. ■Any Libyan who wanted to become a farmer was and still is given free use of land, a house, farm equipment, livestock and seed. ■Gaddafi vowed that his own parents, who lived in a tent in the desert,would not be housed until every Libyan was housed. He fulfilled that promise. ■Under Gaddafi, Libya has now attained the highest standard of living in Africa. ■Gaddafi put up a communications satellitethe first in Africato bring the continent of Africa into the 21st century of technology. This also interrupted the massive fees that European companies had been charging the Africans. ■He gave women full access to education and employment, and he has enabled women to serve in the armed forces. ■Gaddafi started and financed the African Union to tie all of the Mother continent into an eventual body with a common purpose called the United States of Africa. This is why he got killed. ]■He was the first and only leader in the Arab world to formally apologize for the Arab role in the trade of African slaves. He acknowledged that Blacks were the true owners of Libya and proclaimed in his Green Book, the Black race shall prevail throughout the world. Nelson Mandela called Muammar Gaddafi one of the 20th centurys greatest freedom fighters, and insisted that the eventual collapse of South Africas apartheid system owed much to Gaddafi and Libyan support.
You lived in Libya but you don't know that Gaddafi never bombed Tripoli? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLXYpZqZ_zw So the whole president for NATO attack didn't happen. So while Gadaffi didn't bomb Tripoli as the western media claim, The west DID bomb Tripoli. Furthermore, The "rebel" forces were hunting down and killing black people. The whole world ignored this too. Russia who has been tracking the situation can confirm this fact too. And they did. Gaddafi never bombed Tripoli. I though the situation in Syria would make this obvious. The west tried to get Assad for using chemical weapons. It was all but fact that Assad used chemical weapons according to western media. Yet a report came that it was actually the rebels who used them. They used them on Assad''s forces. So I guess the plan was for the rebels to use the chemical weapons and blame Assad. which they did. The situation is Syria was unfolding parallel to Libya. Where America succeeded in Libya, they failed in Syria. Most of those people killed were probably killed by rebel forces. The western media took their turn to spin these stories any which way. If there was an armed rebelion in the US funded by Russia, how do you think US would respond? Send in the National Gaurd and Kill the ARMED rebels right?
It's just really hard to try and take you seriously when your first rant basically said the U.S. Is trying to destabilize Nigeria to take on China. Then when Margot called you on it, you said "I Know" Why the hell would I take anything else you said seriously? Most of his is just a copy and paste from Pravda.
Because I don't think That that is the reason why The west Is trying to destabilize the region? So I agreed? Its obviously though that the west did destabilized the region because Gaddafi was trying to Unify Africa. This would have spelled disaster for western economy as pointed out in my previous posts. Some more. Libyan officials were deeply concerned in 2011, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was trying to remove Moammar Gadhafi from power, that weapons were being funneled to NATO-backed rebels with ties to al Qaeda, fearing that well-armed insurgents could create a safe haven for terrorists, according to secret intelligence reports obtained by The Washington Times. The reports included a 16-page list of weapons that Libyans supposedly tracked to the rebels from Western sources or their allies in the region. The memos were corroborated by a U.S. intelligence asset familiar with the documents as well as former top Gadhafi regime official Mohammed Ismael. “NATO has given permission to a number of weapons-loaded aircraft to land at Benghazi airport and some Tunisian airports,” the intelligence report said, identifying masses of weapons including tanks and surface-to-air missiles. That report, which was prepared in English so it could be passed by a U.S. intelligence asset to key members of Congress, identified specific air and sea shipments observed by Libyan intelligence moving weapons to the rebels trying to unseat the Gadhafi regime. “There is a close link between al Qaeda, Jihadi organizations, and the opposition in Libya,” the report warned. In the documents and separately recorded conversations with U.S. emissaries, Libyan officials expressed particular concern that the weapons and training given the rebels would spread throughout the region, in particular turning the city of Benghazi into a future terrorist haven. Those fears would be realized a little over a year later when a band of jihadist insurgents attacked the State Department diplomatic post in Benghazi and a related CIA compound, killing four Americans including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Today, more than three years after Gadhafi fell from power and was killed, Benghazi and much of the rest of Libya remain in chaos, riddled with violence among rival tribes and thriving jihadi groups. Mrs. Clinton, now considering a run for president, was the moving force inside the Obama administration to encourage U.S. military intervention to unseat Gadhafi in Libya. The latest documents and audio recordings are likely to give her Republican critics on Capitol Hill fresh ammunition to question whether she had an adequate plan and whether her efforts led to the tragedy in Benghazi a year later and the general lawlessness and chaos that have gripped Libya since. The Times reported last week that U.S. intelligence did not support the story that Mrs. Clinton used to sell the war in Libya, mainly that there was an imminent danger of a genocide to be carried out by the Gadhafi regime. The intelligence community, in fact, had come to the opposite conclusion: that Gadhafi would not risk world outrage by killing civilians en masse even as he tried to crush the rebellion in his country. The Times also reported that the Pentagon and a key Democrat so distrusted Mrs. Clinton’s decision-making on Libya that they opened their own secret diplomatic conversations with the Gadhafi regime, going around the State Department. In one conversation recorded in summer 2011 between Libyan officials and an intelligence asset dispatched by the Pentagon as a back-door channel, the asset told Mr. Ismael, who served then as Gadhafi’s chief of staff, that U.S. officials were considering taking some of the Libyan dictator’s frozen money assets and sending it to the rebels. “I’m in contact with some of the people over in Benghazi and they’ve told me point blank that their first use of this money is, is to buy military training, weapons and mercenaries,” the Pentagon intelligence asset told Mr. Ismael on July 24, 2011. In a separate conversation with Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat serving in the House, Gadhafi’s eldest son, Seif, told the congressman that Libyan intelligence had observed Qatar, a major U.S. ally in the region, facilitating weapons shipments. Qatar has steadfastly and repeatedly denied arming the rebels. “The Qataris have spent more than $100 million on this, and they have an agreement with the rebels that the moment you rule Libya you pay us back,” Seif Gadhafi told Mr. Kucinich in a conversation recorded in May 2011. “So, it’s your position that your government has been trying to defend itself against an insurrection brought about by jihadists who were joined by gangsters, terrorists and that there’s basically about 1,000 people who were joined by NATO?” Mr. Kucinich asked. “Yes,” Seif Gadhafi replied. “You’re saying that this relates to internal matters, matters internal to the region relating of a power struggle in which they then turned their attention to Libya to try to engulf Libya in their own desire for increasing their power?” Mr. Kucinich asked. “For the Qataris, they are doing this with every country, with every country,” Mr. Gadhafi said. “This is their plan, I mean in public. This is their own agenda. I mean, it’s not something hidden, or something, you know, private. But now, we have, and plus the French and British have also have their own agenda, you know, commercial interests, political interests, they have their own interests. They told us, especially the French, and the Qataris and the British: We want those people to share the power with you, our own people, the heads of rebels.” The recorded conversations also included concerns that the U.S. might try to arm the rebels despite a U.N. arms embargo on Libya. On March 27, 2011, days after the intervention began, Mrs. Clinton argued that the arms embargo could be disregarded if shipping weapons to rebels would help protect civilians, but defense officials in the United Kingdom disagreed with her interpretation of international law. “We’re not arming the rebels. We’re not planning to arm the rebels,” British Defense Secretary Liam Fox told the BBC the day Mrs. Clinton hinted otherwise. Likewise, Qatari officials sent a letter Feb. 2, 2012, to the United Nations about the Libyan uprising, “categorically” denying that they had “supplied the revolutionaries with arms and ammunitions” as some had reported. Attempts to contact the Qatari Embassy in Washington for comment Sunday were unsuccessful, but the classified Libyan intelligence report indicates that Qatar sent tanks, missiles, trucks and military advisers to the rebels. Distrust between Libya and Qatar had simmered for years before the civil war in Libya erupted. Mr. Ismael told The Times in an interview that the Qataris had a grudge against the Gadhafi regime because it did not give them natural gas and oil concessions that were promised in 2007. The Libyan intelligence reports provided to the Pentagon’s emissary detailed specific weapons shipments they said came from Qatar. “On 15th of March the ship loaded with arm arrived to the seaport of Tobruk. On 4th April 2011 two Qatari aircraft laden with a number of tanks, [ground-attack] missiles and heavy trucks was arranged. On 11th April 2011 a number of boats departed Benghazi for Misrata, the shipment comprised assistance including SAM-7 [anti-aircraft] missiles. On 22nd April 2011, 800 rifles were sent from Benghazi to Misrata,” the report said. NATO allies knew of the dangerous jihadi elements operating in Benghazi before the 2011 intervention began, according to Noman Benotman, president of the British-based Quilliam Foundation, a think tank dedicated to combating Islamic extremism. Mr. Benotman also was a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group but left the organization prior to the 2011 revolution. “A lot of jihadists that had been locked up by the regime were released after the revolution started. They picked up many of the guns that were coming into the country and fought, but they were not fighting for democracy — they were fighting their own revolution, trying to build a state based on a vicious, violent, radical, Islamic ideology. They took advantage of the situation,” he said. “There were pro-democracy demonstrators participating in the revolution, of course, but there was also crystal-clear evidence of jihadists and jihadist tactics in Benghazi before the NATO intervention started, so no one can say there were no jihadists there,” he said. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...-libya-war-push-armed-benghazi-rebe/?page=all CNN: Libyan "Rebels" Are Now ISIS November 19, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - The United States has attempted to claim that the only way to stop the so-called "Islamic State" in Syria and Iraq is to first remove the government in Syria. Complicating this plan are developments in Libya, benefactor of NATO's last successful regime change campaign. In 2011, NATO armed, funded, and backed with a sweeping air campaign militants in Libya centered around the eastern Libyan cities of Tobruk, Derna, and Benghazi. By October 2011, NATO successfully destroyed the Libyan government, effectively handing the nation over to these militants. What ensued was a campaign of barbarism, genocide, and sectarian extremism as brutal in reality as what NATO claimed in fiction was perpetrated by the Libyan government ahead of its intervention. The so-called "rebels" NATO had backed were revealed to be terrorists led by Al Qaeda factions including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The so-called "pro-democracy protesters" Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was poised to attack in what NATO claimed was pending "genocide" were in fact heavily armed terrorists that have festered for decades in eastern Libya. Almost immediately after NATO successfully destroyed Libya's government, its terrorist proxies were mobilized to take part in NATO's next campaign against Syria. Libyan terrorists were sent first to NATO-member Turkey were they were staged, armed, trained, and equipped, before crossing the Turkish-Syrian border to take part in the fighting. CNN in an article titled, "ISIS comes to Libya," claims: The black flag of ISIS flies over government buildings. Police cars carry the group's insignia. The local football stadium is used for public executions. A town in Syria or Iraq? No. A city on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Libya. Fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are now in complete control of the city of Derna, population of about 100,000, not far from the Egyptian border and just about 200 miles from the southern shores of the European Union. The fighters are taking advantage of political chaos to rapidly expand their presence westwards along the coast, Libyan sources tell CNN. Only the black flag of Al Qaeda/ISIS has already long been flying over Libya - even at the height of NATO's intervention there in 2011. ISIS didn't "come to" Libya, it was always there in the form of Al Qaeda's local franchises LIFG and AQIM - long-term, bitter enemies of the now deposed and assassinated Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2014/11/libyan-rebels-are-now-isis.html
Of course Europeans/America wants to destabilize Nigeria. II may have been born at night but not last night.
Margot is an inveterate Obama apologist, so she will say anything in order to justify his illegal, boneheaded intervention in Libya. She also is an unpaid spokesperson for the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, who were highly adversarial towards Qaddafi. In other words, no amount of facts or logic is going to convince her of the truth. But I was glad to read your contributions, although I was already aware of a lot of those facts. Even the UN rated Libya the highest on the Human Development Index in Africa while Qaddafi was in power. And I'm sure those European aerospace corporations were hopping mad when Qaddafi paid for an African satellite system.
The fighting in Tripoli broke out in a hospital in November 2011.. Who said Gadaffi bombed Tripoli? Not I. Of course the rebels were hunting down black people.. Gadaffi's military and police were African mercenaries. The tribes hated Gadaffi and he never trusted them enough to hire Libyans for those jobs.
