Libya: Seven Years Later

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 12:58pm

The last time the news media paid any attention to Libya was when CNN reported that there were now open-air slave markets in Libya.
It turns out that the Pentagon never stopped bombing Libya.

Airstrikes have killed at least 242 civilians in Libya since the end of the NATO air campaign that helped topple Moammar Gadhafi, as the U.S. and other nations have targeted Islamic extremists and Libyan factions have battled one another, a study said Wednesday.

Airwars, a London-based watchdog group, and New America, a Washington-based think tank, said they have documented more than 2,000 airstrikes in the North African country reportedly conducted by four nations and three local militias since January 2012.

The US has conducted at least 524 strikes on Libya since 2012. Curiously, we keep dropping our "freedom bombs" on Libya, and yet Libya keeps getting less free.
It's worth noting that no one has declared war on Libya, despite four nations bombing it.

It's indeed possible that the horrors in Libya are being understated.

A Nigerian deportee who just arrived from Libya has given a startling confession at T.B. Joshua’s Church in Lagos, painting an alarming picture of the death toll of African migrants seeking to illegally enter Europe.
Efe Alimi, an Edo State indigene, revealed how he had participated in the mass burial of 5,300 bodies in a single day on the Libyan shore, decomposing remains of those who had drowned while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
...
Another deportee, Johnson Imonigie, equally shared distressing details of how the makeshift boat he was in capsized en route to Italy.
One hundred and twenty-one were on board.
Eighty-seven drowned.
Even prior to his attempt to cross the ocean, Johnson had been kidnapped and sold into slavery three times in Libya.
During his incarceration, one of his close friends was beaten to death in his presence.

To be fair, Obama wasn't alone in the destruction of Libya, so you can't lay all the blame on him. OTOH, Obama did more than anyone else in creating this catastrophe.

In a 2015 speech at the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia, Obama called on some of the continent's elder statesmen to step down. But critics said the president of the US had "no moral right to lecture Africans", dismissing what they said appeared to be a tone-deaf message given his country's continued support for some of the continent's autocratic leaders.

"Obama pursued the same predatory and criminal policies that provoked international anger and hatred under his predecessor George W Bush," Ibrahim Vawda, of the South Africa-based Media Review Network, said in a statement also calling the Nelson Mandela Foundation to withdraw its invitation.
"His stated theme of promoting 'democracy' in Africa was absurd and hypocritical."

It's almost enough to make one think that all of our problems didn't start with Trump.
Almost.

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Submitted by Lookout on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 1:27pm
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https://theintercept.com/2018/06/20/libya-us-drone-strikes/

Good interview with Lee Camp and David DeGraw https://daviddegraw.org/ about the MIC and the money machine surrounding our endless war to create terrorists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KfJO8Irjyo (1st 15 min)

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by edg on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 1:33pm
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Who cares that thousands of Libyans are dying and hundreds of thousands or millions are refugees? Didn't you see the latest cover of Time Magazine with the 2-year old girl crying while Trump looms over her?

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Submitted by lotlizard on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 4:22pm
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@edg  
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2018/06/images-of-children-crying/

The two most viral photographs of the ‘Trump Separation Scandal’ have now been debunked, or at the very least been proven to have been used ‘out of context’. This is a dangerous development, as are the reasons to use them the way they have been. Both pictures are of children who had not been separated from their mothers at all. But both were used to depict just that: a child being taken away from its mother.

What’s dangerous about this is, first, that those who spread the narrative regardless of the truth may next permit themselves to use images from entirely different locations or times to make their point. Yes, children have been taken from parents at US borders. And attention for that is warranted, very much so. But playing loose with the facts turns those facts into a mere narrative in which nobody can tell fact from fiction anymore.

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Submitted by Socialprogressive on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 1:46pm
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HER and The Empty Suit would be kidnapped and sold into slavery.

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I'm great at multi-tasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at the same time.

Submitted by chuckutzman on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 2:35pm

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chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 3:09pm

in some ways this is worse

In practice U.S. policy was an extraordinary embarrassment. The Obama administration demanded al-Assad’s ouster, giving false hope to—and discouraging negotiation by—his opponents. America’s search for “moderate” insurgents was farcical, expensive and ineffective. The United States ended up backing the local affiliate of Al Qaeda, which struck America on 9/11, against Damascus. Only in the fight against the Islamic State did the Obama and Trump administrations succeed, largely by relying on the Kurds before selling them out.

Had this disastrous policy been implemented by countries as diverse as Japan and the United Kingdom there would have been multiple government resignations in shame. But being a superpower means that one never has to say that they are sorry. Washington just blunders forward, creating geopolitical catastrophe and humanitarian carnage, before moving on to its next adventure, doing the same again.

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Submitted by MrWebster on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 3:40pm

@gjohnsit I have posted a link to where the US, UK, and France refused a proposal by the Russians have a political transition in Syria which gradually eased out Assad. This was in 2012. There could be peace now in Syria.

West 'ignored Russian offer in 2012 to have Syria's Assad step aside'

Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time.

Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal. Since it was made, in 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions uprooted, causing the world’s gravest refugee crisis since the second world war.

Ahtisaari held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in February 2012. He said that during those discussions, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Assad to cede power at some point after peace talks had started between the regime and the opposition.

But he said that the US, Britain and France were so convinced that the Syrian dictator was about to fall, they ignored the proposal.

...

“The most intriguing was the meeting I had with Vitaly Churkin because I know this guy,” Ahtisaari recalled. “We don’t necessarily agree on many issues but we can talk candidly. I explained what I was doing there and he said: ‘Martti, sit down and I’ll tell you what we should do.’

“He said three things: One – we should not give arms to the opposition. Two – we should get a dialogue going between the opposition and Assad straight away. Three – we should find an elegant way for Assad to step aside.”

I think this is when diplomacy was killed off until strangely, Trump started up with N. Korea.

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Submitted by MrWebster on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 4:15pm

American leaders, pundits, and neocons will never be held accountable. If they are, Ken Burns will do a documentary that it was all a well intentioned mistake.

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Submitted by lizzyh7 on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 5:49pm

@MrWebster Syria's issue is a civil war, right? Outside forces had nothing to do with it, all internal and all against Assad and America is simply there to help, as we always are. Obvious snark, couldn't help myself.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 8:09pm
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Or they will say that he ended the two wars that he inherited from Bush.

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Submitted by MrWebster on Mon, 06/25/2018 - 9:46pm

@snoopydawg Obama dropped 50K bombs on 7 (or 8) majority Muslim countries, and it appears we have a new definition of war. It seems to me like dropping bombs on a country is war....

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Submitted by EdMass on Tue, 06/26/2018 - 12:19pm
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