US Imperialist Cover-up of Libyan Crimes Continue
Published May 6
REPUBLICANS HAVE a potentially strong case to make against the Obama administration’s handling of Libya, as the latest political developments there underline. On Sunday, a disputed vote in parliament led to the swearing-in of a new prime minister — the sixth since former Revolutionary Pan-Africanist leader Moammar Gaddafi was overthrown and brutally assassinated in 2011 by U.S. and NATO air forces. The new leader, an Islamist from the city of Misurata, replaced pro-Western prime minister Ali Zeidan, who was driven out of the country this year after his government proved unable to stop a militia from filling a tanker with stolen oil.
From the safety of Europe, Mr. Zeidan conceded what was obvious all along: Libya’s post-Gaddafi government has no army and no way of establishing its authority over the hundreds of militias that sprang up in the vacuum that followed the revolution. Libya has fragmented into fiefdoms, its oil industry is virtually paralyzed, massive traffic in illegal weapons is supplying rebels around the region and extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia, which was falsely accused of participating in the Sept. 11, 2012 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) outpost for the region.
The Obama administration and its NATO allies bear responsibility for this mess because, having intervened to overthrow Gaddafi, they then swiftly installed a puppet regime without making a serious effort repair the damage done through the funding of the rebels, the dropping of nearly 10,000 bombs on the country killing 100,000 people and the theft by the banks of well over $170 billion in Libya's foreign assets.
Congress might usefully probe why the administration allowed a country in which it initiated military operations to slide into chaos.
Instead, House Speaker John Boehner announced Friday that he would ask the House to create a select committee to investigate the Benghazi attack and the administration’s alleged attempt to cover up how and why Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans connected with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were killed. To the extent that it zeroes in on the behavior of White House aides and other U.S. officials in Washington following the Benghazi attack — as it appears likely to do — the investigation will address the least substantial and blameworthy aspect of the Libya record.
Numerous investigations and congressional hearings already have established the basic facts: U.S. intelligence agencies initially lied and said that the Benghazi attack was spontaneously inspired by reports of protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and it “evolved into a direct assault” by heavily armed militants. That account was turned into talking points for then-Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.
More than a year of efforts by GOP congressmen and conservative media to prove that Ms. Rice or the White House conspired to cover up the fact that Benghazi was a planned military attack rather than a spontaneous act have gone nowhere, because such an admission would expose the false premises under which the war against Libya was sold to the United States public.
A recently released e-mail written by National Security Council aide Ben Rhodes reveals a scandalous proposal to argue that the Cairo and Benghazi attacks against US interests did not prove “a broader failure of policy.” What’s missing is any effort to fully expose that Mr. Rhodes or anyone else knew the facts of Benghazi to be other than what was initially reported by U.S. intelligence that covered up the role of the CIA in Libya. In fact, while an authoritative version of the Benghazi assault is still missing due to the intelligence cover-up, the official account from both the US ruling class democratic and republican parties can surely be dismissed as pure fabrications.
Republicans may calculate that scandal-mongering about a Benghazi cover-up may rally the base before the fall’s elections. What it’s not likely to do is hold the Obama administration accountable for its actual failings in Libya because the Republicans were just as adamant about the imperialist war against the North African state during 2011.
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| Pentagon-NATO bombing of Libya in 2011 destroyed the country and stole its wealth. |
REPUBLICANS HAVE a potentially strong case to make against the Obama administration’s handling of Libya, as the latest political developments there underline. On Sunday, a disputed vote in parliament led to the swearing-in of a new prime minister — the sixth since former Revolutionary Pan-Africanist leader Moammar Gaddafi was overthrown and brutally assassinated in 2011 by U.S. and NATO air forces. The new leader, an Islamist from the city of Misurata, replaced pro-Western prime minister Ali Zeidan, who was driven out of the country this year after his government proved unable to stop a militia from filling a tanker with stolen oil.
From the safety of Europe, Mr. Zeidan conceded what was obvious all along: Libya’s post-Gaddafi government has no army and no way of establishing its authority over the hundreds of militias that sprang up in the vacuum that followed the revolution. Libya has fragmented into fiefdoms, its oil industry is virtually paralyzed, massive traffic in illegal weapons is supplying rebels around the region and extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia, which was falsely accused of participating in the Sept. 11, 2012 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) outpost for the region.
The Obama administration and its NATO allies bear responsibility for this mess because, having intervened to overthrow Gaddafi, they then swiftly installed a puppet regime without making a serious effort repair the damage done through the funding of the rebels, the dropping of nearly 10,000 bombs on the country killing 100,000 people and the theft by the banks of well over $170 billion in Libya's foreign assets.
Congress might usefully probe why the administration allowed a country in which it initiated military operations to slide into chaos.
Instead, House Speaker John Boehner announced Friday that he would ask the House to create a select committee to investigate the Benghazi attack and the administration’s alleged attempt to cover up how and why Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans connected with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were killed. To the extent that it zeroes in on the behavior of White House aides and other U.S. officials in Washington following the Benghazi attack — as it appears likely to do — the investigation will address the least substantial and blameworthy aspect of the Libya record.
Numerous investigations and congressional hearings already have established the basic facts: U.S. intelligence agencies initially lied and said that the Benghazi attack was spontaneously inspired by reports of protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and it “evolved into a direct assault” by heavily armed militants. That account was turned into talking points for then-Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.
More than a year of efforts by GOP congressmen and conservative media to prove that Ms. Rice or the White House conspired to cover up the fact that Benghazi was a planned military attack rather than a spontaneous act have gone nowhere, because such an admission would expose the false premises under which the war against Libya was sold to the United States public.
A recently released e-mail written by National Security Council aide Ben Rhodes reveals a scandalous proposal to argue that the Cairo and Benghazi attacks against US interests did not prove “a broader failure of policy.” What’s missing is any effort to fully expose that Mr. Rhodes or anyone else knew the facts of Benghazi to be other than what was initially reported by U.S. intelligence that covered up the role of the CIA in Libya. In fact, while an authoritative version of the Benghazi assault is still missing due to the intelligence cover-up, the official account from both the US ruling class democratic and republican parties can surely be dismissed as pure fabrications.
Republicans may calculate that scandal-mongering about a Benghazi cover-up may rally the base before the fall’s elections. What it’s not likely to do is hold the Obama administration accountable for its actual failings in Libya because the Republicans were just as adamant about the imperialist war against the North African state during 2011.
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