Obama Readies To Fight in Libya, Again, by Jack A. Smith

The US and Europe’s intervention in Libya has been an unmitigated disaster, and Hillary Clinton’s role in it should be enough to disqualify her from public office. Further intervention will be insanity. From Jack A. Smith at antiwar.com:

Nearly five years after the U.S., Britain and France launched a bombing campaign against the Libyan government to bring about regime change, these same countries are contemplating a resumption of the war they thought was won when rebel forces they supported grotesquely tortured to death the country’s leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi.

The result today in Libya is utter disarray. But at the time, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – a leading advocate of the bombing who justifies the deed to this day – was ecstatic when told the news of Qaddafi’s death while she was appearing on a TV talk show. Laughingly she shouted to the cameras, “We came, we saw, he died!”

No one is laughing in Washington now. President Obama came, saw and created the very opposite of what he sought, a hardly unusual outcome for the Obama and Bush Administrations in the Middle East. Instead of a pliable dependent government willing to do the bidding of Washington and its NATO foreign legion, there has been an explosion of civil war and Sunni jihadism.

The US and UN have been striving for months to unite the two factions in Libya that claim to be the country’s government. On Feb. 1 the faction that that has been recognized by the US and many nations rejected unity with its opposite number. The bedlam in Libya caused by the 2011 overthrow has allowed the Islamic State (IS) to grow strong and occupy several territories.

Agence France-Presse reported Jan. 29: “Barack Obama has asked key advisors to draw up options for ratcheting up the fight against the Islamic State group, including opening a new front in Libya…. Potential options are said to range from intensified air strikes to participation in a UN-backed ground force that would help take on Libya’s estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters…. The Defense Department announced it stands ready to perform the full spectrum of military operations a required.”

The US and France are preparing for “decisive military action” in Libya against the IS, according, to a statement Jan. 22 by Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said a final decision would be made in a matter or weeks, and that President Obama “has made clear that we have the authority to use military force.”

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