[Peace-discuss] Libyan rebels = CIA + AQ?

[C. G. Estabrook]

"This information is available to anyone who conducts even a cursory Internet 
search, but it has not been reported by the corporate-controlled media in the 
United States, except in the dispatch from McClatchy, which avoids any reference 
to the CIA. None of the television networks, busily lauding the 'freedom 
fighters' of eastern Libya, has bothered to report that these forces are now 
commanded by a longtime collaborator of US intelligence services."


    A CIA commander for the Libyan rebels
    28 March 2011

The Libyan National Council, the Benghazi-based group that speaks for the rebel 
forces fighting the Gaddafi regime, has appointed a long-time CIA collaborator 
to head its military operations. The selection of Khalifa Hifter, a former 
colonel in the Libyan army, was reported by McClatchy Newspapers Thursday and 
the new military chief was interviewed by a correspondent for ABC News on Sunday 
night.

Hifter’s arrival in Benghazi was first reported by Al Jazeera on March 14, 
followed by a flattering portrait in the virulently pro-war British tabloid the 
Daily Mail on March 19. The Daily Mail described Hifter as one of the “two 
military stars of the revolution” who “had recently returned from exile in 
America to lend the rebel ground forces some tactical coherence.” The newspaper 
did not refer to his CIA connections.

McClatchy Newspapers published a profile of Hifter on Sunday. Headlined “New 
Rebel Leader Spent Much of Past 20 years in Suburban Virginia,” the article 
notes that he was once a top commander for the Gaddafi regime, until “a 
disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s.”

Hifter then went over to the anti-Gaddafi opposition, eventually emigrating to 
the United States, where he lived until two weeks ago when he returned to Libya 
to take command in Benghazi.

The McClatchy profile concluded, “Since coming to the United States in the early 
1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, DC.” It cited a 
friend who “said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and 
that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.”

To those who can read between the lines, this profile is a thinly disguised 
indication of Hifter’s role as a CIA operative. How else does a high-ranking 
former Libyan military commander enter the United States in the early 1990s, 
only a few years after the Lockerbie bombing, and then settle near the US 
capital, except with the permission and active assistance of US intelligence 
agencies? Hifter actually lived in Vienna, Virginia, about five miles from CIA 
headquarters in Langley, for two decades.

The agency was very familiar with Hifter’s military and political work. A 
Washington Post report of March 26, 1996 describes an armed rebellion against 
Gaddafi in Libya and uses a variant spelling of his name. The article cites 
witnesses to the rebellion who report that “its leader is Col. Khalifa Haftar, 
of a contra-style group based in the United States called the Libyan National Army.”

The comparison is to the “contra” terrorist forces financed and armed by the US 
government in the 1980s against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The 
Iran-Contra scandal, which rocked the Reagan administration in 1986-87, involved 
the exposure of illegal US arms sales to Iran, with the proceeds used to finance 
the contras in defiance of a congressional ban. Congressional Democrats covered 
up the scandal and rejected calls to impeach Reagan for sponsoring the 
flagrantly illegal activities of a cabal of former intelligence operatives and 
White House aides.

A 2001 book, Manipulations africaines, published by Le Monde diplomatique, 
traces the CIA connection even further back, to 1987, reporting that Hifter, 
then a colonel in Gaddafi’s army, was captured fighting in Chad in a 
Libyan-backed rebellion against the US-backed government of Hissène Habré. He 
defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal 
anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his 
own militia, which operated in Chad until Habré was overthrown by a 
French-supported rival, Idriss Déby, in 1990.

According to this book, “the Haftar force, created and financed by the CIA in 
Chad, vanished into thin air with the help of the CIA shortly after the 
government was overthrown by Idriss Déby.” The book also cites a Congressional 
Research Service report of December 19, 1996 that the US government was 
providing financial and military aid to the LNSF and that a number of LNSF 
members were relocated to the United States.

This information is available to anyone who conducts even a cursory Internet 
search, but it has not been reported by the corporate-controlled media in the 
United States, except in the dispatch from McClatchy, which avoids any reference 
to the CIA. None of the television networks, busily lauding the “freedom 
fighters” of eastern Libya, has bothered to report that these forces are now 
commanded by a longtime collaborator of US intelligence services.

Nor have the liberal and “left” enthusiasts of the US-European intervention in 
Libya taken note. They are too busy hailing the Obama administration for its 
multilateral and “consultative” approach to war, supposedly so different from 
the unilateral and “cowboy” approach of the Bush administration in Iraq. That 
the result is the same—death and destruction raining down on the population, the 
trampling of the sovereignty and independence of a former colonial country—means 
nothing to these apologists for imperialism.

The role of Hifter, aptly described 15 years ago as the leader of a 
“contra-style group,” demonstrates the real class forces at work in the Libyan 
tragedy. Whatever genuine popular opposition was expressed in the initial revolt 
against the corrupt Gaddafi dictatorship, the rebellion has been hijacked by 
imperialism.

The US and European intervention in Libya is aimed not at bringing “democracy” 
and “freedom,” but at installing in power stooges of the CIA who will rule just 
as brutally as Gaddafi, while allowing the imperialist powers to loot the 
country’s oil resources and use Libya as a base of operations against the 
popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

Patrick Martin

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/pers-m28.shtml

===========================
On 3/27/11 7:00 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> David Swanson asks, "What do people w/unstated careers in Northern Virginia 
> tend to do? Is Libyan rebel leader CIA?"
>
> Alex Cockburn asks "...to whom exactly are the interveners lending succor? 
> There’s been great vagueness here, beyond enthusiastic references to the 
> romantic revolutionaries of Benghazi, and much ridicule for Qaddafi’s 
> identification of his opponents in eastern Libya as Al Qaida. In fact two 
> documents strongly back Qaddafi on this issue. The first is a secret cable to 
> the State Department from the US embassy in Tripoli in 2008, part of the 
> Wikileaks trove, entitled “Extremism in Eastern Libya” which revealed that 
> this area is rife with anti-American, pro-jihad sentiment ... The second 
> document or rather set of documents are the so-called Sinjar Records, captured 
> Al Qaeda documents that fell into American hands in 2007..." [See 
> <http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn03252011.html>.]
>
> ============
> Posted on Saturday, 03.26.11
> New Libyan rebel leader spent much of past 20 years in suburban Virginia
>
> By CHRIS ADAMS
> McClatchy Newspapers
>
> WASHINGTON -- The new leader of Libya's opposition military spent the past two 
> decades in suburban Virginia but felt compelled - even in his late-60s - to 
> return to the battlefield in his homeland, according to people who know him.
>
> Khalifa Hifter was once a top military officer for Libyan leader Moammar 
> Gadhafi, but after a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s, 
> Hifter switched to the anti-Gadhafi opposition. In the early 1990s, he moved 
> to suburban Virginia, where he established a life but maintained ties to 
> anti-Gadhafi groups.
>
> Late last week, Hifter was appointed to lead the rebel army, which has been in 
> chaos for weeks. He is the third such leader in less than a month, and rebels 
> interviewed in Libya openly voiced distrust for the most recent leader, Abdel 
> Fatah Younes, who had been at Gadhafi's side until just a month ago.
>
> At a news conference Thursday, the rebel's military spokesman said Younes will 
> stay as Hifter's chief of staff, and added that the army - such as it is - 
> would need "weeks" of training.
>
> According to Abdel Salam Badr of Richmond, Va., who said he has known Hifter 
> all his life - including back in Libya - Hifter, whose name is sometimes 
> spelled Haftar, Hefter or Huftur, was motivated by his intense anti-Gadhafi 
> feelings.
>
> "Libyans - every single one of them - they hate that guy so much they will do 
> whatever it takes," Badr said in an interview Saturday. "Khalifa has a 
> personal grudge against Gadhafi.... That was his purpose in life."
>
> According to Badr and another friend in the U.S., a Georgia-based Libyan 
> activist named Salem alHasi, Hifter left for Libya two weeks ago.
>
> alHasi, who said Hifter was once his superior in the opposition's military 
> wing, said he and Hifter talked in mid-February about the possibility that 
> Gadhafi would use force on protesters.
>
> "He made the decision he had to go inside Libya," alHasi said Saturday. "With 
> his military experience, and with his strong relationship with officers on 
> many levels of rank, he decided to go and see the possibility of participating 
> in the military effort against Gadhafi."
>
> He added that Hifter is very popular among members of the Libyan army, "and he 
> is the most experienced person in the whole Libyan army." He acted out of a 
> sense of "national responsibility," alHasi said.
>
> "This responsibility no one can take care of but him," alHasi said. "I know 
> very well that the Libyan army especially in the eastern part is in desperate 
> need of his presence."
>
> Omar Elkeddi, a Libyan expatriate journalist based in Holland, said in an 
> interview that the opposition forces are getting more organized than they were 
> at the beginning up the uprising. Hifter, he said, is "very professional, very 
> distinguished," and commands great respect.
>
> Since arriving in the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in 
> suburban Virginia outside Washington, D.C. Badr said he was unsure exactly 
> what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on 
> helping his large family.
>
> Read more: 
> http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/26/2136063/new-libyan-rebel-leader-spent.html#ixzz1HqaDOxhX
>
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