[Peace-discuss] Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention

[David Johnson]

 <http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/> Description: Foreign Policy Journal

This is the real Hillary Clinton  e-mail scandal that the Republicans don’t
want to talk about.

 

Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention

by  <http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/author/brad-hoff/> Brad Hoff
January 6, 2016 11 Comments 

Newly disclosed emails show that Libya’s plan to create a gold-backed
currency to compete with the euro and dollar was a motive for NATO’s
intervention.

 
<http://cdn5.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Muammar-al-
Gaddafi.jpg> Description: Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, murdered by
Western-backed rebels on October 20, 2011, planned to create a gold-backed
African currency to compete with the dollar and euro. (Photo: Jesse B.
Awalt/US Navy)Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, murdered by Western-backed
rebels on October 20, 2011, planned to create a gold-backed African currency
to compete with the dollar and euro. (Photo:
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muammar_al-Gaddafi,_12th_AU_Summit,
_090202-N-0506A-324.jpg> Jesse B. Awalt/US Navy) 

The New Year’s Eve release of over 3,000 new Hillary Clinton emails from the
State Department has CNN
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/31/politics/clinton-email-release-state-departme
nt-behind/> abuzz over gossipy text messages, the “who gets to ride with
Hillary” selection process set up by her staff, and how a “cute” Hillary
photo fared on Facebook.

But historians of the 2011 NATO war in Libya will be sure to notice a few of
the truly explosive confirmations contained in the
<https://www.foia.state.gov/Search/Results.aspx?collection=Clinton_Email_Dec
ember_Release> new emails: admissions of rebel war crimes, special ops
trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of protests, Al Qaeda embedded
in the U.S. backed opposition, Western nations jockeying for access to
Libyan oil, the nefarious origins of the absurd Viagra mass rape claim, and
concern over Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves threatening European
currency.

Hillary’s Death Squads

A March 27, 2011, intelligence
<https://www.foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_DecWebClearedMeta/3
1-C1/DOC_0C05782401/C05782401.pdf> brief on Libya, sent by long time close
adviser to the Clintons and Hillary’s unofficial intelligence gatherer,
Sidney Blumenthal, contains clear evidence of war crimes on the  part of
NATO-backed rebels. Citing a rebel commander source “speaking in strict
confidence” Blumenthal reports to Hillary [emphasis mine]:

Under attack from allied Air and Naval forces, the Libyan Army troops have
begun to desert to the rebel side in increasing numbers. The rebels are
making an effort to greet these troops as fellow Libyans, in an effort to
encourage additional defections.

(Source Comment: Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated
that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries
captured in the fighting
).

While the illegality of extra-judicial killings is easy to recognize (groups
engaged in such are conventionally termed “death squads”), the sinister
reality behind the “foreign mercenaries” reference might not be as
immediately evident to most.

While over the decades Gaddafi was known to make use of European and other
international security and infrastructural contractors, there is no evidence
to suggest that these were targeted by the Libyan rebels.

There is, however, ample  <http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16051349>
documentation by journalists, academics, and human rights groups
demonstrating that black Libyan civilians and sub-Saharan contract workers,
a population favored by Gaddafi in his pro-African Union policies, were
targets of “racial cleansing” by rebels who saw black Libyans as tied
closely with the regime.[1]

Black Libyans were commonly branded as “foreign mercenaries” by the rebel
opposition for their perceived general loyalty to Gaddafi as a community and
subjected to torture, executions, and their towns “liberated” by ethnic
cleansing. This is demonstrated in the most well-documented example of
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawergha> Tawergha, an entire town of 30,000
black and “dark-skinned” Libyans which vanished by August 2011 after its
takeover by NATO-backed NTC Misratan brigades.

These attacks were well-known as late as 2012 and often filmed, as this
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/912481
7/Libyan-rebels-force-black-Africans-to-eat-flags-in-cage.html> report from
The Telegraph confirms:

After Muammar Gaddafi was killed, hundreds of migrant workers from
neighboring states were imprisoned by fighters allied to the new interim
authorities. They accuse the black Africans of having been mercenaries for
the late ruler. Thousands of sub-Saharan Africans have been rounded up since
Gaddafi fell in August.

It appears that Clinton was getting personally briefed on the battlefield
crimes of her beloved anti-Gaddafi fighters long before some of the worst of
these genocidal crimes took place.

Al-Qaeda and Western Special Forces Inside Libya

The same intelligence
<https://www.foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_DecWebClearedMeta/3
1-C1/DOC_0C05782401/C05782401.pdf> email from Sydney Blumenthal also
confirms what has become a well-known theme of Western supported
insurgencies in the Middle East: the contradiction of special forces
training militias that are simultaneously suspected of links to Al Qaeda.

Blumenthal relates that “an extremely sensitive source” confirmed that
British, French, and Egyptian special operations units were training Libyan
militants along the Egyptian-Libyan border, as well as in Benghazi suburbs.

While analysts have long speculated as to the “when and where” of Western
ground troop presence in the Libyan War, this email serves as definitive
proof that special forces were on the ground only within a month of the
earliest protests which broke out in the middle to end of February 2011 in
Benghazi.

By March 27 of what was commonly assumed a simple “popular uprising”
external special operatives
<https://www.foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_DecWebClearedMeta/3
1-C1/DOC_0C05782401/C05782401.pdf> were already “overseeing the transfer of
weapons and supplies to the rebels” including “a seemingly endless supply of
AK47 assault rifles and ammunition.”

Yet only a few paragraphs after this admission, caution is voiced about the
very militias these Western special forces were training because of concern
that, “radical/terrorist groups such as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al
Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC and its
military command.”

The Threat of Libya’s Oil and Gold to French Interests

Though the French-proposed U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 claimed the
no-fly zone implemented over Libya was to protect civilians, an April 2011
<https://www.foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_DecWebClearedMeta/3
1-C1/DOC_0C05779612/C05779612.pdf> email sent to Hillary with the subject
line “France’s client and Qaddafi’s gold” tells of less noble ambitions.

The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack
on Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to obtain Libyan oil, ensure
French influence in the region, increase Sarkozy’s reputation domestically,
assert French military power, and to prevent Gaddafi’s influence in what is
considered “Francophone Africa.”

Most astounding is the lengthy section delineating the huge threat that
Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves, estimated at “143 tons of gold, and a
similar amount in silver,” posed to the French franc (CFA) circulating as a
prime African currency. In place of the noble sounding “Responsibility to
Protect” (R2P) doctrine fed to the public, there is this “confidential”
explanation of what was really driving the war [emphasis mine]:

This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to
be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden
Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries
with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).

(Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of
gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence
officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and
this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s
decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.)

Though this internal email aims to summarize the motivating factors driving
France’s (and by implication NATO’s) intervention in Libya, it is
interesting to note that saving civilian lives is conspicuously absent from
the briefing.

Instead, the great fear reported is that Libya might lead North Africa into
a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency.

French intelligence “discovered” a Libyan initiative to freely compete with
European currency through a local alternative, and this had to be subverted
through military aggression.

The Ease of Floating Crude Propaganda

Early in the Libyan conflict Secretary of State Clinton formally accused
Gaddafi and his army of using mass rape as a tool of war. Though numerous
international organizations, like Amnesty International, quickly
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that
-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html> debunked these claims,
the charges were uncritically echoed by Western politicians and major media.

It seemed no matter how bizarre the conspiracy theory, as long as it painted
Gaddafi and his supporters as monsters, and so long as it served the cause
of prolonged military action in Libya, it was deemed credible by network
news.

Two foremost examples are referenced in the latest batch of emails: the
sensational claim that Gaddafi issued Viagra to his troops for mass rape,
and the claim that bodies were “staged” by the Libyan government at NATO
bombing sites to give the appearance of the Western coalition bombing
civilians.

In a late March 2011
<https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_DecWebClearedMeta/31-C1
/DOC_0C05782390/C05782390.pdf> email, Blumenthal confesses to Hillary that,

I communicated more than a week ago on this story—Qaddafi placing bodies to
create PR stunts about supposed civilian casualties as a result of Allied
bombing—though underlining it was a rumor. But now, as you know, Robert
gates gives credence to it. (See story below.)

Sources now say, again rumor (that is, this information comes from the rebel
side and is unconfirmed independently by Western intelligence), that Qaddafi
has adopted a rape policy and has even distributed Viagra to troops. The
incident at the Tripoli press conference involving a woman claiming to be
raped is likely to be part of a much larger outrage. Will seek further
confirmation.

Not only did Defense Secretary Robert Gates
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/26/robert-gates-libya-violence-gaddaf
i-bodies_n_841081.html> promote his bizarre “staged bodies” theory on CBS
News’ “Face The Nation,” but the even stranger Viagra rape
<http://antiwar.com/blog/2011/04/30/susan-rices-viagra-hoax-the-new-incubato
r-babies/> fiction made international headlines as U.S. Ambassador to the UN
Susan Rice made a formal charge against Libya in front of the UN Security
Council.

What this new email confirms is that not only was the State Department aware
of the spurious nature of what Blumenthal calls “rumors” originating solely
with the rebels, but did nothing to stop false information from rising to
top officials who then gave them “credence.”

It appears, furthermore, that the Viagra mass rape hoax likely
<http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/31/sid-blumenthal-floated-disputed-gaddafi-v
iagra-rape-rumor-in-confidential-memo-to-hillary/> originated with Sidney
Blumenthal himself.

Note

[1] The most comprehensive and well-documented study of the plight of black
Libyans is contained in
<http://www.barakabooks.com/catalogue/slouching-towards-sirte/> Slouching
Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa (publ. 2012, Baraka Books) by
<http://zeroanthropology.net/max-forte/> Maximilian Forte, Professor
Anthropology and Sociology at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec.

 

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