It's official: The U.S. used Al Qaeda to destroy Libya
Washington's Bloghttp://www.sott.net/
We reported in 2012 that the U.S. supported Al Qaeda in Libya in its effort to topple Gadaffi:
The U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya's Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists.
According to a 2007 report by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda's main headquarters - and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq - prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi:
"There is no question that al Qaeda's Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition," Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times.The Daily Mail reported yesterday:
It has always been Qaddafi's biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi.
Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya. Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled.
(Incidentally, Gaddafi was on the verge of invading Benghazi in 2011, 4 years after the West Point report cited Benghazi as a hotbed of Al Qaeda terrorists. Gaddafi claimed - rightly it turns out - that Benghazi was an Al Qaeda stronghold and a main source of the Libyan rebellion. But NATO planesstopped him, and protected Benghazi.)
A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented - if the U.S. hadn't been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier.
'The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,' Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline.
She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants.
'Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,' Lopez claimed. 'They were permitted to come in. ... [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed..
'The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress - if they were briefed on this - also knew about this.'
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'The White House and senior Congressional members,' the group wrote in an interim report released Tuesday, 'deliberately and knowingly pursued a policy that provided material support to terrorist organizations in order to topple a ruler [Muammar Gaddafi] who had been working closely with the West actively tosuppress al-Qaeda.'
'Some look at it as treason,' said Wayne Simmons, a former CIA officer who participated in the commission's research.
The same thing is happening in Syria. The U.S. "switched sides" and is supporting our arch enemy Al Qaeda.
Specifically, the Benghazi "embassy" became the CIA headquarters for transferring - after Gaddaffi fell - weapons in Libya to the Syrian Al Qaeda rebels, as confirmed by Pulitzer prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh.
Comment: In 1951 Libya was the poorest nation in the world. By 2010, guided by Gaddafi's vision for a strong and unified continent, it had become the the jewel of Africa. The people received free education, with every citizen owning their own home and vehicle. Basic human rights were, for the most part, universally honored. It was, by any standards, one of the most successful social experiments the modern world has seen. It still puts the West to shame. Its ongoing, barbaric destruction is one more heinous crime against humanity committed by NATO.
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