Libya war based on lies

This video says about itself:

Libya War 2014: Government warplanes bomb Greek-operated oil tanker ARAEVO

5 January 2015

Libyan warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes on a Greek-operated oil tanker on Monday.

By Solomon Hughes in Britain:

Libya and the ‘stupid, stupid facts’

Just as Libya turns a very dark corner, with Isis setting up its bloody camp, comes news that the intervention which hurried the nation into chaos was based on a false prospectus.

The Washington Times has got hold of tapes of conversations between Saif Gadaffi and US officials from summer 2011.

Back then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton — the US equivalent of the foreign secretary — was lobbying hard for more intervention.

She argued that, faced with a revolution, Muammar Gadaffi’s government would launch a massacre of the rebels and their families, justifying Nato bombing.

But it turns out the US joint chiefs of staff distrusted Clinton so much they opened their own negotiations with people around Gadaffi. The talks show that the Pentagon did not believe this massacre was coming.

The Pentagon intermediary told Gadaffi’s government: “You should see these internal State Department reports … that go out to the Congress. They’re just full of stupid, stupid facts”.

The State Department was Clinton’s department. The “stupid, stupid facts” were the arguments for war.

The Pentagon’s intermediary told the Gadaffi government that the adviser to the chair of the joint chiefs of staff — the US’s highest ranking officer — “does not trust the reports that are coming out of the State Department and CIA, but there’s nothing he can do about it.”

The Pentagon’s negotiator told Gadaffi’s people that “I can tell you that the president is not getting accurate information, so at some point someone has to get accurate information to him”, suggesting other intermediaries for negotiations.

Lots of “cruise missile liberals” got overexcited and had a kind of Iraq flashback during the Libyan intervention, backing the bombing as some kind of “liberation”.

But, like Iraq, it was based on a false premise.

The Washington Times files make this case, but it was known at the time. I wrote a series of articles (again, for the Independent) based on conversations with Libyan government figures and intermediaries.

They were, in truth, shocked and surprised that Western governments that had been so friendly to Gadaffi had now turned 180 degrees and were rushing to war against him.

The Libyan government was suing for peace with the revolution.

It was looking for a deal to edge Gadaffi out of power and bring the rebels into government.

Ultimately the decision on any negotiations with the dictator’s regime had to be one for the Libyan rebels themselves. But Nato’s decision to start bombing wiped out any chance for compromise.

It did not, however, prepare the ground for a new Libya. Bombers can’t build anything, let alone a new society.

The bombing meant that neither Libyan group — rebel or government — had to try build a new consensus or create a national coalition.

Unsurprisingly the result is a dark, chaotic country which is fragmenting and creating space for Isis, just like Iraq.

Algiers — Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra reaffirmed Thursday in Algiers that military intervention in Libya and the supply of weapons to the conflicting parties will not promote the expected consensual solution: here.