Hillary Broke Libya
ISIS has a seaport, and al Qaeda’s gone wild.
You might think that the fact that four Americans died in the 2012 attack on our embassy in Libya (on Hillary Clinton’s watch) was bad enough, but you’d be wrong.
Stephen Collinson of CNN:
Hillary Clinton’s real Libya problem
Hillary Clinton has another Libya problem.
She’s already grappling with the political headaches from deleted emails and from the terror attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi.
But she’ll face a broader challenge in what’s become of the North African country since, as secretary of state in 2011, she was the public face of the U.S. intervention to push out its longtime strongman, Moammar Gadhafi.
Libya’s lapse into the chaos of failed statehood has provided a breeding ground for terror and a haven for groups such as ISIS. Its plight is also creating an opening for Republican presidential candidates to question Clinton’s strategic acumen and to undermine her diplomatic credentials, which will be at the center of her pitch that only she has the global experience needed to be president in a turbulent time.
Gathering questions over Libya also point to one of the central complications of Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic nomination, due to formally launch on Saturday: the fact that she must own a record at the State Department that lacks clear-cut diplomatic triumphs. She’ll also have to answer for misfires in the Obama administration’s wider foreign policy as GOP candidates who have not faced the same tough choices can nitpick her record with the advantage of hindsight.
If Hillary Clinton gets the 2016 Democratic nomination, an idea which still seems inevitable despite small advances by Bernie Sanders, Democrats will rely heavily on her foreign policy experience as secretary of state.
Unfortunately for them, nothing on her resume reflects success.
Kenneth R. Timmerman of Accuracy in Media:
The Clinton Record on Libya
On August 21, 2011, a top aide to Hillary Clinton penned a memo lauding his boss for steering U.S. policy in Libya, aimed at convincing the media of her accomplishments as Secretary of State.
“HRC has been a critical voice on Libya in administration deliberations, at NATO, and in contact group meetings—as well as the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya. She was instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition, and tightening the noose around Qadhafi and his regime,” Clinton aide Jake Sullivan wrote.
Sullivan’s memo to Mrs. Clinton’s inner circle is, of course, embarrassing today, which is one reason you are not reading about it on the front pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post.
At the Democratic convention in 2012, Obama boasted that al Qaeda was on the path to defeat.
Hillary Clinton won’t be able to make the same claim in 2016.
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Comments
Before the Obama administration came into existence, one of the left’s most frequent criticisms of Bush and Cheney was that they didn’t have an effective exit strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes, they defeated Saddam and the Taliban, but then what? Our military was “stuck” in Afghanistan and Iraq (to borrow John Kerry’s phrase), trying to keep the peace in countries that didn’t want us there, at enormous expense to U.S. taxpayers.
So then the “Smart Power” crowd decides that the best way to avoid future problems like the ones Bush and Cheney created in the middle east was to not put American boots on the ground in the first place. Just use the U.S. Air Force to take out the existing power structure in troublesome countries like Libya, then sit back and wait for a new, fairer, more democratic government to fill the power vacuum. Except, oopsie, turns out that when you create a power vacuum in a country filled with AQ terror cells, it’s terrorists who rush to fill it, not fair-minded, America-loving democrats.
But after you’ve spent years smugly and self-righteously assuring the American people that you’re soooooo much smarter and better at foreign policy than the foolish Bush/Cheney folks, how do you admit that you’re really just a clueless dumbass? Apparently, if you’re Hillary Clinton, you just don’t bother — because you know nobody in the media will ever hold you accountable.
No, the fair-minded, America-loving democrats did rush to fill it, but if you don’t help them with military aid, the AQ or Al Qaeda-like terror cells will tend to win control after a while. And Obama , with Hillary Clinton playing along, didn’t want to do anything even minimally. They didn’t even want to spend money or attention on security for Americans there.
There are times when would be dictatorial groups don’t exist, or you don’t need to do much for them to be stymied. Most of the 19th century in Europe was such a time, but now is not such a time, especially in Moslem countries.
Most of the Twentieth Century was not such a time, and a dozen years after the Czar was overthrown, there was Stalin; and fifteen years after the Kaiser was forced out there was Hitler, and less than 5 years after the Japanese agreed to leave China in 1945, there was a horrible Communist government there.
After World War II the main danger was Communism, but that was enough to cause trouble, the United States was able to prevent them from dominating where it kept troops. Iraq in 1991 was such a time – there was no al Qaeda and not even Communism, but Iraq in 2003 was not.
Obama got reelected while mocking Romney about geopolitical foe Russia, and Hillary can’t make that argument either. Instead her reset button should be mocked.
Obama got reelected after pushing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi into power in Egypt. I’m not clear on Hillary’s exact role there, except her close friend and assistant Huma Abedin has deep ties to the MB. And after overseeing the murder of many Christians and imposing Sharia, Egypt’s army kicked Morsi out and he’s sentenced to death. There are claims of evidence of Hillary involvement in the MB uprisings, and ties to the Morsi’s wife.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/the-dark-muslim-brotherhood-world-of-huma-abedin-2/
I’m guessing there are many such “friends of Hillary” around the world that feel they own a piece of Hillary, and have email proof to hold over her head. No wonder she needed her own servers, to hide from all the FOIA requests, AND our own government.
And Chinagate should finally get a broad public hearing, as Billary apparently helped deliver the crown jewels of our missile tech to them a couple decades ago, but the witnesses largely disappeared, and the blue dress distracted from the red treason.
On the world stage, Hillary has strengthened our enemies.
This is something that will stick, if the Repub candidates choose to use it.
“You broke it, you own it” is a viable criticism for any administrative blunder. There is no need to get personal and nasty about it. I would avoid personal and nasty, because that immediately opens the candidate up to the (too often successful) attack that Repubs are mean-spirited. I would recommend something with themes along the following lines:
[grins] Well, you know, Winston Churchill said “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else.” This administration has been busy trying everything else, except what their experienced technical advisors recommend. It’s been a real learning experience. We can re-assess now, take the results of this administration’s experiments, and at minimum discard the worst of their mistakes. If we only manage to do that much, the world and our homes will be a better place.”
George W Bush “tiptoed” into a relationship with Gaddafi? That is an interesting way to describe what happened.
After the fall of Saddam, Gaddafi approached us with an offer: he would open up and dismantle his advanced but little known WMD program if the US would not act against him. We agreed to his proposal but then the Clinton State Department reneged and unilaterally violated our arrangement.
The Obama Administration turned Libya into a failed country and proved that the word of the USA is worthless.
“You broke it, you bought it” was a common meme before 2008. Haven’t heard it used much lately.
Obama, Commander in Chief, pro-abortionist, is our first Teflon president.
Just wondering why we can’t deal with Hillary Clinton as we would any nag with a broken leg. For the record, I wouldn’t use the glue….