Hillary Clinton’s Ineptitude – The Libyan Fiasco Does Not Begin With The Benghazi Attack, It Ends There….

Hillary Clinton’s Ineptitude – The Libyan Fiasco Does Not Begin With The Benghazi Attack, It Ends There….

Posted on January 2, 2014 by sundance

It is remarkable how laser focused people tend to be around Libya and Hillary Clinton.   The focus is almost exclusively on the Benghazi attack which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
The Benghazi attack which occurred on Sept 11, 2012, was a symptom of foreign policy failure; the actual cause of the policy failure happened a full year-and-a-half earlier in February 2011.

PART ONE – The Origin Of The Libyan Crisis

President Obama lit the fuse on the Egyptian collapse, and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, when he turned his visible back on Egypt’s former President Mubarak.
With Mubarak out of the way the law banning the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood was removed.   The Brotherhood members held in Egyptian jails were freed.  This included Muhamed al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaeda’s #1 man Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Initially there was great hope for a politically democratic approach toward Egypt.  However, by the time the FaceBook crowd was dispatched, CBS’s Lara Logan raped in Tahir Square and the visible rise of the hardline Islamists taking control - Egypt became a political risk of policy failure for the Obama administration.
 
Egypt and Libya share a very long and very porous border.  There is little to no actual impediment to the border itself so travelers can easily go from Western Egypt into Eastern Libya with as much ease as one travelling from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.  

So it was no real surprise, for those of us who were monitoring events closely, when we saw the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and radical Islamist influence, transfer their sentiment to the Eastern Libyan region around Benghazi.
What was surprising in 2011 was that no-one in the U.S. government apparently anticipated it happening.   Certainly not the Obama administration or the State Dept who were totally flat-footed when Benghazi “Rebels” began fighting for the removal of Libyan leader Kaddaffi.
Those Eastern Libya rebels, filled with a renewed sense of purpose from their Egyptian brothers, began a civil war quite easily.
Both President Obama and Hillary Clinton were slow to even acknowledge what was taking place.   Indeed the first voice outside of Libya was French Prime Minister Sarkozy.
Sarkozy almost immediately began calling for the ouster of Kaddaffi and requesting Western nations to get involved to insure Kaddaffi fell.    Sarkozy was quite passionate about it – which struck many observers as odd because he was ‘so far out’ ahead of any nation on this position.
However, unlike Egypt, as the fighting intensified President Obama was curiously silent around Libya.
This initial non-reaction was played by the adoring U.S. media as Obama being calm under pressure.   However, this calm was beset by the reality of what was actually reported to be taking place on the ground in Libya.  The word “slaughter” was in almost every article.
Meanwhile President Obama seemed unfazed, and strangely quiet.  So much so that Sarkozy was demanding President Obama say something, anything.   This U.S. silence went on for over two full weeks until eventually the media headlines began to question the Obama strategy, or, well actually, the lack thereof.
This culminated in a weekend around February 24, 25 and 26th, 2011, when headlines began to read that Kaddaffi “strafes” while Obama “golfs”. and astoundingly enough the Libyan Ambassador to the U.S. went on national television and begged for Obama to do something, ANYTHING.
Then a seemingly innocuous event transpired which actually summarized the lack of U.S. leadership quite well.   This became the origin of the “leading from behind” sentiment.
It is important to understand that under President Obama the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations is actually a cabinet level position.  In 2011 Ambassador Susan Rice and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, were essentially equal peers.

Ambassador Rice representing Obama to the U.N. in New York, and Secretary Clinton representing Obama to nations while “on-the-road” so to speak.   Under the leadership structure of Obama’s cabinet both held equal and equivocal rank.
During that critical February weekend when the world was desperately demanding some form of action around the civil war in Libya, Sarkozy was having visible fits on EU television and trying to put together a European coalition.
In direct response to the Sarkozy tears the U.N. announced an emergency Security Council meeting of nations to determine what, if any, action could be taken to stop what was described as the “pending slaughter in Libya”.
However, instead of attending that emergency U.N. meeting February 25th, Ambassador Rice went to South Africa to attend a global warming summit where they were discussing the danger of bovine flatulence as it relates to harming the environment.
Back in Washington DC the optics were even worse.   After ignoring cries for opinion, let alone involvement, and with Rice blowing off the U.N. Security council meeting, and against the backdrop of media beginning to sense a detached president more interested in golf than Libya, the whole optical mess exploded.
Because on that very night, a detached President Obama and his wife Michelle held a Motown Review Concert in the East Room of the White House.

Talk about a bad optic.

Alone the White House party seemed a bit detached, but against the backdrop of hundreds of women and children being strafed in the streets, the optic was horrendous.
The contrast was so bold, and so stark, and happened so fast, and was seen by Europe and the United Nations as, well, unfathomable.   The proverbial water-carrying media couldn’t ignore it if they wanted to.
Recognizing what was unfolding a rapid White House team scrambled with a crisis response…..
(to be continued)
In part 2 (tomorrow) we’ll show what happened as a result of the rush to action.  Including: the botched State Dept. evacuation of U.S. citizens from Tripoli, the introduction of Samantha Power, and the failure to vet the head of the “rebels”, exiled Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil.