The Inevitable Rise of Al-Qaeda in Libya

Protesters take part in a demonstration against the capture of Nazih al-Ragye, in Benghazi, Oct. 7, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori)

The Inevitable Rise of Al-Qaeda in Libya

The seizure and rendition of key al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi in Tripoli on Oct. 5 is being hailed as a victory for American counterterrorism efforts. Given that Libi — or Nazih Abdul Hamed al-Raghie, as he is known in civilian life — has been a wanted man in the United States for more than a decade, a victory undoubtedly it is. Libi is under indictment in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 African embassy bombings. On closer inspection, however, the rendition operation also exposes the contradictions of American Libya policy and, in particular, the boon for al-Qaeda-linked and al-Qaeda-inspired groups that the US-backed Feb. 17 revolution against Moammar Gadhafi has represented.

Summary⎙ Print The abduction and release of Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan by an armed group reveals that terrorists have been empowered since the US-backed Feb. 17 revolution, which overthrew Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Author John Rosenthal Posted October 10, 2013

Indeed, the very fact that Libi could have been living openly in Tripoli is a direct result of the triumph of the anti-Gadhafi revolution. Albeit little known to most Americans, during the last years of Gadhafi’s rule, the “old” Libya had become a “critical ally in US counterterrorism efforts” — as one leaked State Department memo put it. Gadhafi was particularly eager to cooperate, given his interest in taming Libya’s own homegrown al-Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The organization — of which Libi was a member — had long been dedicated to overturning Gadhafi's “apostate” rule and replacing it with Islamic governance.
It is surely no coincidence that, per the declarations of his son Abdullah, Libi returned to Tripoli in August 2011. It was at this very time that rebel forces seized control of the Libyan capital, their path to Tripoli having been paved by massive NATO bombing. If the “new” Libya that has emerged as a result was likewise an effective and reliable ally of the United States, then a simple extradition request ought to have sufficed for the United States to obtain custody of Libi. Special forces raids conducted in defiance of another country’s sovereignty are typically reserved for hostile or failed states.
That the triumph of the Libyan rebellion would, on the contrary, provide an exceptionally hospitable environment for al-Qaeda and kindred jihadist organizations was inevitable. As documented in my recent book The Jihadist Plot: The Untold Story of Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion, it was none other than the LIFG that provided the military backbone of the anti-Gadhafi rebellion. The history of close cooperation between the LIFG and al-Qaeda was so extensive that the Libyan group figured among the very first organizations to be designated as al-Qaeda affiliates by the UN Security Council in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, by the late 1990s — long before Ayman al-Zawahiri officially announced the “merger” of the two groups — the LIFG was already essentially operating as a full-fledged al-Qaeda chapter.
The leading role played by the LIFG in the anti-Gadhafi rebellion became glaringly obvious in August 2011, when Tripoli fell and Abdul-Hakim Belhadj, the historical commander of the organization, emerged as the city’s new military governor. Self-professed and celebrated veterans of jihad would likewise lead rebel forces on other key fronts of the Libyan war.
The role played by the LIFG appears to have been anything but accidental. As British court documents cited in The Jihadist Plot show, the LIFG had a longstanding plan for destabilizing the Gadhafi regime, consisting of many of the same tactics that would be put into practice at the outset of the rebellion in February 2011. Testimony suggests that the author of the LIFG plan was Abu al-Munthir, aka Sami al-Saadi, the chief ideologist of the organization.
Both Belhadj and Saadi — respectively, the military and the “spiritual” leader of the LIFG — had just as intimate ties with Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda core as Libi. Indeed, as the leaders of the LIFG, their ties were undoubtedly more intimate. According to former LIFG member Noman Benotman, Belhadj was present with bin Laden at Tora Bora in December 2001 as US and allied forces closed in on the al-Qaeda leader’s mountain refuge. Saadi enjoyed such prestige among the Arab jihadists that established their base of operations in Afghanistan in the 1990s that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is said to have dubbed him — and not bin Laden! — “the Sheikh of the Arabs in Afghanistan.”
Moreover, both men have been connected to major terror plots in the West. Phone records obtained by Spanish investigators show that only weeks before the March 2004 Madrid train bombings, Belhadj was in touch with Serhane ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, the leader of the cell that would go on to carry out the attacks.
Three weeks after the bombings, Fakhet and six accomplices blew themselves up as Spanish police laid siege to their hideout in a Madrid suburb. According to Spanish counterterrorism expert Fernando Reinares, only minutes before the explosives were detonated Fakhet contacted another leading LIFG member in London. At the time, numerous LIFG members were living in asylum in the United Kingdom, as had Libi before he became a suspect in the embassy bombings. The timing strongly suggests that Fakhet’s London contact was the “emir” of the Madrid terror cell.
A certain “Abu Munthir” has been identified by British investigators as the guru of the so-called “fertilizer plot.” The plotters, young British Muslims who had trained in al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan, were planning on setting off ammonium nitrate bombs at civilian targets back home in the United Kingdom. The plot was broken up in early 2004. Numerous clues suggest that the “Abu Munthir” in question is none other than Sami “Abu al-Munthir” al-Saadi. Indeed, Saadi would himself be detained and rendered to Libya at the very time that the “fertilizer plot” was being broken up. According to the testimony of one of plotters, the Abu Munthir of the “fertilizer plot” was also attempting to obtain a radioactive “dirty bomb” — namely, with the help of a certain “Abu Anas.”
In detaining Libi, US authorities undoubtedly believed they were going after low-hanging fruit. But the root of the problem in Libya is the vast and heavily armed network of jihadist militias whose ascendency America and its NATO allies themselves secured. It was to be expected that the militias would not take long to respond to the rendition of Abu Anas. With the temporary detention of Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, who has since been released, an indication of that response has come. By seizing Zeidan, the militias are letting the whole world know where the real power in today’s Libya lies.
John Rosenthal is a European-based journalist and political analyst who writes on transatlantic security issues. His new book is The Jihadist Plot: The Untold Story of Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion. His articles have appeared in such publications as World Affairs, Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, Les Temps Modernes and Die Weltwoche, as well as numerous online media. You can follow his work at www.trans-int.com or on Facebook.

U.S.-Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell Into Jihadis’ Hands

By JAMES RISEN, MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.

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Libyans in Benghazi last year in front of a Libyan flag, right, and a Qatari flag painted on the wall.

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No evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September.

But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government.

The experience in Libya has taken on new urgency as the administration considers whether to play a direct role in arming rebels in Syria, where weapons are flowing in from Qatar and other countries.

The Obama administration did not initially raise objections when Qatar began shipping arms to opposition groups in Syria, even if it did not offer encouragement, according to current and former administration officials. But they said the United States has growing concerns that, just as in Libya, the Qataris are equipping some of the wrong militants.

The United States, which had only small numbers of C.I.A. officers in Libya during the tumult of the rebellion, provided little oversight of the arms shipments. Within weeks of endorsing Qatar’s plan to send weapons there in spring 2011, the White House began receiving reports that they were going to Islamic militant groups. They were “more antidemocratic, more hard-line, closer to an extreme version of Islam” than the main rebel alliance in Libya, said a former Defense Department official.

The Qatari assistance to fighters viewed as hostile by the United States demonstrates the Obama administration’s continuing struggles in dealing with the Arab Spring uprisings, as it tries to support popular protest movements while avoiding American military entanglements. Relying on surrogates allows the United States to keep its fingerprints off operations, but also means they may play out in ways that conflict with American interests.

“To do this right, you have to have on-the-ground intelligence and you have to have experience,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser who is now dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, part of Johns Hopkins University. “If you rely on a country that doesn’t have those things, you are really flying blind. When you have an intermediary, you are going to lose control.”

He said that Qatar would not have gone through with the arms shipments if the United States had resisted them, but other current and former administration officials said Washington had little leverage at times over Qatari officials. “They march to their own drummer,” said a former senior State Department official. The White House and State Department declined to comment.

During the frantic early months of the Libyan rebellion, various players motivated by politics or profit — including an American arms dealer who proposed weapons transfers in an e-mail exchange with a United States emissary later killed in Benghazi — sought to aid those trying to oust Colonel Qaddafi.

But after the White House decided to encourage Qatar — and on a smaller scale, the United Arab Emirates — to ship arms to the Libyans, President Obama complained in April 2011 to the emir of Qatar that his country was not coordinating its actions in Libya with the United States, the American officials said. “The president made the point to the emir that we needed transparency about what Qatar was doing in Libya,” said a former senior administration official who had been briefed on the matter.

About that same time, Mahmoud Jibril, then the prime minister of the Libyan transitional government, expressed frustration to administration officials that the United States was allowing Qatar to arm extremist groups opposed to the new leadership, according to several American officials. They, like nearly a dozen current and former White House, diplomatic, intelligence, military and foreign officials, would speak only on the condition of anonymity for this article.

The administration has never determined where all of the weapons, paid for by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, went inside Libya, officials said. Qatar is believed to have shipped by air and sea small arms, including machine guns, automatic rifles, and ammunition, for which it has demanded reimbursement from Libya’s new government. Some of the arms since have been moved from Libya to militants with ties to Al Qaeda in Mali, where radical jihadi factions have imposed Shariah law in the northern part of the country, the former Defense Department official said. Others have gone to Syria, according to several American and foreign officials and arms traders.

Although NATO provided air support that proved critical for the Libyan rebels, the Obama administration wanted to avoid getting immersed in a ground war, which officials feared could lead the United States into another quagmire in the Middle East. 

U.S.-Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell Into Jihadis’ Hands

Published: December 5, 2012

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As a result, the White House largely relied on Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, two small Persian Gulf states and frequent allies of the United States. Qatar, a tiny nation whose natural gas reserves have made it enormously wealthy, for years has tried to expand its influence in the Arab world. Since 2011, with dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa coming under siege, Qatar has given arms and money to various opposition and militant groups, chiefly Sunni Islamists, in hopes of cementing alliances with the new governments. Officials from Qatar and the emirates would not comment.

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• Pressure Builds on Syrian Opposition Coalition; Fears of Chemical Weapons Rise (December 6, 2012)

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After discussions among members of the National Security Council, the Obama administration backed the arms shipments from both countries, according to two former administration officials briefed on the talks.

American officials say that the United Arab Emirates first approached the Obama administration during the early months of the Libyan uprising, asking for permission to ship American-built weapons that the United States had supplied for the emirates’ use. The administration rejected that request, but instead urged the emirates to ship weapons to Libya that could not be traced to the United States.

“The U.A.E. was asking for clearance to send U.S. weapons,” said one former official. “We told them it’s O.K. to ship other weapons.”

For its part, Qatar supplied weapons made outside the United States, including French- and Russian-designed arms, according to people familiar with the shipments.

But the American support for the arms shipments from Qatar and the emirates could not be completely hidden. NATO air and sea forces around Libya had to be alerted not to interdict the cargo planes and freighters transporting the arms into Libya from Qatar and the emirates, American officials said.

Concerns in Washington soon rose about the groups Qatar was supporting, officials said. A debate over what to do about the weapons shipments dominated at least one meeting of the so-called Deputies Committee, the interagency panel consisting of the second-highest ranking officials in major agencies involved in national security. “There was a lot of concern that the Qatar weapons were going to Islamist groups,” one official recalled.

The Qataris provided weapons, money and training to various rebel groups in Libya. One militia that received aid was controlled by Adel Hakim Belhaj, then leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who was held by the C.I.A. in 2004 and is now considered a moderate politician in Libya. It is unclear which other militants received the aid.

“Nobody knew exactly who they were,” said the former defense official. The Qataris, the official added, are “supposedly good allies, but the Islamists they support are not in our interest.”

No evidence has surfaced that any weapons went to Ansar al-Shariah, an extremist group blamed for the Benghazi attack.

The case of Marc Turi, the American arms merchant who had sought to provide weapons to Libya, demonstrates other challenges the United States faced in dealing with Libya. A dealer who lives in both Arizona and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Turi sells small arms to buyers in the Middle East and Africa, relying primarily on suppliers of Russian-designed weapons in Eastern Europe.

In March 2011, just as the Libyan civil war was intensifying, Mr. Turi realized that Libya could be a lucrative new market, and applied to the State Department for a license to provide weapons to the rebels there, according to e-mails and other documents he has provided. (American citizens are required to obtain United States approval for any international arms sales.)

He also e-mailed J. Christopher Stevens, then the special representative to the Libyan rebel alliance. The diplomat said he would “share” Mr. Turi’s proposal with colleagues in Washington, according to e-mails provided by Mr. Turi. Mr. Stevens, who became the United States ambassador to Libya, was one of the four Americans killed in the Benghazi attack on Sept. 11.

Mr. Turi’s application for a license was rejected in late March 2011. Undeterred, he applied again, this time stating only that he planned to ship arms worth more than $200 million to Qatar. In May 2011, his application was approved. Mr. Turi, in an interview, said that his intent was to get weapons to Qatar and that what “the U.S. government and Qatar allowed from there was between them.”

Two months later, though, his home near Phoenix was raided by agents from the Department of Homeland Security. Administration officials say he remains under investigation in connection with his arms dealings. The Justice Department would not comment.

Mr. Turi said he believed that United States officials had shut down his proposed arms pipeline because he was getting in the way of the Obama administration’s dealings with Qatar. The Qataris, he complained, imposed no controls on who got the weapons. “They just handed them out like candy,” he said.

Material Support to Terrorism: The Case of Libya

Material Support to Terrorism: The Case of Libya

Clare Lopez  —   April 22, 2014
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Libya in 2011 marks the place and the time that the United States (U.S.) and the Obama administration formally switched sides in the Global War on Terror (GWOT). A mere 10 years after al-Qa’eda (supported by Hizballah and Iran) attacked the American homeland in the worst act of terrorism ever suffered by this country, U.S. leadership decided to facilitate the provision of weapons to jihadist militias known to be affiliated with al-Qa’eda and the Muslim Brotherhood in order to bring down a brutal dictator who also just happened to be a U.S. ally in the GWOT at the time.
And the U.S. media were silent. The major broadcast, print, and Internet outlets said not a word about this astonishing turnabout in American foreign policy. To this day, they have not seemed even to recognize that the pivot to support al-Qa’eda took place. But it needs to be said. The American people deserve to understand that their most senior leaders, both elected and appointed, have violated their oaths to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
United States law is quite explicit about providing material support to terrorists: it’s prohibited. Period. 18 U.S. Code § 2339A and 18 U.S. Code § 2339B address Providing Material Support to Terrorists or Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Together, these two sections outlaw the actions of any U.S. person who attempts or conspires to provide, or actually does provide, material support to a foreign terrorist organization knowing that it has been designated a foreign terrorist organization or engages, or has engaged, in “terrorism” or “terrorist activity.” Conspiracy means agreeing or planning to provide such support, whether or not such support ever is actually delivered. Penalties for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism are stiff: imprisonment for up to 15 years and/or a fine of not more than $250,000. Penalties for actually providing or attempting to provide material support to terrorism are even harsher: imprisonment from 15 years to life, with a life sentence applicable if the death of any person results from such crime. Aiding, abetting, counseling, or procuring in support of a violation of Section 2339B is punishable by the same penalties as for the offense itself.
The Arms Export Control Act is another law that makes it illegal for the U.S. government to export “munitions” to any country determined by the Secretary of State to have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.” While this provision applies specifically to those countries—Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria—that are designated as state sponsors of terrorism, the case of Libya stands out nevertheless. Removed from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2006, Libya by early 2011 was swarming with al-Qa’eda and Muslim Brotherhood militias and affiliates fighting to overthrow Muamar Qaddafi’s regime.
The identities of those jihadis and their al-Qa’eda affiliations were well known to the U.S. Intelligence Community, Department of State, and Tripoli Embassy long before the 17 February 2011 revolt broke out against Muamar Qaddafi. As with other al-Qa’eda branches, the Libyan al-Qa’eda affiliates such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) trace their origins back to the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya, which was founded in 1949 when Egyptian Brotherhood members “fled a crackdown in Cairo and took refuge in Benghazi,” according to a May 2012 study by the Brookings Doha Center. Colonel Muamar Qaddafi took over Libya in a 1969 coup d’état and showed little tolerance for Brotherhood activities. Brutal waves of repression kept the Brotherhood in check through the 1980s and 1990s when many Libyan fighters went to Afghanistan to join the mujahedeen in their battle against the Soviet Army. Some of those who fought there, like Abu Anas al-Libi and Abdelhakim Belhadj, would figure prominently in the revolt that ultimately ousted Qaddafi in 2011.
The LIFG was founded in 1990 by Libyan fighters returning from the Afghan jihad who were now intent on waging jihad at home. Qaddafi came down hard on the group, though, and crushed the LIFG’s 1995-1998 insurgency. Some LIFG members had moved to Sudan when Usama bin-Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri found refuge with Omar al-Bashir’s Muslim Brotherhood regime in the early 1990s and others (including Belhadj) eventually fled back to Afghanistan, where both bin-Laden and al-Zawahiri also had relocated by the mid-1990s. Abu Anas al-Libi is alleged to have taken part in the pre-attack casing and surveillance of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya a few years prior to the 1998 al-Qa’eda attack there.
By 1995, things were becoming hot for the jihadis in Sudan and while bin Laden and al-Zawahiri returned to Afghanistan about this time, others such as Anas al-Libi were offered safehaven by the British. In return for political asylum in the UK, MI 6 recruited Anas al-Libi’s support for a failed 1996 plot to assassinate Qaddafi. In all, Anas al-Libi lived in Manchester from 1995-2000—despite his known history of association with bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and other AQ leaders, as well as willingness to participate in assassination plots against national leaders, as I wrote in an October 2013 piece at The Clarion Project. The U.S.’s British partners also provided asylum to Abu Abdullah As-Sadeq, the LIFG’s top commander and allowed the LIFG to publish an Arabic language newspaper called al-Wasat in London. By 2000, though, as the FBI and other Western security services began to close in, Anas al-Libi and others were on the move again, leaving behind a 180-page al-Qa’eda terror training manual that became known as the “Manchester Document.” In the run-up to the 11 September 2001 attacks, Anas al-Libi, Abdelhakim Belhadj, Abu Sufian bin Qumu, and other known LIFG members reconnected with bin Laden in Afghanistan. As John Rosenthal points out in a 10 October 2013 posting, “The Inevitable Rise of Al-Qaeda in Libya,” in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, “the history of close cooperation between the LIFG and al-Qa’eda was so extensive that the Libyan group figured among the very first organizations to be designated as al-Qaeda affiliates by the UN Security Council.” In fact, according to Rosenthal who cites former LIFG member, Norman Benotman, Belhadj was actually present with bin Laden at Tora Bora in December 2001. The LIFG was formally accepted as an al-Qa’eda franchise by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the AQ deputy at the time, in 2007.
In the years following 9/11, various LIFG members were detained: Abu Sufian bin Qumu was captured in 2002 and sent to Guantanamo Bay (GITMO) and in 2004, both Abu Anas al-Libi and Abdelhakim Belhadj were captured. By the mid-2000s, GITMO detainees were being released to their home countries. Abu Sufian bin Qumu, for example, was released from GITMO and returned to Libya in 2007. Beginning about 2005, Qaddafi was under pressure from both the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli and his own son, Seif, to begin what came to be known as “the reconciliation process,” in which LIFG and other jihadist prisoners were released from Libyan jails. In this process, LIFG Muslim Brotherhood cleric Ali Mohammad Al-Sallabi was a key mediator. Abdelhakim Belhadj was released in 2008 (just as Christopher Stevens was appointed Deputy Chief of Mission to Tripoli) and Abu Sufian bin Qumu in 2010, after which he returned to Derna to begin plotting the revolt against Qaddafi.
Even as this “reconciliation process” was underway and Christopher Stevens was preparing for his new posting, Libyan jihadis were flowing out of eastern Libya in droves to join the al-Qa’eda jihad against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. According to a June 2010 study compiled by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq,” coalition forces in Iraq captured a stash of documents in October 2007 which documented the origins of the foreign fighters who’d traveled to Iraq to join al-Qa’eda between August 2006 and August 2007. Termed the “Sinjar Records” after the nearest town where these personnel records were found, the data showed that by far the largest contingent of foreign fighters per capita came from Libya. Across the spectrum, the most common cities of origin for foreign fighters in Iraq were Darnah, Libya and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Darnah is located in the eastern Cyrenaica region of Libya, long known as an incubator of jihadist ideology and the place which would become the cradle of the 2011 Islamic uprising against Muammar Qaddafi.
Nor was the new Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) Christopher Stevens unaware of what was going on. A June 2008 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli that went out over Stevens’ signature was obtained by the London Telegraph from Wikileaks. The report was given the name “Die Hard in Derna,” after the Bruce Willis movie, and described the determination of the young jihadis of this eastern Libyan town to bring down the Qaddafi regime. Because they believed the U.S. government supported the Qaddafi regime and would not allow it to fall after it had abandoned its Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programs and begun to provide counter-terrorism support, and as documented in the West Point study of the “Sinjar Records,” the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) instead sent its fighters to confront the U.S. in Iraq, believing that was a way to strike a blow against both Qaddafi and his U.S. backers. A local Derna resident told the visiting Embassy officer that Libyan fighters who had returned from earlier battlefields in Afghanistan (1980s) and elsewhere sometimes went on for additional “religious training” in Lebanon and Syria; when they eventually returned to Libya in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they began the process of preparing the ground for “the eventual overthrow by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) of Muammar Qadhafi’s regime…”
Career Foreign Service Officer Christopher Stevens was first posted to the American Embassy in Tripoli, Libya in June 2007 as the DCM and later as charge d’affaires until 2009. For his second tour in Libya, Stevens was sent to rebel headquarters in Benghazi, Libya, to serve as special representative to the Libyan Transitional National Council. He arrived on a Greek cargo ship on April 5, 2011 and stayed until November. His mission was to forge stronger links with the Interim Transitional National Council, and gain a better understanding of the various factions fighting the Qaddafi regime. His reports back to Washington were said to have encouraged the U.S. to support and recognize the rebel council, which the Obama administration did formally in July 2011.
As is now known, under urging from Sen. John McCain and other Congressional members, the White House endorsed Qatar’s plan to send weapons to the Libyan rebels shortly after Yousef al-Qaradawi, the senior jurist of the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a 21 February 2011 fatwa that called for the killing of Qaddafi. Seeking a “zero footprint,” no-paperwork-trail profile itself, the U.S. instead encouraged both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to arm the Libyan jihadis, according to a key New York Times article published in December 2012. Knowing full well exactly who those rebel militias and their leadership were, and how closely they were connected with al-Qa’eda (and perhaps even mindful of the legal restrictions on providing material support to terrorism), the U.S. sought to distance itself as the source of these weapons, which included small arms such as automatic rifles, machine guns, and ammunition. The NY Times piece noted that U.S. officials made sure to stipulate the weapons provided would come from elsewhere, but not from the U.S.
But the fact that from the end of March 2011 onward, U.S. and other NATO forces completely controlled Libyan air space and the sea approaches to Libya means that the cargo planes and freighters transporting the arms into Libya from Qatar and elsewhere were being waved through with full U.S. knowledge and support. The U.S. mission in Libya, and especially in Benghazi, ramped up in this period to facilitate the delivery of the weapons to the Libyan al-Qa’eda terrorists.
What followed should hardly have come as a surprise to anyone. After NATO air support cleared the way to Tripoli, the Qaddafi regime fell in October 2011 and the Muslim Brotherhood political leadership and al-Qa’eda fighters took over. Abdelhakim Belhadj was named Tripoli military commander. Chaos reigned, especially in the eastern regions, and now the weapons flow reversed—out of Libya, and into the hands of jihadis in West Africa, the Sinai, and Syria. Some of that flow was wildly disorganized and some of it was directed, with the U.S. mission in Benghazi once again playing a key role as its teams on the ground facilitated the weapons delivery, now destined for the Syrian rebels, dominated by al-Qa’eda and the Muslim Brotherhood, who were fighting to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime. In this endeavor, the U.S. was allied with its new Libyan partner, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and once again, with Qatar.
The next chapter in the U.S. jihad wars was underway, with a new Presidential Finding, and material support to terrorism firmly established as official policy. Congress and the media and the military remained silent. The American people barely noticed.

Impeaching Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Impeaching Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

February 26, 2014 @ USJFstaff → 15 Comments

I have prepared these updated formal Articles of Impeachment as a Constitutional lawyer. They are in proper legal form and all allegations are provable. They will be sent to Congress.
Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly blog
www.usjf.net

Impeaching Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Resolved, That Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Article I

In his conduct while President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has willfully corrupted and manipulated the executive branch to increase its power and destroy the balance of powers between the three branches of government that is established by the Constitution of the United States.
The means used to implement this course of conduct or scheme included one or more of the following acts:
(1)  Shortly after being sworn in for his first term as President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama began creating new departments and appointing Czars to oversee these departments. These Czars were never submitted to the United States Senate for approval as required by Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution. In addition, these Czars and the Departments have budgets that are not subject to being controlled by Congress as provided for by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. He also made recess appointments when the Senate was not in recess and these appointments were struck down by the Supreme Court.

(2)  Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution mandates that the President of the United States “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…” Barack Hussein Obama, in violation of his oath of office has repeatedly ignored this Constitutional mandate by refusing to enforce laws against illegal immigration, defend in court the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and refusing to enforce Federal voting laws.

(3)  Article 1 of the Constitution establishes the legislative branch of the U.S. government and sets forth the powers of the Senate and House of Representatives to make laws. These powers are exclusive and the Constitution does not grant the President the power to either make laws or amend them on his own. Barack Hussein Obama has ignored these provisions and made or changed laws by either issuing unconstitutional executive orders or instructing governmental departments to take illegal and unconstitutional actions. Specific actions include, but are not necessarily limited to:

1. A.   Ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to implement portions of the Cap & Trade bill that failed to pass in the U.S. Senate.
2. B.   Ordering implementation of portions of the “Dream Act” that failed to pass in Congress.
3. C.   Orchestrating a government takeover of a major part of the automobile industry in 2009.
4. D.   Ordering a moratorium on new offshore oil and gas exploration and production without approval of Congress.
5. E.   Signing an Executive Order on March 16, 2012 giving himself and the Executive branch extraordinary powers to control and allocate resources such as food, water, energy and health care resources etc. in the interest of vaguely defined national defense issues. It would amount to a complete government takeover of the U.S. economy.
6. F.    Signing an Executive Order on July 6, 2012 giving himself and the Executive branch the power to control all methods of communications in the United States based on a Presidential declaration of a national emergency.
7. G.  Signing an Executive Order on January 6, 2013 that contained 23 actions designed to limit the individual right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
8. H.  Amending portions of the Affordable Healthcare Act and other laws passed by Congress without Congressional approval as required by Article 1 of the Constitution.
9. I.      Issuing Executive orders in January 2014 amending the HIPPA law to allow the turning over of confidential medical records to Federal agencies if there is any information to be used to add individuals to the NICS list to prohibit them from purchasing firearms.
10. J.     Having the EPA impose regulations on the coal industry that will force many utility companies and coal mines out of business. This will cost the U.S. economy thousands of jobs and dramatically increase the cost of energy to the public. This is being done without Congressional approval.
11. K.  Hindering the ability of the U.S. Border Patrol Agency to not only stop illegal immigration, but to stop human and drug trafficking.
12. L.   Removing the work requirement from welfare reform legislation without Congressional approval.

Article II

(1) Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution mandates that from time to time the President “shall give to Congress information on the State of the Union….” Implicit in this is an obligation for the President to be truthful with the Congress and the American people. Barack Hussein Obama has repeatedly violated his oath of office and the requirements of the Constitution by willfully withholding information on important issues or actively taken part in misleading the Congress and the American people. Specific actions include, but are not necessarily limited to:

1. A.   Using Executive privilege to block Congress from getting documents relating to the DOJ’s Operation Fast and Furious and the death of U.S. Border Patrol Brian Terry.
2. B.   Had members of his administration provide false information about the act of terrorism committed in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 and refusing to allow the State Department and other federal agencies to cooperate in the Congressional investigation.
3. C.   Falsely labeled the mass murder of American soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas as “workplace violence” instead of the act of Islamic terrorism it was.
4. D.   Falsely labeling the IRS targeting of conservative and Christian groups as a “phony” scandal and refusing to order an active pursuit of the investigation into who was ultimately responsible.
5. E.   Refusing to order an independent investigation of the actions of Eric Holder and the DOJ in targeting the phone records of members of the news media.
6. F.    Telling the American people on a television show that the NSA was not prying into the emails and phone calls of Americans when the facts prove otherwise.

(2) The oath of office of the President of the United States requires him to             preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. This obviously includes what may be the most important part of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Barack Hussein Obama has repeatedly violated his oath of office by seeking to limit both the individual rights and the rights of the States guaranteed in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Specific actions include, but are not necessarily limited to:

1. A.    Having the Department of Health and Human Services order religious institutions and businesses owned by religious families to provide their employees free contraception and other services that are contrary to their religious beliefs. This is being done under the auspices of the Affordable Health Care Act and violates the religious freedom clauses of the First Amendment.  
2. B.    Having the military place restrictions on the religious freedom of Chaplains and other members of the military in order to favor gay rights advocates and atheists in violation of the First Amendment.
3. C.    Having the military place restrictions on the freedom of speech of members of the military and the civilian employees of the DOD in violation of their rights under the First Amendment.
4. D.    Using Executive orders and government agency actions to limit Second Amendment rights. This includes actions by the Veterans Administration to disarm American veterans without due process as required by the Fifth Amendment.
5. E.    Having the National Security Agency intercept and monitor the private communications of millions of Americans without a court order and in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
6. F.     Joining with foreign governments in lawsuits against sovereign U.S. states to prohibit them from enforcing immigration laws. This is in violation of the Tenth Amendment.
7. G.   Filing suits under the Voting Rights Act against sovereign U.S. states to prevent them from enforcing Voter ID laws despite rulings by the Supreme Court upholding these laws. This is another violation of the Tenth Amendment and the balance of powers.
8. H.   Having the IRS propose new regulations on conservative 501 (C ) (4) organizations to limit their freedom of speech and political activities during election cycles in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
9. I.      Having the FCC prepare new rules on internet neutrality in violation of the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court striking down such regulations.
10. J.     Having the FCC institute a plan to place agents in newsrooms of radio and television stations as well as print media to monitor whether they are providing the “proper” news content to the public, a direct violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
11. K.   Having the Secretary of State sign the U.N. Small Arms Treaty despite the opposition of a majority of the U.S. Senate and with full awareness that the implementation of the treaty would violate the Second Amendment rights of American citizens.

(3) Under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution the President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of the United States military and as such is responsible for using them in a manner that best serves the national security of the United States and protects our soldiers from unnecessary risks and harm. Barack Hussein Obama has violated his oath of office in this regard. Specific actions include, but are not necessarily limited to:

1. A.   In the name of “political correctness,” he imposed unnecessary and dangerous rules of engagement on our troops in combat causing them to lose offensive and defensive capabilities and putting them in danger. Many American service personnel have been killed or wounded as a result of this policy.
2. B.   Releasing the identity of American military personnel and units engaged in dangerous and secret operations such as the killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy Seal team 6.
3. C.   Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to declare war. Yet, without consulting Congress President Obama ordered the American military into action in Libya.
4. D.   Having the Attorney General tell Secretaries of State that they do not have to comply with the Federal law requiring states to timely send absentee ballots to military personnel.

In all of this, Barack Hussein Obama has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought disrepute on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, Barack Hussein Obama, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.

BOMBSHELL -- VA to Veterans: If You're Late Paying Bills, We Will Prohibit You From Ever Owning a Firearm...

Since I wrote the article titled “Disarming America’s Heroes” I have been inundated with emails and phone calls from veterans and the families of veterans. The horror stories I am hearing are proof that the VA and the Obama administration have launched an all out assault on the Constitutional rights of our nation’s wounded warriors and other veterans.
Veterans are being declared incompetent not because they have a serious mental illness that makes them a danger to themselves or others, but because they have a physical disability resulting from their service in the armed forces or because they simply let their spouses pay the family bills.

If veterans have minor issues with PTSD, have expressed that they are depressed sometimes, or even in the case of Vietnam veterans admit that they are getting older and sometimes forget to pay their bills on time, the bureaucrats at the VA will seek to declare them incompetent. (I am a 65 year old veteran and often forget where I put my car keys, does that make me incompetent to handle my own financial affairs and even worse mean that I can’t own a firearm?) According to the VA it apparently does.

All of this has resulted in America’s heroes being declared incompetent by a process that blatantly violates their rights to due process under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Then, for reasons that have not been explained these same veterans are also being denied their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Many of the veterans I have heard from were initially both scared because of what was happening to them, and hurt because it is their own government that is causing this fear. After all, when they joined the military they signed a blank check to their country to defend it and its Constitution even if it cost them their lives. Yet, now their own government is turning on them and taking from them the very Constitutional rights they fought to preserve.

However, now something else is happening; the fear and betrayal that these veterans felt is turning to anger. Their training and instincts as warriors is coming forth and they are once again prepared to fight for their rights and the rights of other Americans. I think that the Obama administration has picked a fight with the wrong dog. Veterans are fighting back.

As Executive Director of the United States Justice Foundation (www.usjf.net) I am committed to helping these veterans and protecting their Constitutional rights. We are putting together a top notch legal team that is already exploring several potential avenues including administrative procedures and a class action lawsuit.

It will be a huge undertaking since we have veterans who have just received the letter telling them that the VA is considering declaring them incompetent, veterans who have already been declared incompetent and lost their Second Amendment Rights, and even veterans who have gotten the incompetence ruling reversed, but are still blacklisted when it comes to buying firearms. There will be no charge to any veterans or their families that we represent. We will raise the money to finance our efforts from private sources.

There are those detractors who claim that the letter from the VA is not real even though several reporters have contacted me and said they have talked to representatives of the VA and it is confirmed that it is sending out these letters. The VA apparently downplays this by saying it is not a big deal. I suggest that to the veterans who are losing their rights it is a very big deal and we intend to join them in the fight.

If you are a veteran or have a friend or family member who is a veteran and has received one of these letters or already been declared incompetent, please contact me and the USJF. We intend to come out swinging. Our veterans deserve nothing less.

-- Michael Connelly, Constitutional Attorney and United States Army Veteran

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