The American embassy in Tripoli, Libya has been emptied and the staff have all moved out of the country. America's presence in Libya is now limited to just three people who remain as representatives of the world's only superpower. Even when Gaddafi was in charge in Libya, the USA had a bigger staff in its embassy. Now, Libya is a failed state in which terrorists and other armed militias run rampant and American interests are constantly at risk.
I cannot and will not quarrel with the decision to pull our people out of Libya. We simply do not have all the relevant facts. What we do know, however, is that Libya today is a country whose status is very much the product of the foreign policy followed by president Obama and his secretary of state during the relevant time: Hillary Clinton. Obama involved American air power in Libya to start the destruction of the Gaddafi regime, but after a few days he pulled out. Indeed, Libya is the source of the famous description of Obama's policy of "leading from behind". Our European allies stepped in to help overthrow Gaddafi at that point; American forces never returned. Then came the real problem for US policy. Once Gaddafi was ousted, the United States continued to ignore Libya. We did nothing to help stabilize that country. We did nothing to help avoid the seizure of massive amounts of weaponry by the terrorists groups active in the region. As a result, big batches of Gaddafi's weapons fell into the hands of groups like al Nusra. Most likely, it was captured Gaddafi weapons that were used to overrun the consulate in Benghazi two years ago when the ambassador and three other Americans were murdered. Obama also took no steps to facilitate any sort of strong national government in Libya that would be able to confront the militias and terror groups. No, once Gaddafi fell, Obama and Clinton did not even try to lead from behind. Instead, they just totally ignored Libya.
The Obama/Clinton policy failure in Libya is the direct cause of America's current need to evacuate the country. It is a policy failure of major moment as Libya becomes yet another Middle Eastern country sinking into permanent upheaval mode. Of course, since the media does not want to make Clinton look bad and since some still want to protect Obama, we hear little about this disaster. In fairness, there are so many other disasters at the moment, that the media may be busy with other things. Nevertheless, this is a big story that everyone ought to hear.
I cannot and will not quarrel with the decision to pull our people out of Libya. We simply do not have all the relevant facts. What we do know, however, is that Libya today is a country whose status is very much the product of the foreign policy followed by president Obama and his secretary of state during the relevant time: Hillary Clinton. Obama involved American air power in Libya to start the destruction of the Gaddafi regime, but after a few days he pulled out. Indeed, Libya is the source of the famous description of Obama's policy of "leading from behind". Our European allies stepped in to help overthrow Gaddafi at that point; American forces never returned. Then came the real problem for US policy. Once Gaddafi was ousted, the United States continued to ignore Libya. We did nothing to help stabilize that country. We did nothing to help avoid the seizure of massive amounts of weaponry by the terrorists groups active in the region. As a result, big batches of Gaddafi's weapons fell into the hands of groups like al Nusra. Most likely, it was captured Gaddafi weapons that were used to overrun the consulate in Benghazi two years ago when the ambassador and three other Americans were murdered. Obama also took no steps to facilitate any sort of strong national government in Libya that would be able to confront the militias and terror groups. No, once Gaddafi fell, Obama and Clinton did not even try to lead from behind. Instead, they just totally ignored Libya.
The Obama/Clinton policy failure in Libya is the direct cause of America's current need to evacuate the country. It is a policy failure of major moment as Libya becomes yet another Middle Eastern country sinking into permanent upheaval mode. Of course, since the media does not want to make Clinton look bad and since some still want to protect Obama, we hear little about this disaster. In fairness, there are so many other disasters at the moment, that the media may be busy with other things. Nevertheless, this is a big story that everyone ought to hear.
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