From 2003 to 2010,
almost 1,100 suicide bombers detonated themselves in Iraq using either an
explosive vest or belt, or while driving an explosive-laden vehicle. These
1,100 suicide bombers killed at least 12,000 people, including over 200 coalition Soldiers.
During the peak of insurgency in 2007, Libya had twice as many fighters in Iraq
per capita than any other country, representing about 19%
of the total number of jihadists in Iraq. Documents uncovered in a raid near the
Iraqi-Syrian border detail that 85% of them had come with the intent to perform
a suicide bombing. 52 of the Libyan suicide bombers were from the Libyan city of Derna, which is
located in eastern Libya about 180 miles east of Benghazi.
Considering that
Derna’s population is only 80,000, this means that one out of every 1,500 Derna
residents traveled to and detonated themselves in Iraq. If this same rate were
applied to the entire muslim world, it would mean that in an eight year period
there would be over one million muslim suicide bombers worldwide.
With the start of the
'Arab Spring' in early 2011, then, why did the United States support the same
islamist militias in eastern Libya that had sent such a high number of suicide
bombers into Iraq?
The inside the box answer is to equip them to overthrow
Gaddafi. There is verifiable information that Gaddafi encouraged, but did not
directly support, the mission of these jihadists in Iraq, but the reason he did
so is only half out of pure American hatred. Put simply, he just wanted
them the hell out of his country.
A very eccentric
person to say the least, Gaddafi kept islamists on the run in his country,
mainly by brutally killing groups of them periodically in order to intimidate
and keep the main body at bay. He also kept his own military forces, and the
public in general, in a strange state of disorder and fear – on purpose – so
that they would not pose a threat to him.
It is also note-worthy that
in December 2003, not long after the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Gaddafi voluntarily dismantled his nuclear and chemical weapons
programs.
It was quite evident that he thought Libya was next on Bush's list unless he played nice. So for a multitude of reasons, in the years leading up to the end of his
life, Gaddafi was scared shitless of every potential shadow in his midst.
On a side note, I am not sure why a top Democratic Party operative laughed when it was discovered that Gaddafi was killed by a mob and dragged through the streets. If that is her position on summary execution, fine, but such a position would stand in stark contrast to her party's fierce opposition to enhanced interrogation. It makes no sense to be against temporarily making a prisoner feel uncomfortable, but support action to grotesquely kill prisoners without trial.
Moving on, the
group known as the Libyan islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) was the main rebel force the U.S.
supported to overthrow Gaddafi. LIFG was directly affiliated with Al Queda and
its membership comprised of the same type of radical extremists found in the suicide bombing capital of Derna.
Their leader,
Abdelhakim Belhadj, is reported to have had numerous meetings with Ambassador
Stevens over the course of the Libyan insurrection – the first of these
meetings was in March 2011. After Gaddafi was executed and his body dragged
through the streets by Libyan jihadists in October 2011, two things happened:
- Belhadj traveled to
Istanbul
to meet with rebels from the Free Syrian Army – the secular rebel movement
fighting Bashar Al Assad’s regime
- The LIFG
disintegrated; most of them took off their LIFG t-shirts and put on t-shirts
that said Ansar al-shariah (translation = soldiers of shariah or soldiers
of islamic law)
The United States was funneling weapons into Libya starting in the spring of 2011.
At best, this is extreme naiveté, given to whom the weapons were going. But with
the assassination of Ambassador Stevens, the jihadists severed the tie that
supplied them with arms for 18 months. Why would they do that?
Ambassador
Stevens likely outgrew his usefulness to the Libyan jihadists, and they
increasingly saw him as a threat their ambitions in the region. Incidentally,
so did Turkey.
Stevens likely knew this, which is why he issued 12 separate
requests for increased security in the region and specifically at the Benghazi Consulate. His requests
were not only denied by the State Department, his superiors actually
ordered security to decrease:
- 15 man SOF embassy site security team was ordered out of Benghazi in July
2012
- Three
mobile security teams were moved out of Tripoli
- Only
five federal diplomatic security agents remained in Benghazi, along with
rotating shifts of 4-5 members of the "17 February Brigade"
- Naive
dumbasses assume the "17 February Brigade" name stems from
official date that marked the start of the Libyan rebellion:
February 17, 2011. Others will notice that February 17 was also the day jihadists
attacked the Italian Embassy in Tripoli, Libya in 2006.
11 people were killed and dozens injured. The attack was justified by
jihadists because an Italian official reportedly wore a shirt poking fun
at Mohammed, the supposed prophet of islam
On
the night of his death, Stevens met with the Turkish Counsel General, who was
likely serving as negotiator on behalf of the Libyan jihadists. Stevens was
likely trying to use the continuation of U.S. small arms shipments as leverage
against the jihadists. His purpose was to get the jihadists to hand over heavy weapons - things like former Gaddafi-owned SA-7 surface-air-missiles
and unaccounted chemical munitions that had been seized after the jihadist
rebels gained control of the country.
Stevens had a tough
objective: try to entice jihadis and the Turkish government to stay infatuated
by shipments of rifles, machine guns, mortars, and RPGs, but get them to
believe that giving up chemical weapons and surface-to-air missiles would
enhance their position.
The Turkish Counsel General left the meeting with
Stevens in Benghazi at 8:30 p.m. local time. The attack started 70 minutes
later. Stevens had likely stood his ground at the meeting, had therefore had outgrown his
usefulness to both the Libyan jihadis and Turkey.
For
their part, Turkey wanted Ambassador Stevens to look the other way as 400 tons
of these heavy weapons were loaded on a Libyan ship destined for
Turkey. Turkey had been waiting impatiently to disburse the weapons,
particularly the SA-7 missiles, over their Southern border and into Syria.
Stevens likely somehow stood in the way of this shipment, or tried to insert
himself too strongly into the equation for the likes of the Libyan rebels or
the Turkish government.
On October 17,
Reuters reported that Syrian rebels
had been using those missiles to shoot down Syrian helicopters and fighter
jets.
It is not a secret
that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has a personal vendetta against
Syrian Prime Minister Bashar Al-Assad dating waaaay back to 2011. Prior to
that, the two vacationed together, which is sort of weird. I think that Erdogan had been courting Assad in an attempt to convince him that a new unified caliphate (under Turkish rule, of course) was the best way forward for the long-term interests of the region. Erdogan's agenda
had its roots in one thing only: restoration of Ottomaninfluence
throughout the region as was seen right up until World War I.
It is also not
a secret that secular, "Free Syrian Army" rebels fighting against Assad
in Syria have been complaining for some time about an influx of
radical jihadist fighters pouring into Syria from Libya. Bottom line, Turkey was doing everything it could, including the importation of savage, heavy-hitting islamist radicals, to take out every regional autocrat that refused to relinquish power.
When the Ottoman Sultan declared
holy jihad
against Britain, France, and Russia in 1914, by default he sided with Germany
in World War I. In 1918 the
Ottomans found themselves on
the losing side. As a result, the largest islamic empire in history saw its
territory taken by ‘infidels’. This was of course AFTER Arab forces (recruited
by British Officer T.E. Lawrence, a.k.a. 'Lawrence of Arabia) had
allied with the West in the fight against the Ottomans. They had been promised
that they would simply gain control over former Ottoman lands, but in truth
that was the last thing the West wanted. What the West really wanted was a
disparate and chaotic Middle East - something that couldn't unify to oppose
Western trade routes in the region. The same style of approach had worked
well for the West in Africa after the Berlin
Conference of 1885.
The
Berlin Conference of 1885 is to Africa what the Sykes-Picot Agreement became to the Middle East
in 1916. Both ensured that new map lines were drawn that would effectively
spring up small dictators that could be easily controlled. These dictators were
usually very eccentric people that could be played against each other,
something much more preferable to a single major dictator that controlled huge
swaths of territory (the Ottoman Sultan) and could rally a much larger
geographic region if he got really pissed.
It also meant that local people
essentially became pawns in decades of wars that, for the most par, were a
ruse. Occasionally, these wars would get a little too hot, and Western pawns
(soldiers) would come in and restore the Western order.
Under Sykes-Picot, the lands of the Ottoman caliphate were carved up into
modern day Turkey, Iraq (British protectorate), Kuwait (British), Syria
(French), Jordan (British), and Lebanon (French). Russia didn't get anything
because they had withdrawn from World War I prior to its conclusion (as a
result of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution led by
historical communist rock star Vladimir Lenin). The Ottomans also lost control of Mecca to the Sharif of Mecca
in 1916 after he revolted with the help of T.E. Lawrence (though the Sharif was
later deposed control of Mecca in 1924 by the Saud family).
Look
at the map - anywhere that is light orange is what is where the next battle grounds will be as islamists attempt to shatter the remnants of Sykes-Picot. And the West, the ones responsible
for Sykes-Picot, is helping them.
But I think that those in the West do not
understand the radical forces they are dealing with. Ansar al-Shariah et al.
are not freedom fighters. While they can be an effective force against
destabilized dictators, they're also the type of guys that generally do not support the prosecution of men who pour
acid on women for islamic non-compliance offenses. They
like to behead people too. And other nasty stuff.
Click map for greater detail.
Over
the course of the last 21 months, standing in the way of a return to Ottoman
islamic rule were the dictators of Libya, Syria, and Egypt et al who refused to
give up power. All are currently being targeted (Syria), have been dismantled
or destroyed (Egypt, Libya, respectively).
Attempts
by anti-islamists to regain power in the region have been crushed, or more
accurately, they have been discretely assassinated. Egyptian Vice President
Omar Suleiman was more known for his role as Mubarak's intelligence chief for
30 years, and was the most helpful ally to U.S. intelligence in the region,
save Israel.
He was in the running for Egyptian President, but as elections
neared last summer Mr. Suleiman suddenly died on July 19,
2012 at a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Weird huh? He was not known
to have been ill. Frankly, his death was a big effing deal, but the story only
made page B11 of the July 20, 2012 New York Times. Admittedly, only vague
mentions of it can be found elsewhere, even on Fox News.
In covering Mr. Suleiman's death, the NY Times reported that "when the CIA
asked Mr. Suleiman if he could provide a DNA sample from a brother of the Qaeda
leader Ayman al-Zawahri, Mr. Suleiman offered to send the agency the brother’s
entire arm." It's safe to say that he had been a strong point-of-contact
and ally.
But in the end, I guess someone decided that Mr. Suleiman wasn't our buddy anymore.
Since zero details were reported on his cause of death, I can only speculate
that someone important issued an order to someone else to kill-Suleiman-until-he-fucking-dies.
Make
no mistake, Turkey is the spearhead behind what is happening in the Middle
East. And President Barack Obama is right beside Turkey in support. Obama has strong ties to Erdogan. But did this alliance
transcend the lives of State Department staffers and CIA operatives in
Benghazi?
It
appears to be the case. For over an hour, CIA agents operating from a safehouse
were told to refrain from helping their Countrymen at the consulate. This decision had nothing to do with Obama. Rather, it was a local decision made by the CIA Station Chief.
Led by
former Navy Seal Tyrone Woods, after 30 minutes the CIA contractors at the Annex decided to disobey the Station Chief's direct
orders and staged a daring in-extremis rescue of their fellow Americans in
distress at 10 p.m. Under heavy fire they scaled the rear wall of the consulate
and laid down devastating suppressive fire, allowing their countrymen to be
extracted, but they could not find Ambassador Stevens in the
burning building where he was last seen. He was likely already dead.
They were ambushed several times as they made their way back to the safehouse.
They proceeded to repel wave after wave of attacks for over four hours. By
0430, seven hours after the attack began, Former Navy Seal Glen Doherty arrived
in Benghazi with a team from Tripoli on a commandeered private jet (the ride
cost him $30k). His team made their way to the safe-house, and, after linking up
with and fiercely defending the rooftop with his good friend, Tyrone Woods, the
two were killed from incoming mortar fire.
Why, after eight hours, the only air support above the annex were two unarmed
predator drones, is not known. These decisions, or lack thereof, go all the way to the top.
The Special Forces CIF (Commander's In-extremis
Force) team was not given clearance to leave their current location in central
Europe until almost 3 a.m. Benghazi time, over five hours after the attack on
the consulate began. JSOC and CIA personnel on the ground at the annex were
equipped as necessary to communicate with an armed aircraft and could have
laser-identified targets, but the only thing circling above them was an unarmed
drone. An unarmed drone is something which, while giving valuable information,
does not communicate to the enemy that the sky is falling.
A brief look at a map reveals a
visual array of multi-billion dollar assets in the region - Special Forces CIF
teams in Croatia, a company of paratroopers on standby in Italy from the 173rd
Airborne Brigade, F-16E fighter-attack aircraft also from Italy, and Marine
Fleet Anti-terrorism Support Teams (FAST) in Spain.
It
should be noted that, starting in 2009 - for the first time since WWII - the
standard Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU - a small fleet of ships carrying 2,200
combat ready Marines) was absent in the Mediterranean Sea during the Benghazi
attack. MEUs still deployed to the region to train with region forces, but the MEU's long-standing continual 24/7
presence was discontinued in 2009. So in lieu of amphibious landing
ships, vertical take-off Harrier attack aircraft, attack helicopters, and reconnaissance/infantry/tanks/artillery ground forces,
was a single command ship with no forward-deployable assets. That's right, a
single unarmed command ship was the only Naval asset in the Mediterranean
region for the first time since WWII.
With
this in mind, we have two questions at our feet.
First,
why the White House might be complicit in helping Turkey restore the
Ottoman days?
The
larger question, however, is why high-level decision makers felt so strongly in
their position to aid enemies of the United States that it trumped the order
for armed assets to aid Americans in peril. The Americans at the
CIA safe-house acted heroically to preserve the lives of other Americans,
and did so against direct orders.
But it appears that Tyrone Woods and Glen
Doherty's moral values to 'leave no one behind' were not shared by all in the
American power structure. Decision makers who ultimately controlled the support
assets could have brought the ongoing assault on the annex to its knees before
5am on September 12. But they did not act.
Acting
could have saved American lives, and sent a clear message to the enemy.
Obfuscating the facts is no excuse.
