Huh?
Jason Howerton
The Blaze, 5 December 2012
U.S.-Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell Into Jihadis’ Hands
By JAMES RISEN, MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, December 5, 2012
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.
. . . . . . .
“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.”
Tip of the Hat to Jaimi Miller and Richard Byrd at Google+.
Phi Beta Iota: This appears to be disinformation, in that the US does appear to be working with Algeria to arm local militants and create false flag “terrorist” kidnappings that add to the ignorant and arrogant desire to invade Mali and then Niger. The facts as found in various reports (see the master Benghazi link below) suggest that CIA has been engaged in acts of war against Syria, still a legitimate government with the right to defend itself, and done so in a manner that can only be described as overt, insensitive, amateurish, and down-right ignorant. The US has never been able to do the kind of tribe-level intelligence that OSS.Net did for SOCOM and CENTCOM going into Iraq and Afghanistan (not that they learned anything from that decisioon-support. Lacking intelligence with integrity (while spending $70 billion or more a year going through the motions), the “seven sins of American foreign policy” are alive and well in this Administration. One has to also remember that the plan to take down five countries in seven years took on a life of its own, the US Government lies to itself across all boundaries (Rule 1 in Washington is “Lie to the President if you can get away with it”), so good people in the government who want to do the right thing are being blind-sided by bad people in the government who are on their own ideological and theocratic journeys at taxpayer expense.
See Also:
2010 Robert Steele: Reflections on Integrity UPDATED + Integrity RECAP
Graphic: Benghazi Fiasco UPDATED II w/ Marines (FAST Yes, MEU/MSG No) & 173rd Airborne ( – ) + RECAP
Graphic: Map Syria Iran + Syria-Iran-Rergional RECAP
Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Brookings, 2006)
Wesley Clark interview (March 2007): “We plan to take out 7 countries in 5 years”
