Imagine a hotel room at the Plaza Hotel, shopping at Bloomingdales and dining at the Rainbow Room in Benghazi. Yes Benghazi, after all the most feared leader, Muammar Gaddafi is dead and all is calm after the attack on American interests in 2012. So, never let a good crisis go to waste. Libya had and has a deadly history where some elites had high aspirations for a new Libya.
Trey Gowdy, the Chairman of the Benghazi Commission likely has some documented trails on Hillary’s future dreams for Libya, but you don’t and should know even more of the story. Libya, is hardly the place for booking a vacation on a Club Med holiday but Hillary and her mobilized force sure thought it was a perfect future opportunity.
The crisis in Libya had a long and bloody history with daily urban warfare, leading up to 2011 and 2012. The Institute for the Study of War gathered the calendar of Libyan hostilities from countless sources demonstrating that a perfect storm was gathering. Several foreign governments and countries had interests in Libya to protect, so when the United States announced Gaddafi had to go, he was actually buckling to the pressure and was willing to turn over power to his Minister of Justice. Some surmised that Gaddafi would not actual go quietly such that he would fire more Scud missiles as the rebels advance, and fears remain that the regime may also deploy chemical weapons.
Remembering the urgent call as revealed in audio tapes released that Hillary made with her stewards, Susan Rice and Samantha Power following close behind that the U.S. had to act quickly to prevent an anticipated massacre. Yet no one at the Pentagon or AFRICOM had any fresh intelligence that a chemical weapons attack or a planned massacre was in the immediate forecast.
Meanwhile, the National Transition Council was born with collaboration of outside NGO’s and the United Nations seeking a diplomatic solution post Gaddafi where many meetings took place. The mission was to gain and manage control of Libya where a future country would have thriving towns, economic opportunities and well, great shopping and even a stock exchange that emulated Wall Street.
The National Transitional Council (NTC) was formed on the 27th of February, 2011 to act as the political face of the revolution. Officially established on the 5th of March 2011 in Benghazi, the unicameral legislative body is composed of 33 members, representing the different Libyan cities and towns, in addition Political Affairs, Economics, Legal Affairs, Youth, Women, Political Prisoners and Military Affairs. Identities of some members, mainly from the western side of Libya are kept confidential for safety reasons. The Chairman of the NTC is Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil. Hillary’s interlocutor to the NTC was Mohamed Mansour el Kikhia and he has meetings with David L. Grange in Jordan on the future and control of Libya.
The legislative body is in place for an interim period, until free democratic elections are held establishing the new Parliament.
Hillary knew about the planned Benghazi attack, heck Sidney Blumenthal predicted it.
Back in the Clinton State Department, Hillary was working her intelligence channels and her operatives were crafting relationships to gain traction in 2012 and beyond. Mrs. Clinton mobilized an inner circle, they included Sidney Blumenthal, Tyler Drumheller, Cody Shearer, Andrew Shapiro, MG David L. Grange (ret), Najib Obeida and Mohamed Mansour el Kikhia.
When a hacker worked some keyboard magic, he uncovered emails to that pesky New York Clinton server publishing emails between Blumenthal and a Hillary email firewall person, likely either Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan or Cheryl Mills, who would then forward the most significant transmissions to Hillary herself. Hillary had a spy network which was originally revealed during the published of the Wikileaks cables.
Sidney Blumenthal had his own operatives that he worked around the globe yet those with Libya assignments included many of those listed above. Two of particular interest are David L. Grange and Najib Obeida, a Libyan official. General Grange performed some Pentagon secret operations before he retired where he went on to be involved in Osprey Global Solutions and later in Constellations Group which was formed by Bill White, a philanthropist whose objective was generating networks and business opportunities in Libya. “Gaddafi is dead, or about to be, and there’s opportunities, let’s try to see who we know there.”
There is still hope for a Libyan version of Park Avenue, Wall Street and Club Med. The Obama administration has earmarked and of the funds requested for FY2015, $9.5 million in Economic Support Fund (ESF) monies would support U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) programs “to help consolidate- democratic reforms” through technical assistance, training, capacity building, and electoral process support, including $3 million requested in part to fund the development of a “public financial management framework.” The Administration also requested an additional $20 million in global FY2015 Transition Initiatives funding over FY2014 levels and hopes to use $10 million of its Complex Crises Fund request “to address emerging needs and opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.” Funds appropriated in these accounts may be programmed for operations in Libya.
Outlook
The 2012 attacks in Benghazi, the deaths of U.S. personnel, the emergence of terrorist threats on Libyan soil, and the internecine conflict between Libyan militias have reshaped debates in Washington about U.S. policy toward Libya. Following intense congressional debate over the merits of U.S. and NATO military intervention in Libya in 2011, many Members of Congress welcomed the announcement of Libya’s liberation, the formation of the interim Transitional National Council government, and the July 2012 national General National Congress election, while expressing concern about security in the country, the proliferation of weapons, and the prospects for a smooth political transition.
To date, the Obama Administration and Congress have agreed to support a range of security and transition support assistance programs in Libya, some of which respond to specific U.S. security concerns about unsecured weapons, terrorist safe-havens, and border security. Identifying and bringing those involved in the September 2012 Benghazi attacks to justice has become a priority issue in the bilateral relationship, as has confronting any Al Qaeda affiliated groups present in Libya. Securing stockpiles of Libyan weapons also remains an issue of broad congressional concern, as does ensuring that transitional authorities act in accordance with international human rights standards in pursuing justice and handling detainees.
U.S. officials must weigh demands for a response to immediate security threats emanating from Libya with longer-term concerns for Libya’s stability, the survival of its nascent democratic institutions, and the future of U.S.-Libyan relations. Decisions about responding to threats to U.S. security are complicated by the relative weakness of the Libyan state security apparatus and the risk of inflaming public opinion or undermining the image of elected Libyan leaders through direct or overt U.S. security responses. If conflict persists, congressional debate over transition and security assistance programs in Libya may intensify, with advocates possibly arguing for further investment to prevent a broader collapse and critics possibly arguing that a lack of political consensus among Libyans makes U.S. assistance unlikely to achieve intended objectives.
You have plenty of time to book your next vacation, keep some small arms handy though.
