Revisiting Democratic Obama-Biden-Clinton Administration's 2011 War for Regime Change in Libya: Conclusion

Nelson Mandela with Libyan government leader against whom Hawk Democrats launched 2011 war. 

The Democratic Obama-Biden-Clinton administration ended its Operation Odyssey Dawn overt military attack on Libya on March 31, 2011. But, along with other NATO government administrations, it continued to wage its overt war for regime change in Libya under the code name “Operation Unified Protector,” after Apr. 1, 2011.

So Libyan government leader Qaddafi then sent a letter on Apr. 6, 2011 to Democratic President Obama requesting that the Democratic Party leader put an end to NATO intervention in Libya.

But instead of agreeing to end U.S. military intervention in Libya, on Apr. 7, 2011 the Obama-Biden-Clinton administration again demanded that Qaddafi abdicate power and live in exile; and it continued to wage its war for regime change in Libya until Qaddafi was finally murdered on Oct. 20, 2011, in violation of international law.

According to the 2015 RAND Project Air Force Precision and Purpose study, during the Operation Unified Protector phase that began in early April 2011, “U.S. forces flew more than 7,100 total sorties…which represented nearly 27 percent of the total sorties during the” NATO “operation.” But, according to the Sowing Chaos: Libya In The Wake of Humanitarian Intervention book, “more than 2,000 residents” of the Libyan “city of Sirte,” were “killed in NATO air strikes;” and, by waging its war for regime change in Libya in 2011, “NATO handed over part of Libya’s territory to Al Qaida.”

In his 2016 Sowing Chaos: Libya In The Wake of Humanitarian Intervention book, Paolo Sensini noted that “the jury is still out as to whether the war on Libya was fought” by the Democratic Obama-Biden-Clinton administration “on behalf of fossil fuel interests or on behalf of banking interests.” But Sensini also observed that “by means of Obama’s Executive Order 13566,” Libyan financial assets  belonging to “the Central Bank of Libya (CBS), the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the Libya Foreign Bank, and the Libyan National Oil Company (LNOC)” were “frozen,” prior to the start of its Operation Odyssey Dawn military attack; and “in August 2011, President Obama confiscated $30 billion from Libya’s Central Bank, which Qaddafi had earmarked for the establishment of the African IMF and African Central Bank.”

What has been determined, though, is that the Libyan “rebels” who, with the military support of Democratic Party leaders (like Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton), were finally able to overthrow the Qaddafi-led government by the fall of 2011, were apparently illegally armed and trained by government of Qatar. As the 2015 RAND Project Air Force Precision and Purpose study revealed:

“…The U.N…raised concerns about…Qatar making arms transfers in violation of the arms embargo…The U.N….was `clearly informed that several countries, including Qatar, were supporting the [Libyan] opposition through the deliveries of arms and ammunition.’…Between the beginning of the [Libyan] uprising and July 2011, `approximately 20 flights had delivered military material from Qatar to…[the opposition] in Libya, including French anti-tank weapon launchers (MILANs)…

“…Qatar had personnel on the ground in Benghazi training the opposition. Rebel forces openly remarked…how Qatar had been with them from the beginning.

“Operating in the range of 50 to 150 personnel on the ground at any one time, Qatar’s Special Forces (SF) were used to train the opposition in a variety of small arms and tactics…The SF provided…the means for rebel forces to successfully engage pro-Qaddafi forces. On the ground direct assistance…was conducted with the main rebel brigades. These advisory teams…provided the main link between rebel ground units and NATO’s air power…This was used to supplement NATO targeting…

“The first official admission of Qatar’s involvement in training the opposition forces came in late October [2011]…Qatari Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Major-General Hamad bin Ali Al-Attiya remarked, `We were among them [the Libyan opposition forces] and the number of Qataris on the ground were hundreds in every region.’ He also noted that Qataris had been `running the training and communication operations’ and that `Qatar had supervised the rebels’ plans…`We acted as the link between the rebel and NATO forces.’…A team of 60 Qataris assisted the opposition in setting up command centers in Benghazi, Zintan, and Tripoli…Opposition forces were also flown back to Qatar for training…”

The pretext for launching the Democratic Obama-Biden-Clinton administration/NATO and Qatari governments’ 2011 “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya, despite the African Union’s March 11, 2011 call for no external foreign intervention in Libya, was that this war for regime change in Libya was needed to save the lives of Libyan civilians. Yet, as Seumas Milne observed in an op-ed column, titled “If The Libyan War Was About Saving Lives It Was A Catastrophic Failure,” that appeared in the Oct. 26, 2011 issue of the London Guardian, prior to the launching of the U.S./NATO’s “Operation Odyssey Dawn” on March 19, 2011 and “operation Unified Protector” after Apr. 1, 2011, “the death toll in Libya” was “perhaps around 1,000-2,000 (judging by U.N. estimates).” But, according to the same column, during the 8 months that followed the Democratic Obama-Biden-Clinton administration/NATO’s overt “humanitarian” military intervention in Libya, “as NATO leaders vetoed ceasefires and negotiations,” estimates of the numbers of new dead “range from 10,000 up to 50,000;” and “of these, uncounted thousands will be civilians, including those killed by NATO bombings and NATO-backed forces on the ground.”

In addition, in his Oct. 26, 2011 London Guardian column, Seumas Milne also, for example, noted:

“On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch reported the discovery of 53 bodies, military and civilian, in Qaddafi’s last stronghold of Sirte, apparently executed—with their hands tied—by former rebel militia.

“Its investigator in Libya, Peter Bouckaert, told me yesterday that more bodies are continuing to be discovered in Sirte, where evidence suggests about 500 people, civilians and fighters have been killed in the last 10 days alone by shooting, shelling and NATO bombing…

“That has followed a 2-month-long siege and indiscriminate bombing of a city of 100,000 which has been reduced to a Grozny-like state of destruction by newly triumphant rebel troops with NATO air and Special Forces support…

“…African migrants and black Libyans have been subject to a relentless racist campaign of mass detention, lynchings and atrocities on the usually unfounded basis that they have been loyalist mercenaries. Such attacks continue, says Bouckaert, who witnessed militias from Misrata this week burning homes in Tawerga so that the town’s predominately black population—accused of backing Qaddafi—will be unable to return…”

Nearly 5 years after Democratic Party leaders like Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton launched their war for regime change in Libya, Chris Stephens noted in a Feb. 16, 2016 London Guardian article, titled “Five Years After Qaddafi, Libya’s Torn By Civil War And Battles With ISIS,” that “civil war” in Libya “has raged since the summer of 2014;” and “it is a war that has left 5,000 dead, the economy in ruins” and “half a million homeless.” So, not surprisingly, a Libyan medical student then told the London Guardian reporter that in Libya “some people say they want to go back to the time of Qaddafi.”

And as recently as July 9, 2019, even Al Jazeera now reported that “the battle between rival groups for the Libyan capital has killed more than 1,000 people since” April 2019, “the United Nations said;” and “the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a brief statement on Tuesday that 1,048 people, including 106 civilians, have been killed” in Libya since April 2019 and an additional 5,558 have been “wounded, including 289 civilians.” The same July 9, 2019 Al Jazeera article also noted that:

“Fighting has emptied entire neighborhoods of civilians. Thousands of African migrants captured by Libyan forces funded and trained by the European Union are trapped in detention centers near the front lines. An air raid on one facility last week killed more than 50 people mainly migrants held in a hangar that collapsed on top of them. Libya slid into chaos after the 2011 NATO-backed uprisings…”

2020 Democratic Party presidential primary candidate Sanders and 2016 Democratic Party presidential Nominee Clinton at 2016 Democratic National Convention

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