No Laughing Matter: The Manchester Bomber is the Spawn of Hillary and Barack’s Excellent Libyan Adventure

PA via AP

On November 20, 2015, two jihadi militants attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, seizing about 100 hostages and “leaving bodies strewed across the building.” When it was over, 22 people (including the attackers) had been killed. As the New York Times reported:

Mali has been crippled by instability since January, 2012, when rebels and Al Qaeda-linked militants — armed with the remnants of late Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s arsenal — began advancing through the country’s vast desert in the north and capturing towns.

Not much has been made in American and Western media of this attack. Most of the dead were Malians, Russians, and Chinese—and, hey, it was in Africa; Shit happens. Especially there. How many people reading this even remember that it happened? Follow-up analysis? It was Africa. That kind of coverage. (I did post about it at the time, making many points that unfortunately bear repeating here.)

Last Monday, jihadi suicide bomber Salman Abedi blew himself up at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, killing 22 people. Salman grew up in an anit-Qaddafi Libyan immigrant family. In 2011, his father, Ramadan Abedi, along with other British Libyans (including one who was under house arrest), “was allowed to go [to Libya], no questions asked," to join the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an al-Qaeda-affiliate, to help overthrow Qaddafi. In Manchester, As Max Blumenthal puts it, in his excellent Alternet piece, it was all “part of the rat line operated by the MI5, which hustled anti-Qaddafi Libyan exiles to the front lines of the war.” In Manchester, Salman lived near a number of LIFG militants, including an expert bomb maker. This was a tough bunch, and everybody—including the cops and Salman’s Muslim neighbors—knew they weren’t the Jets and the Sharks. As Middle East Eye reports, he “was known to security services,” and some of his acquaintances “had reported him to the police via an anti-terrorism hotline.”

Could it be any clearer? The Abedi family was part of a protected cohort of Salafist proxy soldiers that have been used by "the West" to destroy the Libyan state. There are a number of such cohorts around the world that have been used for decades to overthrow relatively prosperous and secular, but insufficiently compliant, governments in the Arab and Muslim world—and members of those groups have perpetrated several blowback attacks in Western countries, via various winding roads. In this case, the direct line from Libya to Mali to Manchester is particularly easy to trace.

Turkey Invades Syria. America Spins The Bottle.

  Tom Janssen | CagleCartoons.com

So within the space of a few days, the United States has, first, commanded the government of Syria to keep its air force away from part of its own sovereign territory, Hasakah, occupied by American soldiers and their Kurdish “partners”; it then, with applause from other NATO countries, provided air support for a Turkish invasion of Syria and seizure of the Syrian town of Jarablus from those “partners.” These are unambiguous acts of war, and Orwellian acts of doublethink aggression.

Note that Hasakah, where the incident with the Syrian Air Force took place, is not in an area controlled by ISIS. So whatever American troops were doing there, they were not fighting ISIS. Note also that Turkey’s announced reason for seizing Jarablus—in order to seal the border and prevent ISIS in Syria from receiving recruits and supplies—is a flimsy excuse that, as the New York Times (NYT) reports, the Turks don’t even try to maintain: “Turkish officials made little secret that the main purpose of the operation was to ensure that Kurdish militias did not consolidate control over an area west of the Euphrates River.”’

As Al-Qaeda cleric Al-Muhaysin has assured would-be recruits: “The truth is that the Turks don't prevent anyone from entering Syria.” If the Turks wanted to close the Syrian border, across which they’ve been trafficking ISIS soldiers, arms, and oil for years, they could just close it, on their side. No need to invade Syria. In fact, ISIS was informed of the attack, and left Jarablus before the brave Turks and their Syrian rebel partners arrived. The Washington Post said: “The rebels encountered almost no resistance from Islamic State fighters, who fled ahead of the advancing force.” The blogger Moon of Alabama (MoA) made the point more sharply: “There was no resistance to the move. The Islamic State, which had been informed of the attack, had evacuated all fighters and their families out of Jarablus. … As one commentator remarked: They even left mints on the pillows. The toleration of ISIS by Turkey, which includes some not so secret support, will likely continue.”

Mali Jihadis: The Spawn of Hillary's (And America's) War On Libya

Harouna Traore/Associated Press

Another horrific jihadi attack today, this time on a Radisson Blu hotel in Mali. 27 killed. Here’s an excerpt from the New YorkTimes coverage:

Mali has been crippled by instability since January, 2012, when rebels and Al Qaeda-linked militants — armed with the remnants of late Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s arsenal — began advancing through the country’s vast desert in the north and capturing towns.

In other words, the jihadi gangs in Mali are a direct result of American/French/NATO regime change in Libya, executed by the Obama administration, spearheaded by "We came, we saw, he died" Hillary Clinton.

In 2010, Libya under Ghaddafi had the highest standard of living of any country in Africa (UN Human Development Index). Ghaddafi's Libya employed many Malians. It was an anchor of stability in North Africa. The US/France/NATO put an end to that, under entirely phony pretexts, against fundamental international law, and in violation of the UN resolution they claimed as a justification. The executioners and beneficiaries of that US/France/NATO strategy where the jihadis who shoved a stick up Ghaddafi's ass and are now rampaging throughout Mali.

Ha, Ha. Maybe she can get a gig at the Comedy Club in the Radisson.

Attention Shoppers!The Westgate Mall In America's Jihad Bargain

I know that events in Africa during the weekend of September 21^st are, in terms of American historical memory, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but I’m going to pay them some belated attention. The attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya was, after all, a horrific action by the  Somali jihadi group, al-Shabaab, lasting over a number of days, in which at least 61 civilians died. It was also, as USA Today opined: “the post-9/11 nightmare that Americans have been half expecting: al-Qaeda gunmen attack a shopping mall, take hostages, leave behind carnage and a sickening repeat question: ‘Why us?’" 

I’m sure many Americans felt exactly that dread on watching the events unfold – and well they should, since, given the forces in play, it’s quite possible that something similar will, again, happen here.

For Americans who might have more than a passing interest in understanding why such atrocities happen, and who might want to do more than shake their heads, after the fact, in bafflement and moral self-righteousness, one might start out with the always-cogent Jeremy Scahill’s explanation of “where al-Shabaab came from,” and how it came to target Kenya. It's a somewhat complicated story of how American special ops forces used favored Somali warlords as an “assassination squad” against perceived “al-Qaeda” militants. This was followed by American connivance with Ethiopia and Kenya to invade Somalia and break up the network of local institutions, known as the Islamic Courts Union, that had been established by a broad Somali movement to achieve some order and stability in the country. Al-Shabaab started as a marginal groupuscule within that movement, and only rose to prominence as a result of the foreign incursion.

As Scahill explains:

Most Somalia experts said that there were no more than a dozen al-Qaeda-connected individuals in Somalia right after 9/11. And so, the CIA hires these warlords ostensibly to go in and hunt these people down. Well, they end up murdering vast numbers of people who were imams or religious scholars, and in some cases, I was told, that they would literally like chop people’s heads off and then bring them to their American liaison and say, ‘This is so and so, and I’ve killed them.’ And so, you had this utterly thuggish collection of warlords murdering people, and doing so, they believed, with the backing of the United States of America, the most powerful nation in the world.

In this segment (about five minutes) from Democracy Now (full interview and transcript), Scahill lays out quite clearly how the US “made the very force they claimed to be trying to fight the most powerful force in Somalia”:

At the Syrian Threshold:“al-Qaeda’s Air Force” Prepares for Battle

Here's a report from July, "FSA chemical lab uncovered near Damascus":

Chemical weapons materials and facilities have been found multiple times in "rebel" areas. The "rebels" are the *only ones* who have any motive for using chemical weapons.

Yeah, it's from RT (Russia’s English-language TV channel). Do you really think you have any more reason to believe the US government and its media -- proven liars, multiple times, on the subject -- than RT?  It’s those who reflexively dismiss anything reported by RT or Press TV (Iran’s English-language TV channel), while reflexively taking for granted the truth of everything Obama and the New York Times and MSNBC say, who demonstrate their gullibility. Do you really believe that the foot-stomping insistence of Obama and Biden and Kerry that they absolutely, positively know the Syrian government is to blame is any more credible than was the sooo convincing “proof” that George Bush and Dick Cheney produced on Iraq? Remember how the media and the humanitarian interventionists liberal imperialists creamed over Colin Powell’s irrefutable presentation?  Here we go again. Fool me how often?

Guess what, Obamicans: It’s the same imperialist state. If anything, at this point, Obama has less credibility than Bush, and you have less excuse for going along with him.

CIA Director convicted of torture charges!

No, it can't happen here, but it does happen in countries that actually have an independent judiciary:

Italy's ex-intelligence chief given 10-year sentence for role in CIA kidnapping

Glenn Greenwald

"This entire case reveals vital facts about the culture of impunity for high-level officials that prevails in the US even when they commit the most egregious crimes:

"First, it is completely inconceivable that anything like what just happened in Italy could happen in the US. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the highest-level US officials had systematically committed felonies under the War on Terror rubric, both political parties, bolstered by a virtual consensus of the DC press, united to block all forms of accountability. A sacred rule in US political culture is that high-level state officials are to be shielded from all accountability, let alone criminal punishment, for how they abuse power.

"In sum, US officials are not subject to the rule of law but reside above it. Neither party's establishment nor their Adversarial Press Corps would ever tolerate the CIA Director being prosecuted for his crimes the way Italy's just was."

[Read entire article]

Sticks and Drones, and Company Men: The Selective Outrage of the Liberal Caste

I am from a large Irish Catholic family in New York City.  When I was in high school, at an academically-rigorous Jesuit institution, now best known as the namesake of the world’s most persistent television personality,¹ my older brother became a priest.  He was ordained in Rome, and most of the family went over for the event.  While I was there my brother took me to the office of the Superior General of the Jesuit order (the “Society of Jesus”).  My brother was a student of history, and wanted me to see the desk, with the huge map of the world on the wall behind, and the modest cot off to the side, from which the Black Pope had dispatched his cadre, also known as “God’s Marines” and “The Company,” and even “the Special Forces of the Catholic Church,”² to manipulate the fates of nations and empires for more than 400 years on behalf of the Papacy.  The analogy is irresistible: If the Vatican is the White House of the Catholic Church, the Jesuit Superior General’s office is the CIA headquarters.³

Of course, besides being the vanguard of the Counter-Reformation and Inquisition – the repressive apparatus of the Church, if you will (Torture and rendition, anyone?) – the Jebbies (as they are familiarly known) also became the Church’s ideological vanguard, manipulating the fates of empires by overseeing the education of elites. "Give me the child for seven years, and I will give you the man" is the famous aphorism traditionally attributed to the Jesuits – as my father, also an alumnus of Regis High School, reminded me constantly.

If Joe can embrace his Code Pink…

Yeah, I know what a creep Romney is, and I know a lot of folks are fighting what they feel is the good fight against reactionary Republican horseshit, often in hostile family, school, neighborhood, and work environments.  I certainly would like to support and not demoralize them.  I also know our political and media universe is structured to make it seem that fighting that fight requires one to support Obama.  Still, I am one of many who do not agree to be constrained within that narrow paradigm, and think it’s important to recognize that it steers us into a self-defeating race-to-the-bottom-right. 

Act of Terrible

Update below.

Today, self-identified liberals and progressives are all a-twitter and high-fivin’ each other because in yesterday’s debate their guy “proved” that he actually and immediately did use, and does embrace, the term “act of terror” to describe the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.  Thus have Obama, and, following him, the bulk of the liberal caste, demonstrated their complete acceptance of the vapid, self-serving, hypocritical, obfuscatory, and dangerous language of “terror” as a touchstone of foreign policy credibility.  That this has happened, and that nobody notices or cares that it has happened, is one of the more shameful facts about this debate, and the whole discourse of this sham campaign.