Whom Are We Arming? And Why?

The Tripoli Mosque, Library of Congress

© Miri WTPOTUS 2011

Two days ago, President Barack Hussein Obama II stood in front of the American people and said:

Of course, there is no question that Libya – and the world – will be better off with Gaddafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal, and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.

The task that I assigned our forces – to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger, and to establish a No Fly Zone – carries with it a UN mandate and international support. It is also what the Libyan opposition asked us to do.  If we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground, or risk killing many civilians from the air. The dangers faced by our men and women in uniform would be far greater. So would the costs, and our share of the responsibility for what comes next.

Less than 24 hours later, Obama’s UN ambassador, Susan Rice, “left the door open to tactics like arming the rebel fighters.”

Rice said, ” We have not made that decision … but we have not certainly ruled that out.”

We?  Do ambassadors now plan war strategy?

Despite the usual mixed messages coming from within the Obama administration concerning the illegality (first contention) of arming rebels versus the legality of doing so (new contention), the fact remains that one day after he told the nation that US involvement in this “kinetic military (humanitarian) action” is winding down and specified that further efforts to oust Gaddafi will be “non-military”, he totally contradicted himself and Obama, himself, said that he’s “not ruling it out,” meaning arming rebels in order to oust Gaddafi, in effect causing “regime change.”

Arming rebels, taking sides in a civil war, seems (at least to me) to be “military” in nature.  It goes against his argument that broadening efforts to effect regime change “would be a mistake.”  And that it would further endanger our brave troops.  This was his exact argument against the Iraq war–that it would inflame Muslims and further endanger our troops as well as Americans anywhere in the world.

Does this about-face raise double-talk and prevarication to a new level?  Or can he merely flip-flop at lightning speed?  Does this man mean ANYTHING that he says?

It appears that the UN and the Eurocrats are pushing to arm these rebels, and Obama will likely go along, as it becomes more and more evident that if Gaddafi hangs onto power, this effort may become the issue that destroys Obama’s chances for reelection (if $4 gasoline, the stagnant economy, the lack of jobs, the deficit, Obamacare, and his ineligibility to be POTUS in the first place aren’t enough).

WHO ARE THESE “REBELS” that we might arm?  Who are these new “allies” of the US?  We’ve been hearing about the “flickers” of intelligence that say these rebels have alarming connections to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and murderous attacks upon our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But have you heard about this angle? Have you heard that Khalifa Hifter,

the new leader of Libya’s opposition military spent the past two decades in suburban Virginia but felt compelled – even in his late-60s – to return to the battlefield in his homeland, according to people who know him.

Khalifa Hifter was once a top military officer for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but after a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s, Hifter switched to the anti-Gadhafi opposition. In the early 1990s, he moved to suburban Virginia, where he established a life but maintained ties to anti-Gadhafi groups.

Late last week, Hifter was appointed to lead the rebel army, which has been in chaos for weeks.

Virginia, in the early 1990s.  Interesting, I’m sure, to regular readers of this blog.  Yes, Khalifa Hifter of Alexandria, Annandale, Fairfax, Falls Church, Keysville, Centreville, and Vienna, Virginia.  If this causes your eyebrows to go up, you’re not the only person with suspicions.  The Asia Times Online reports,

Khalifa Hifter – a former Libyan army colonel who spent nearly 20 years in Vienna, Virginia, not far from the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley? Progressives will love to learn that the romantic “rebels” are now led by a CIA asset.

At the London conference, the INC [Interim Transitional National Council] launched in style its slick political manifesto – ‘A vision of democratic Libya’ – which makes all the right noises; freedom of expression, presidential and parliamentary elections, and crucially, the promise of ‘a state that draws strength from our strong religious beliefs in peace, truth, justice and equality’. [and oppression of women?]

This is – extremely polite – code for Islam in post-Gaddafi Libya (so not to ruff Western feathers).

But Asia Times Online is not alone.  A socialist website asks why the American media play down this connection to the CIA.  Good question.  Why indeed?

On a regular basis, I read several newspapers, watch news on broadcast and cable TV, and read blogs and online news.  Today was the first I heard of this man–on the Jamie Allman radio show at 97.1 FM from St. Louis.  Today, Patrick Martin of the aforementioned socialist website wrote,

It has been six days since Khalifa Hifter was appointed the top military commander for the Libyan rebel forces fighting the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. His appointment was noted by reporter Nancy Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers, a US regional chain that includes the Sacramento Bee and the Kansas City Star.

Two days later, another McClatchy journalist, Chris Adams, wrote a brief biographical sketch of Hifter that left the implication, without saying so explicitly, that he was a longtime CIA asset.

Martin pointed to another expose of Khalifa, which asked an interesting question:

How else does a high-ranking former Libyan military commander enter the United States in the early 1990s, only a few years after the Lockerbie bombing, and then settle near the US capital, except with the permission and active assistance of US intelligence agencies? Hifter actually lived in Vienna, Virginia, about five miles from CIA headquarters in Langley, for two decades.

The agency was very familiar with Hifter’s military and political work. A Washington Post report of March 26, 1996 describes an armed rebellion against Gaddafi in Libya and uses a variant spelling of his name. The article cites witnesses to the rebellion who report that “its leader is Col. Khalifa Haftar, of a contra-style group based in the United States called the Libyan National Army.”

The comparison is to the “contra” terrorist forces financed and armed by the US government in the 1980s against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra scandal, which rocked the Reagan administration in 1986-87, involved the exposure of illegal US arms sales to Iran, with the proceeds used to finance the contras in defiance of a congressional ban.

Interesting comparison to the Iran-Contra scandal, and exactly what I was thinking.  But wait!  Arms sales are no longer illegal, not if Obama says so and not if Obama does it (so there will be no “scandal”).  If this is supposed to be covert, and one would assume so, given the media tamp down, then why is this administration so INEPT about it?  Why are Queen Hillary of Libya and Princess Rice so inept about it?  Is our CIA similarly inept?  (Perhaps this is an effort of the Plame faction.)  Can the US survive the next two years, with these people in control?  It’s enough to make one long for the likes of Ollie North!

Considering that Obama spoke in his speech about how the US shouldn’t have to foot the entire bill and thus showed his concern over the cost of this adventure, can we assume that our allies will pay for and supply these arms?  Who’s going to train the “rebels” in the use of these arms?  (Boots on the ground.) What type of arms are they talking about, anyway? How, if we arm these rebels who oust Gaddafi, will the US (read: Obama) avoid “our share of the responsibility for what comes next?”

Have you seen video of these rebels, driving full tilt through the desert, in a motley assortment of vehicles, waving their arms and their guns, shooting into the sky, looking like post-apocalyptic antagonists from a Mad Max movie?  These are our new allies.  Somehow, Obama thinks he can control them.  I assume.  But perhaps it’s a false assumption.  Perhaps he prefers chaos.

So I heard this about the new rebel leader this morning and went looking and found little.  Now I, too, must ask: Why is Hifter’s name missing from most lamestream media stories?  Have you heard his name before?  While I don’t agree with most of Patrick Martin’s analysis, I do agree with him that this appears to be censorship. Government imposed or self-imposed?  Coverage of this war (and it is WAR) does not reflect our media’s finest hour.

I asked in the title of this post:  “Whom are we arming? And why?”  Thanks to our complicit media, I must also ask them, “Who is our POTUS and why do you not do your duty to find out and inform the American people?”

We don’t KNOW who this man is.  We don’t know why our media will not find out.  We don’t know why our representatives will not find out.  We don’t know why Republicans like Graham, McCain, and others are going along with this “kinetic military action” and now, apparently, also the arming of rebels, who many suspect are allied with our sworn enemies.  Rebels, some of whom may already have American blood on their hands.  Does anyone believe that whatever government rules Libya, it will NOT be an Islamic state?

Will anybody in the media or among our so-called representatives hear and answer these questions?