A year later, the war in Libya is far from overOctober 23, 2012 will be exactly one year after the Chairperson of the National Transitional Council declared that the Liberation of Libya was complete. A few days later the Secretary General of NATO, General Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared the end of the NATO mission, declaring that the NATO mission to Libya had been ‘one of the most successful in NATO history.’ Despite this announcement of success there are daily reports of fighting all across Libya with the levels of insecurity unprecedented in the history of the country with over 1,700 militias roaming. After Col Gaddafi was executed on October 20, 2011, the disinformation agencies of empire worked hard to keep the news of the militias and the insecurity out of international news.
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These well-crafted versions of the ‘transition’ concealed the continued warfare that was going on all over Libya. There were approximately 1,700 militia groups running the country with each neighborhood dominated by a faction that went into the business of using weapons as a means of gaining access to resources. After the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, US citizens were alerted to the existence of what the State Department called ‘security incidents.’ But the 230 ‘security incidents’ over the past year were the tip of the iceberg of the massive destabilization and killings that had occurred. Black skinned Libyans from Tawergha were expelled from their community and more than 30,000 displaced. Even the usual spokespersons for Western imperial missions had to speak out as Human Rights Watch joined in the condemnation of the rule of the militias. Human Rights Watch brought out a ‘Report Rule of Law or Rule of Militias’ bringing into sharper focus some of the outstanding questions of the role of these armed marauders all over Libya. In June one militia brigade briefly took over Tripoli international airport
Deadly Attack in Libya Was Major Blow to C.I.A. Efforts Sept. 23, 2012Among the more than two dozen American personnel evacuated from the city after the assault on the American mission and a nearby annex were about a dozen C.I.A. operatives and contractors, who played a crucial role in conducting surveillance and collecting information on an array of armed militant groups in and around the city.
“It’s a catastrophic intelligence loss,” said one American official who has served in Libya and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the F.B.I. is still investigating the attack. “We got our eyes poked out.”