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Obama’s Failed Libyan War
Accuracy in Academia ^ | April 2, 2014 | Spencer Irvine

Posted on 04/02/2014 12:59:02 PM PDT by Academiadotorg

The Libyan civil war did more harm to the country, its people, economy and its neighbors in North Africa when NATO intervened at the behest of U.S. President Barack Obama, concluded a University of Texas-Austin professor Alan Kuperman. He gave his remarks at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute.

Associate professor of public affairs Alan Kuperman is an associate professor of public affairs and he criticized NATO’s intervention in the Libyan civil war. The civil war pitted rebels against government forces loyal to dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

Kuperman was grateful to Obama for outlining the definition of success in Libya for the public in order to provide a framework for analysis. He quoted Obama’s own words in outlining success in Libya, which Obama said was based on the need to:

“Protect civilians Stop the killing Facilitate “transition to a legitimate government that is responsive to the Libyan people” Avert “strains on the peaceful –yet fragile – transitions in” neighboring states Prevent “repressive leaders conclud[ing] that violence is the best strategy to cling to power””

As with all foreign policy decisions, Kuperman pointed out that Obama and other decision-makers had to make “progress toward these objective that would make these costs worthwhile.” However, no progress could be seen in the aftermath of the Libyan civil war when he compared possible situations with and without intervention, which he called “net impact.” And although it was based on a “counterfactual,” it still provides an important picture of the foreign policy decision to intervene in Libya.

He briefly gave a summary of the civil war and how the eastern-based rebels had driven all the way to the pro-Qaddafi western parts of Libya. Qaddafi had “initially responded with non-lethal force,” but that quickly disappeared when the rebels “made fairly rapid” progress in gaining territory. Kuperman felt that the narrative of targeting civilians was a non-issue because Qaddafi forces were targeting the militants and “not the civilian population.” In the civil war, before the NATO intervention, “in none of those towns was there a bloodbath” where there were clashes between the two sides.

Kuperman predicted that the death toll, without an intervention, would have resulted in about 1,100 deaths and would last about six months. But, with the intervention, the civil war lasted much longer. He said, “Instead of six weeks, the war lasted 36 weeks. Rather than having 1,100 dead, there were in a range of 8,000-11,000 dead” by a variety of U.S. and Libyan estimates.

To make matters worse, Kuperman found that the civil war led to “a lot of negative consequences” such as “a lot of reprisal killings,” “a lot of ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity.” He said, “Benghazi is a disaster, including the tragic killing of ambassador Chris Stevens” and without Qaddafi, “al-Qaeda types are flourishing in Libya.”

The country of Libya has seen its oil output fall to one-sixth of what it used to produce and “the government is not functioning.” At one point, the prime minister was kidnapped, was released and fled the country. Also, Kuperman felt that the destabilization of Libya “caused the destruction of the best democracy in Africa: Mali.” After “we overthrew Qaddafi [the pro-Qaddafi militants] fled back to Mali…the largest safe haven in the world for al-Qaeda.” The formerly shining example of African democracy, Mali, soon became a battleground for al-Qaeda fighters.

When addressing if the NATO intervention deterred other dictators from waging war on their own people, Kuperman was not encouraged by his research. After the intervention, “it sure doesn’t look like” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was deterred from escalating the civil war in his country. In addition, the Egyptian government was overthrown by the country’s military and was not fazed by the NATO intervention in neighboring Libya.

In evaluating Obama’s own guidelines of success, Kuperman was not flattering. Regarding the protection of civilians and civilian life, he said, “No, it increased the death toll by eightfold” and “it lengthened the war by six times.” Obama’s other goal was to establish a legitimate government, but Kuperman said, “There’s no legimitate government and it is not responsive to the Libyan people.” Instead, “it led to the demise of the best democracy in North Africa” in Mali, and no dictator was intimidated by the NATO intervenion. In Kuperman’s words, “Assad went ahead and did what he was going to do.”

He seemingly hedged his answers and questioned, “Maybe it’s too soon to tell” but he still felt that “the NATO intervention in Libya was an abysmal failure.”

This is about as close as we’ve come to finding accuracy in academia in quite some time.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Syria
KEYWORDS: alankuperman; benghazi; iran; libya; nato; obama; oup; syria; texas; turkey
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To: TigersEye

Sadly, so did I, even though I am an Australian. NATO is salivating at the prospect of doing to Syria what it did to Lybia and to a lesser extent to Serbia. Every day I read another report on the evils of the ‘regime’ and every night another tug-at-the-heartstrings visual of the plight of the poor poor refugees...whose fathers and sons are the ‘freedom fighters’ described as ‘civilian casualties’ - there’s one thing to be said for the MSM, they are so totally ruled by the left and the islamists, they now carry about as much weight as Angela Jolie.


21 posted on 04/02/2014 3:33:18 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: TigersEye

Here we go again:

Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, also told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that with 40,000 troops massed near the border, Russia has all the components necessary to move on Ukraine.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3140101/posts

Fixed the Serbs, destroyed Lybia, can’t touch Syria, let’s get the Russians. Have weapons, must use them. What else is NATO good for? I bet the only people really complaining about the Russians in the Crimea are the muslim Tartars.

http://www.voanews.com/content/crimean-tatars-want-un-peacekeepers/1883983.html

excerpt:

After the meeting, Dzhemilev told VOA’s Russian service he feared Crimean Tatars could be the targets of violence under Russian rule, and he would like to see international peacekeepers deployed to Crimea.

“We have serious fears about what can happen there, and asked for the introduction of U.N. peacekeeping forces,” he said. “But since that is something decided by the U.N. Security Council, where Russia has the right to veto, this is quite unlikely.”

A second option, Dzhemilev said, would be to send in NATO forces, as was done in Kosovo.


22 posted on 04/02/2014 3:58:49 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: Fred Nerks
A second option, Dzhemilev said, would be to send in NATO forces, as was done in Kosovo.

Aw, jeez! Sure, NATO is the World Police now right? Solving all civil unrest. /s

23 posted on 04/02/2014 4:12:48 PM PDT by TigersEye (Stupid is a Progressive disease.)
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To: TigersEye

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140314-crimea-tatars-referendum-russia-muslim-ethnic-history-culture/

WHO ARE THE CRIMEAN TARTARS?

....Some of the children of the deported—raised in Uzbekistan and now adults—have returned to become leaders. Refat Chubarov, head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, the representative body of the Tatars, has called on his people—there are now approximately 300,000 Tatars in Crimea—to peacefully boycott the referendum. Nevertheless, some Crimean Tatars have vowed to oppose secession, with force if necessary. According to Western press reports, some Tatars fighting with the rebels in Syria have offered to return to join the cause...


24 posted on 04/02/2014 4:15:07 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: TigersEye

I think we can figure out why there are Russian troops stationed at the border, we don’t need the likes of CNN’s Christiane Amanpour to explain that to us. But she will be there, no doubt, when NATO starts to unload. If they dare.


25 posted on 04/02/2014 4:19:43 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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...According to Western press reports, some Tatars fighting with the rebels in Syria have offered to return to join the cause...
26 posted on 04/02/2014 4:28:55 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: Cicero

“Kaddafi was a troublemaker earlier, but he had long since split with the Muslim fanatics—who disapproved of him—and instead had allied himself with black Africans.”

That’s a fact. He ordered his southern mercenaries - black Africans - to kill Libyans after his army refused to murder Libyan families and 75% of his army deserted. When his African mercenary goons showed up at a campus and gunned down students, the country exploded in rage. The “professor” doesn’t mention that because he wasn’t there.

The end result is that the Libyan army deserters joined the provincial militias and attacked that scumball Kaddhafi and his NWO bureaucrats and mercenaries from Africa.

Kaddhafi ended up dead, shot with his own gold-plated Glock on the hood of a SUV, and his NWO African mercenaries were seen hanging from lampposts all over Libya.


27 posted on 04/02/2014 6:26:55 PM PDT by sergeantdave
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To: Fred Nerks

Sigh...didn’t read this today. If I don’t get to it tonight, I’ll read it tomorrow.


28 posted on 04/02/2014 8:16:01 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: sergeantdave

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2012/02/the-war-crimes-of-nato-in-libya/

Last week the human rights organization Amnesty International and the aid organization Doctors Without Borders reported that torture and ill-treatment is widespread among military and security forces and armed rebels who run prisons. For which NATO is responsible since it has brought this band of criminals into power.

The worst thing happened to Black people, no matter if migrants or native Libyans.

They were slaughtered …

… and thrown into mass graves by the hundreds.


29 posted on 04/02/2014 8:26:09 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: Nachum

Pingworthy in my opinion.


30 posted on 04/02/2014 8:32:57 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
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To: LucyT

Pingworthy in my opinion.


31 posted on 04/02/2014 8:33:40 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
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To: Jet Jaguar; Old Sarge; shibumi; OwenKellogg; boxlunch; easternsky; RoosterRedux; MurrietaMadman; ...
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Obama’s Failed Libyan War

Article, then #4, #27.

Thanks, Jet Jaguar.

32 posted on 04/02/2014 9:49:26 PM PDT by LucyT (If you're NOT paranoid, you don't know what's going on.)
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To: Jet Jaguar; NorwegianViking; ExTexasRedhead; HollyB; FromLori; EricTheRed_VocalMinority; ...

The list, Ping

Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list

http://www.nachumlist.com/


33 posted on 04/02/2014 10:10:30 PM PDT by Nachum (Obamacare: It's. The. Flaw.)
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To: Fred Nerks; TigersEye

WHAT IS NATO NOW?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

NATO now is the enforcement arm of the Wests coercive utopian movement, liberals who have gone wilding.

NATO has destabilized Europe, by opening the can of war
on Libya, enabling Russia to exercise similar military options in Crimea and the rest of Ukraine tioo solve regional issues exactly the way Obama did in Egypt and Libyah.

The Arab spring touted by Obama and the various democrat sponsered conferences in Washington and New York, including travel funding from the ME and North Africa, which trained the native political operatives of Libya on how to overthrough Gadaffi...was community organizing at its BEST ( sic).

Russia under Vlad the Shirtless is just playing the same game Obama unleashed in Libya and Egypt, yet doing a much better job so far, without slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocents, and destroying the greening system of Libyas deserts.Vlad is even using the same system of destabilizing the nation he is about to take over. So now it is not strange that Obama and Vlad speak for an hour at a time on the phone comparing notes. Both are cast from the same totalitarian mold.

What is keeping NATO from responding to Russia militarily?Its the soft sound of oil and gas gushing through various pipelines from the Black Sea to Kiev into Munich and beyond.
Its time to put the left out of control of NATO, into the hands of responsible men of war rather than the debarked greenies,coercive utopian socialists, who control NATO now. Their activity, if continued,will bring about WWIII.


34 posted on 04/03/2014 2:54:15 AM PDT by Candor7 (Obama fascism article:(http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html))
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To: Candor7

If I were Russian until 1954, and I found myself in a region in which the muslims were demaning an autonymous region and begging NATO to provide them with the same action which killed over a thousand Serbian civilians to create a muslim hell-hole in my neighbourhood, I would want to be a part of Russia again, also.
And if I were Russia, and those very same muslims who were fighting with the ‘rebels’ in Syria were planning to return to start trouble in the Crimea, I also would have as many thousands of my troops on the border as I thought necessary.

We are being lied to as usual. Just find a trouble spot and ask first; is islam involved? and if it is, the lies follow.


35 posted on 04/03/2014 3:23:54 AM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: Fred Nerks; LucyT

Did Libya ever attacked any NATO countries, hmmm???


36 posted on 04/03/2014 7:03:38 AM PDT by danamco (-)
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To: danamco

Did Serbia attack a NATO country?


37 posted on 04/03/2014 12:56:26 PM PDT by TigersEye (Stupid is a Progressive disease.)
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To: danamco
Did Libya ever attacked any NATO countries, hmmm???

There was once an article on the web in which Gaddafi said 'What have the arabs ever done for us?' He made it clear he regretted having assisted them with funds and equipment, he said he was through being used. That article has disappeared, of course. Then there is the video, and recently I read that it's now doubtful he had anything to do with the Lockerbie disaster. How much cover did that receive? I think it's clear he was unwise to assume he wouldn't be one of the first to be assissinated, but first he had to be demonized. As Melosovich also was. It makes me wonder about Saddam. Mubarak was a b*stard was he? Assad? And now it's Putin, how dare he station troops at the border - while the muslim Tartars, fighting on the side of the 'rebels' in Syria threaten to return to Crimea if NATO doesn't assist the Tartar muslims to achiever their autonomy. What does NATO and the UN think we are? Idiots?

We are NOT arabs, I heard Gaddafi say years ago. I think he might have meant we are not members of the Muslim Brotherhood. That would be why the country was destroyed and he was slaughtered like an animal in public.

38 posted on 04/03/2014 2:32:23 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: TigersEye
The Saudis wanted Gaddafi dead and they finally found someone who is willing to service them in any way they ask.

Payback for them paying for his education?

39 posted on 04/03/2014 2:38:37 PM PDT by MileHi
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To: MileHi

That would be so unsurprising I wouldn’t blink an eye if confirmed. OTOH I think he would drop to his knees for a Saudi royal for no compensation at all.


40 posted on 04/03/2014 2:58:24 PM PDT by TigersEye (Stupid is a Progressive disease.)
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