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Did You Notice the Trump Doctrine?
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democratic staff recently issued a report titled “Diplomacy in Crisis: The Trump Administration’s Decimation of the State Department.” Oh, it’s horrid! Under Trump 11 Assistant Secretary or Under Secretary posts are vacant or filled by acting officials. And career public servants, many of whom were actively involved in trying to impeach and “resist” the president, report “leadership exhibits a sense of disrespect and disdain for their work.”
Leaving aside the question of what an “Under Secretary” does and why previous administrations needed so dang many of them, one is tempted to say if this is what the real-world effect of American diplomacy in crisis is, please don’t fix anything: for the first time in almost two decades America has not started a new war. Cut back on some existing ones, too.U.S. military fatalities during the Obama term were 1,912. Trump’s body count to date is only 123. Damn uncomfortable truth. You can make yourself feel better by giving Trump (and State) no credit. You can calm yourself by believing there’s no Trump Doctrine of winding back the dumbness of constant war, no thought out process that maybe America’s power is enhanced by not throwing a match into every bucket of gasoline in the Middle East, just Trump bumbling in the foreign policy darkness randomly added up to something. He’s the diplomatic equivalent of all those monkeys pecking away at a million typewriters and accidentally reproducing Hamlet. Whatever helps you sleep at night. But the tally, in trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of human lives saved, is unambiguous and good.
With Elderly Caucasian Joe Biden heading up the alumni association seeking the White House like the last founding member of Blue Oyster Cult taking the “band” out on the road one more time, it might be fun to indulge in some Obama-Biden foreign policy nostalgia as a vision of things to come.
It’s easy to forget in the foreign policy debate between Trump and Hillary way back in 2016 one of the catch phrases was “boots on the ground” in reference to how (not if) Clinton was going to flat-out war in Syria. Trump wanted no part of it, but Obama-Biden had already intervened in Syria in multiple ways, teeing it up for the next POTUS.
Clinton was being egged on to expand the war in Syria by the State Department. In June 2016 an internal State Department “dissent” memo leaked to major news outlets sharply criticizing the Obama-Biden policy of relative restraint, and demanding military strikes. The memo, signed by 51 diplomats whose identities somehow were not leaked, was almost certainly shepherded by former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford. Ford had earlier helped promote the destruction of Iraq as Obama’s Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad, and went on to want open war in Syria. He was pulled out of the job in Syria for his own safety after undiplomatically promoting the overthrow of the government there.
Obama’s expansion in Syria was minor compared to Iraq. After withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 in time to get re-elected the next year, in 2014 Obama partnered with Iran to let start putting boots back on that same old ground. It didn’t take long for the United States to morph that conflict from a rescue mission (Save the Yazidis!) to a training mission to bombing to special forces and then regular forces in ongoing contact with the enemy for what became Iraq War 3.0. American ground forces grew to some 6,000 on regular deployment, with an additional, unknown, number of Marines on “temporary duty” and not counted against the total.
Obama surged into Afghanistan, the same year he received the Nobel Peace Prize, sending 17,000 troops to raise the total in-country by 50 percent. Obama also had U.S. forces at war in Yemen, Pakistan, Mali, and Somalia. Goaded by Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice he attacked Libya, turning the country into a failed state and promoting one of the most tragic outflows of refugees into Europe in modern times, forever changing the demographics of the continent (Germany did not say thank you.) There was Benghazi. Luckily, time ran out before Obama-Biden could militarily intervene in Ukraine. The State Department’s Victoria Nuland, in a tapped call discussing manipulating political succession in Ukraine, said “F*ck the EU” showing how the administration valued its allies.
And of course the Putin love shown by Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry who invited Russia back into Syria. Kerry who floundered as Russia made its incursions into Ukraine and Crimea. Kerry who sang Happy Birthday to Putin at an APEC conference.
But in weighing Obama the Committed Warlord against Trump the Accidental Peacemaker, one cannot focus on policy alone. One needs to know the man.
Obama killed four American citizens by drone. Trump zero. After Obama ordered the killing of American Anwar al-Awlaki and later his teenage American son, Obama’s White House press secretary Robert Gibbs commented the kill shot on the kid was justified as he “should have had a more responsible father.” Obama personally lead the Tuesday Oval Office reviews to choose who would die the coming week, telling senior aides in 2011: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.” Under Obama America wasn’t the world’s policeman. We were the world’s George Zimmerman.
At a time when militarization and Trump’s use of Federal force in America cities is being questioned, remember Obama set the bar. Following the drone killings of Americans abroad Senator Rand Paul asked whether the president could authorize lethal force against an American citizen in the U.S. Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder answered yes. Holder said he could imagine “an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.” Note to DJT: the legal justification is still on the books if you need it in Portland.
That was the world in 2016. Donald Trump as president has started no new wars. Troop levels in Syria are down. Same for Iraq. Afghanistan remains about the same, with no surges. In 2017, the Department of Defense stopped providing specific military deployment figures for those areas. However, DOD’s annual budget requests fill in some of the blanks. The budget request from March 2019 showed the number of troops in Afghanistan at 12,000, with Iraq and Syria together at 5,800. In a recent move, Trump announced 12,000 American troops will be leaving Germany.
The Global War on Terror, Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and regime change in Syria played important roles in the 2016 election. They’re no longer in the lexicon, artifacts now of another era. What happened? Did we win? Are they postponed because of COVID? Or was it mostly a pile of bullsh*t from the beginning and Trump called the bluff?
It is a good thing a lot of nothing happened. John Bolton was the Bad Boy who was supposed to start wars with Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, maybe even China. He didn’t. The ending of the Iran nuclear agreement and the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem caused not much to happen. In the end Bolton had no home in an administration which didn’t want to go to war. Mad Dog Jim Mattis as defense secretary, along with State Department special envoy to the coalition fighting ISIS Brett McGurk, resigned over Trump’s decision to draw down in Syria and Afghanistan. Mattis and McGurk too had no place in an administration which didn’t want more war.
Whereas Obama had given up on diplomacy with North Korea in 2012, content to see them grow their nuclear arsenal, Trump understood you make peace by talking to your worst adversaries. His efforts were mocked, with the MSM declaring anything short of improbable full denuclearization meant Trump failed. But the door was left open, tensions cooled on the Korean Peninsula, and both sides got a peek at how they can move forward in the future. It’s easy to forget that before Trump’s diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, the Council on Foreign Relations assessed the chances of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula at 50 percent.
Of course Biden isn’t Obama. But neither is Trump, who spent the last four years disengaging from the policies Biden helped champion for eight. Biden’s foreign policy will be shaped by Obama alums. Only Satan knows the details of Susan Rice’s and Samantha Power’s pact with him, but they will both certainly have a role in a Biden administration promoting war as they did under Barack. We might even see the return of Hillary in some sort of elder statesman/special envoy role.
There are many domestic Trump policies people don’t like, and this article isn’t meant to defend them. But it is worth noting how central warmaking has been to mucking up America, whether it is savaging our economy with debt, diverting funds from some social program to war, fueling terrorism either directly through CIA funding, or indirectly by blowing up wedding parties and creating new enemies. America’s warmaking has turned allies against us, burned too many times by American adventurism. And for those concerned about America’s image abroad, the most offensive Trump tweets have little to compare to the serial “accidental” bombings of schools and hospitals. So while the easy out is to rebut this with “But Trump…,” that ignores the centrality of war to American foreign policy and benefits in walking that back.
Democrats and the MSM have spent four years declaring Trump is about to start some war or another, when in fact he has done quite the opposite. Meanwhile their candidate carries forward a bloody history of intervention and self-proclaimed Just War killing millions. While the Left will insist it won’t believe it’s eyes, it is possible the people know. Trump’s 2016 win was influenced by his outspoken denouncement of the waste of America’s wars. Evidence suggests pro-Trump sentiment in rural areas especially was driven in part by people who agreed with his anti-war critique, voters who’d either served in Obama’s wars or whose sons/daughters had served. We’ll see who notices in November.
BONUS Content: Ah, Susan Rice. Only Satan knows the details of her pact with him, but she would certainly have a role in the Biden administration. Rice who supported bloodshed in Africa, created the policy of overlooking genocide in Rwanda, persuaded President Clinton against killing bin Laden, supported the invasion of Iraq as did Biden, who lied about what happened in Benghazi, and who wanted war in Libya. Rice combines the steamy crap foreign policy failures of Bill and Hillary with Obama to ensure it’ll all work out about the same for Biden. She is also all appetite, having spent a career promoting Susan Rice, so also expect her to go after the Oval Office if she can.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Susan Rice: Too Many Smart White Guys on National Security Team Putting America at Risk
Actual Black Person and National Security Advisor Susan Rice told graduates at Florida International University in a commencement speech a week or three ago that the presence of too many “white, male, and Yale” personnel in America’s national security agencies she helps staff and run is posing a threat to the very security of the United States.
“Too often, our national security workforce has been what former Florida Senator Bob Graham called ‘white, male, and Yale,'” Rice stated. “In the halls of power, in the faces of our national security leaders, America is still not fully reflected. I’m not talking about a human resources issue. I’m highlighting a national security imperative.”
So what the hell exactly is Rice talking about that’s so dangerous besides herself?“By now, we should all know the dangers of ‘groupthink,’ where folks who are alike often think alike. By contrast, groups comprised of different people tend to question one another’s assumptions, draw on divergent perspectives and experiences, and yield better outcomes.”
So that means all people of a certain melanin ratio think the same way? I think that’s the same kind of racist hate that many still say about people of color.
Or that once in government, Blacks, Whites, Latinos, gay people and all others don’t all become weasels and suckups who always agree with their boss? Also, one can’t help but notice that Rice, in her powerful position, is already Black. And that other guy, the one who sits at the head of the table, he also looks Black.
And about that “Yale” part of the equation Rice also does not like. Rice attended elite Stanford University, and then went on to even more elite Oxford University in England, kinda on the Yale spectrum. Her boss, Barack Obama, went to Columbia and Harvard, so so much for diversity there. Maybe she should resign in favor of someone who went to Ohio State on a football scholarship.
Rice wasn’t done in her commencement speech, as she had to explain her views on the utter shallowness of diplomacy, about how America can fool foreigners with funny costumes that for sure matter more than policies such as drone strikes against civilians and overthrowing governments:“Moreover, we want our national security leaders to reflect America’s best self to the world and inspire others to follow our example. Not by preaching pluralism and tolerance, but by practicing it. Think of the LGBT person in Bangladesh who knows that someone at the American embassy understands who she is. Think of the Iraqi soldier, learning to fight alongside Iraqis from other religious sects, who takes inspiration from America’s own multi-ethnic force. Think of young Haitians drawn to converse with a Foreign Service officer who has dreadlocks like their own. That is how we build bridges and deepen partnerships in an increasingly globalized world.”
Damn, that’s it. If only more of our diplomats grew dreads things would be working better for America out there.
BONUS: I am in favor of diversity. But the arguments Rice is making were made in part years ago about bringing more women into government. We did, and it didn’t change sh*t about the way America conducts itself in the world.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Overheard in the White House: Why We Are Going to War in Syria
Mr. President, we’re going to have to convince the American people about this war with Syria. Our polling shows more support for nuking Miley Cyrus the next time she twerks on TV than for your policy.She does have a sweet little–
We have the Congressional midterms coming up, and Boehner is up my ass about defunding my healthcare legacy. I need this vote, or Hillary’s gonna kill me.
Right, right, sir.
(Licking of chops heard)
Kill them! Kill them all!
Easy Susan, I promise you’ll see the post-attack color close up photos first, then you pass them to McCain like always.
Yes, It likes the Precious Photos, It likes them.
Somebody get her some water or something?
So what’s our reason for Syria?
Hey, do we still have to put five bucks in the tip jar if we say ‘Slam Dunk’?
Seriously now people, we are committing American lives at risk here.
(General laughter in room)
OK, OK. We go to war in Iran–
Syria.
OK, war in Syria because of a red line.
Is that the same as a line in the sand?
No, ours is red. Very different.
Good one, sir.
Well, Americans have not been hooked tight enough by the red line. We need another reason.
OK, evil dictator, killing his own people, yadda yadda.
That has some traction, but roughly half of the dead in Syria were killed by ‘our own’ rebels, and those were their own people too. What else?
U.S. credibility?
(General laughter in room)
I think U.S. credibility went down the freaking toilet when you promised to close Gitmo and didn’t.
Shut up Chuck. Nobody asked you.
Goddammit, I served in Vietnam.
Yeah, so did John Kerry and Colin Powell, and you don’t see them whining.
So why don’t we just go old-school and say the Syrians attacked us in the Gulf of Tonkin?
Would that work?
Dammit, I had friends killed in Vietnam because of that lie.
I think one of my frat brothers’ dad got greased in Laos. Is that over there too?
Also, I read somewhere that we used napalm, white phosphorus and Agent Orange over there. Are those chemical weapons?
Yeah, but that’s history.
Not to the victims and their malformed children still alive, nor to the loved ones still mourning their dead at America’s hand.
O.K., back on track, how about, um, violation of international law?
(General laughter in room)
Maybe with our drones, ongoing indefinite imprisonment at Gitmo, torture, renditions, black sites, NSA spying on foreign heads of state, bringing down a sovereign leader’s plane because we thought that son-of-a-bitch Snowden was on board, pushing international law too hard might not be the best thing.
Easy Chuck.
Yeah, especially since until around 2006 we were rendering prisoners into Assad’s Syria for out-sourced torture.
Dammit Chuck!
OK, back to Iran. We bomb the hell out of Syria to send a message to Iran.
What message?
That they can’t support evil regimes.
But the Iranians have been supporting bad guys in Lebanon forever, these days the Taliban in Afghanistan, and basically control our allies in free Iraq. Hell, they even sent Qods force guys into Iraq to kill our own troops. Not sure here why Syria, now, is the place for a message.
So what do we have left?
I’d say we just keep saying ‘WMD, WMD’ over and over again until Americans beg Congress for a military strike on Syria.
I like that a lot. Any opposition? No? OK then, we go with WMD scare tactics.
Might as well.
Agreed. It worked last time.
O.K., thanks everyone. And thank you gentlemen for coming back to Washington to help see this through. John, would you be kind enough to walk W., Dick and Condi out please?
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Too Hilarious: Susan Rice Decries Torture (except by the U.S.)
Where, oh where to begin?
America’s would-be Secretary of State, Obama confidante and rumored former lover, and our next National Security Advisor, has the temerity to actually ask anyone to commit to ending torture? This is hilarious. Rice, and the people she works with, have fully abandoned reality and now just say whatever the hell suits the moment, confidant no one will even bother to remember what they said yesterday, especially America’s somnolent “journalists.”
Ho, ho, now the U.S. wants to criticize (other) people who commit torture, sure, why not put that out there? It’s what, the International Day for Victims of Torture? Maybe to celebrate the U.S. will force two cans of Ensure down the throats of those held indefinitely in Guantanamo. I hope to hell someone told the men waterboarded and otherwise brutalized by the United States that today’s their special day! Hey, the U.S. even let Bradley Manning wear clothes and eat dog food as a special treat!
Susan should read this formerly Top Secret CIA document explaining torture techniques, and noting the many “exceptions” field officers took– threatening with a power drill, claiming they would rape the prisoner’s female relatives in front of him, stating they would find and kill a prisoner’s children and so forth. One prisoner was waterboarded 82 times. Sleep deprivation was “limited” to only 11 days.
Susan might also wish to review the photos from Abu Ghraib to see what Americans did.
I strongly encourage everyone to get on The Twitter, find @AmbassadorRice, and send her a REPLY with your thoughts. Your comments, if read by anyone other than the NSA, will be read by one of Rice’s staffers, not the Evil Queen herself of course. While Rice’s pact with Satan is already written in blood, your remarks may free one of her staffers from bondage. Save a life, send a Tweet.
Susan Rice, you disgust decent people.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Handy Quiz for Intervening in Syria
As a public service to Obama and his spanking-new National Security Advisor Susan Rice (Rice’s autobiography should be titled Failing Upward by Sucking Upward), here is a handy checklist to consult before deciding to intervene further in Syria.
Is it Iraq again? That went well.
Does it have oil?
Does it pose a direct threat to America, i.e., knife to our throat?
Can you define specifically what U.S. interests are at stake (no fair just citing generic “world peace” or “evil dictator”)?
Is Syria’s evil dictator somehow super-worse than the many other evil dictators scattered across the world where the U.S. is not intervening?
Did Syria attack any U.S. forces somewhere? Kidnap Americans? Commit 9/11?
Does the U.S. have a specific, detailed follow-on plan for what happens if Assad departs?
Does the U.S. have a specific plan to ensure weapons given to the rebels, some of whom are openly al Qaeda, won’t migrate out of Syria as they did in Libya?
Does the U.S. believe its secret deal with the rebels to hand over Syria’s chemical weapons after they take power is airtight?
Can the U.S. tell with accuracy the “good” rebels from the “bad” rebels?
Has the U.S. considered in detail what affect a rebel (Sunni) victory in Syria will have on chaotic Iraq next door?
Why are Syria’s chemical weapon so different than say North Korea’s or anyone else’s that intervention is a good idea?
Extra Credit Questions
If the U.S. is regime-changing in Syria, why does the U.S. still diplomatically recognize the Syrian government? Discuss.
Why did the U.S. render prisoners to Syria for torture by Assad just a few years ago but now thinks he is an evil dictator? Discuss.
Since the American electorate overwhelmingly chose Obama over McCain in 2008, why is Obama acting more like McCain every day? Discuss.
Exactly why, after Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and drone wars everywhere, does the U.S. need to get sucked in to yet another Middle East quagmire? Discuss.
Obama and Rice, if the answer was “No” to any of the above questions, you should not intervene in Syria.
Bonus: The blogging software I use for this site requires “tags” be created to mark posts for searches. When I first started, the only country tag I needed was “Iraq.” Since then I have had to add Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Iran, multiple African nations and now Syria as places America is openly at war.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Please Not Susan Rice for Secretary of State
Obama, please do not nominate Susan Rice for Secretary of State. It has nothing to do with her being a woman, or a sort-of African-American, or even the Benghazi mess (though that’s a symptom of the broader problem). It has nothing to do with John Kerry’s Senate seat. Susan Rice is all appetite, all in for only herself and the Department of State, and America, needs a leader in the job, not another person primping her resume for what comes next.
A Biography Fit for a Queen
Look at Rice’s biography: She was raised in a well-to-do Washington DC neighborhood by elite parents. Emmett Rice, was an economist who in 1979 became the second African American appointed to the Federal Reserve Board. Her mother, Lois Dickson Rice, was a corporate executive and a longtime member of the College Board. Rice attended fancy schools — Beauvoir and the National Cathedral School. Her parents’ friends were people such as Madeleine Albright, the future secretary of state, who served on school boards with Rice’s mother, and whose former husband played tennis with Rice’s father. Albright became a mentor, helping to elevate Rice to assistant secretary of state for African Affairs when Rice was 32. They have been so close that people assumed Rice was her godchild, Albright said in an interview. Peggy Cooper Cafritz, a wealthy D.C. art patron, was a kind of surrogate godmother. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton took Rice to lunch when she was deciding whether to attend law school. Inheritances from husband Cameron’s and Rice’s families are largely responsible for her $20 million-plus net worth.
Rice finished her schooling in 1990, and started work as an international management consultant at McKinsey & Company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Rice took a job with the National Security Council in Washington, D.C., under Clinton in 1993. She became special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs in 1995. Only two years later, in 1997, Madeleine Albright made Rice assistant secretary of state for African Affairs when Rice was 32. It was unclear if Rice had ever been to Africa absent a short trip or two or done anything significant related to Africa outside of academia, or what the hell she knew about Africa at age 32 only seven years in the job market. Rice moved into a think tank during the Bush years and then the Obama campaign in 2008+. She has never worked outside of Washington since a brief job stint right out of school.
The Buck Stops Elsewhere
She was one of the youngest assistant secretaries of state ever. Among her accomplishments in the position was to be the top diplomat for African issues during the 1998 terrorist embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.
In a 2002 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, former Ambassador to Sudan Timothy M. Carney and news contributor Mansoor Ijaz implicated Rice in missing an opportunity to neutralize Osama bin Laden while he was still in Sudan in 1996. They wrote that Sudan and Secretary of State Albright were ready to cooperate on intelligence potentially leading to Bin Laden, but that Rice persuaded National Security Adviser Sandy Berger to overrule Albright. Similar allegations were made by Vanity Fair contributing editor David Rose and Richard Miniter, author of Losing Bin Laden, in a November 2003 interview with World.
Rice, as assistant secretary for African Affairs, also contributed to the bloodshed on the Continent, saying at one point “Museveni [of Uganda] and Kagame agree that the basic problem in the Great Lakes is the danger of a resurgence of genocide and they know how to deal with that. The only thing we [i.e., the United States] have to do is look the other way.”
Rice also famously said about the horrific genocide then unfolding in Rwanda “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional midterm] election?”
Oh, and yes, Rice’s misstatements about Benghazi, when she claimed that the attack was based on that silly anti-Islam film no one knew about until she honked about it on the Sunday teevee talk shows. According to Obama:
If Senators McCain and Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me… but for them to go after the U.N. ambassador? Who had nothing to do with Benghazi? And was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received? To besmirch her reputation is outrageous.
Not Rice’s Fault
But none of that was her fault and she had nothing to do with any of that in any way whatsoever. The buck always stopped somewhere else for Susan Rice.
“She always reminds me of someone who’s had every drop of Kool-Aid, always espousing 1,000 percent of whatever point of view the administration is putting forward,” said Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
So here’s the money shot: Susan Rice is not qualified to be Secretary of State. Susan Rice would have (Spoiler Alert) told six year olds on the Sunday talk shows that Santa Claus isn’t real if Obama asked her to say that. Susan Rice for all her life has been about promoting Susan Rice, about hitching herself to a powerful person (Albright, Clinton, Obama) and then doing exactly what she was told to do in return for favorable promotions and bureaucratic protection. Susan Rice is always the handmaiden of failure without ever being tainted by accepting responsibility. Susan Rice is 100 percent a product of the slimy sad way Washington works nowadays, people who ignore the “service” portion of “public service” simply for self-advancement. Susan Rice cares not a jot for the Department of State as as organization, and little for the United States as a concept. Both exist only to serve the needs of Susan Rice. Her self-serving nature has left enough collateral damage blood on her hands for two lifetimes.
There are some seven billion people on earth, and almost any one of them would be a better choice for Secretary of State than Susan Rice. We need better. Please?
Bonus: Additional blah blah blah on Rice from the New York Times and a significant contribution to hagiography by the Washington Post, polishing Hillary’s reputation.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Freedom Bombs for Libya
It is always exciting to watch a new democracy form, nurtured along by a benevolent older brother. Instead, we have Libya, where for some reason no one can remember anymore, we are still at war.Let’s run down the list: Did they attack us, like Pearl Harbor? No. Are they Nazis enslaving Europe? Nope. Did they steal our women and sell off our children? No. Anyway, just accept that we are at war to free Libya from the people who govern it, who are actually also Libyans.
It looks like some more freedom bombs were dropped on Libya. CNN reports:
NATO airstrikes hit a bakery and a restaurant in the Libyan city of al-Brega Saturday, killing 15 civilians, a Libyan government official told CNN. NATO denied the claim and said it had struck key command-and-control centers.
This kind of thing always makes me angry. In The Dirty Dozen or Private Ryan, whatever they blew up was just crawling with Krauts. Nobody was standing around saying “Hey, was that a bakery or a command center we just blew up?” Where’s Vic Morrow when you need him?
Vic Morrow also didn’t rape women, and it appears that the earlier claims by US UN diplo drone Susan Rice that sex machine Qaddafi had given his troops Viagra to encourage them to be rapin’ everybody may not be true.
Allegations that Muammar Qaddafi ordered the mass rape of women and passed out Viagra to his troops to give them more zeal for the task have been widely cited – most recently by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). But independent researchers who have sought to corroborate the claim in Libya now say they have found no evidence to back it whatsoever.
“We have not spoken to any victims or anybody who has met victims, except for the one doctor who has spoken a lot to the media,” said the researchers. “We approached her to see if there was anything more to learn from her, on this particular issue; she couldn’t put us in touch with any victims.”
So yeah, we probably just made that shit up. Hey, it’s war you know.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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