Clinton Defends Toppling Qaddafi: "It Is Too Soon To Tell" How Libya Will Turn Out

[Cheese Sandwich]

FAREED ZAKARIA, QUESTION: Donald Trump says that if you look back, you see that every time — I get a laugh just saying it…

(LAUGHTER)

… Donald Trump says that every time we deposed or encouraged the removal of a dictator in the Middle East, what has followed has been political chaos and a worse humanitarian situation than existed before. And if you look at Iraq, if you look at Libya, if you look Yemen, you look at the fragility of the Assad regime and what it has produced, isn’t he right?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, he has a very short-term view of history, because it is not at all clear what the final outcome will be in the places that you named. As I mentioned in the speech, I spoke about the foundations of the region sinking into the sand just as the Arab Spring was breaking. And I did so not knowing about the Arab Spring coming to full bloom, but because it was so clear that what was being done by dictatorships, by the denial of opportunity, by the repression, by the sectarian divide just could not stand. It was going to explode at some point or another.

And with the developments in Libya, for example, the Libyan people have voted twice in free and fair elections for the kind of leadership they want. They have not been able to figure out how to prevent the disruptions that they are confronted with because of internal divides and because of some of the external pressures that are coming from terrorist groups and others. So it’s — I think it’s too soon to tell and I think it’s something that we have to be, you know, looking at very closely.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/11/19/clinton_defends_toppling_qaddafi_it_is_not_at_all_clear_what_the_final_outcome_will_be.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Well, sure.

In another hundred years, things might be totally different for Libyans!

[reformist2]

2. Oh my, she really has consumed the neocon Kool-Aid.

She believes in 'democratic' nation-building by military intervention.

Not good.

[SwampG8r]

3. She is going to the right early

She is abandoning the left now rather than after the primary
They must really be buying into the " GOP crossover" vote
This is going to be one of the most fantastic election flameouts in my lifetime.

[grasswire]

5. yep

not enough popcorn in the cupboard for this one! Must stock up.

[Major Hogwash]

7. It reminds me of the Hindenburg.

No one expected it to crash and burn, either.

[joshcryer]

4. Arabs or Muslims are too barbaric for free and fair elections.

They need dictators like Saddam and Gaddafi, tyrant kings like in Qatar or Jordan, totalitarian governments like in Bahrain and Yemen, and even the democracies like Turkey require decades under a military junta. Even Indonesia required 30 years under a right wing dictator.



Or maybe, just maybe, it's OK to see what the Libyan people do without shitty snark.

[eridani]

8. Ethnic cleansing and mass murder of black Africans, for starters

Removing dictators by foreign military force = a power vacuum which turns into a chaotic shithole. Iraq exactly predicted Libya.

[Fumesucker]

9. And yet we are friends and allies with some of the worst dictatorships

Like Saudi Arabia for instance..

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-executions-amnesty-international-beheadings-death-sentences-rate-under-king-salman-10470456.html

Saudi Arabia has executed at least 175 people in the past year, at a rate of one every two days, according to a report by Amnesty International.

The kingdom killed 102 convicted criminals in the first six months of 2015 alone, putting it on course to beat its 1995 record number for the calendar year of 192. Those killed included children under the age of 18 at the time of the offence, and disabled people.

Amnesty, which alongside the AFP news agency keeps a record of the number of people the Saudi government kills, said the execution rate suddenly surged in August last year and continued to rise under the new King Salman from January.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/despite_atrocities_us_approves_129_billion_deal_20151117

The Pentagon announced on Monday that the U.S. has approved a $1.29 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, despite widespread mounting evidence of the country’s mass atrocities and possible war crimes in neighboring Yemen.

The U.S. State Department on Friday approved the sale of over 10,000 bombs, munitions, and weapons parts produced by Boeing and Raytheon. This includes 5,200 Paveway II “laser guided” and 12,000 “general purpose” bombs. “Bunker Busters,” also included in the deal, are designed to destroy concrete structures.

“The proposed sale augments Saudi Arabia’s capability to meet current and future threats from potential adversaries during combat operations,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense, said in an announcement of the deal released Monday.

[joshcryer]

10. I know, right?

The Saudi's are the ones behind this shit.* They really are. The oil can't run out soon enough. In fact all this terrorism I think is their last breath. They know the cheap oil has only a few years left. Hell, they're already looking in to renewable energy (came out just the other day that they're planning to go renewable, as I suggested they would awhile back). The good thing about renewables is that they're not exportable (to the profitable extent that oil is). They just maintain your state for the most part.

All this shit will end eventually.

Would be nice if we cut ties but the MIC loves selling shit to Saudi Arabia.

I save give up the few billion a year we get from the Saudi's for military shit and just tell them that they can fuck off. They're "only" a tiny bit better than ISIS on the scale of total totalitarianism.

*was annoyed when that guy on Bill Maher pointed this out and Maher shot him down. I don't think it's all religious, I think it's political. Sick ass psycho princes hate western civilization and it's their hobby to pay even more degenerate people to go about massacring people.

Cut them the fuck off and all this shit goes away. We know that ISIS fighters are only doing it to get paid. Cut them off.

[CentralMass]

6. Here is an interesting read.

http://theconversation.com/libya-and-isis-what-happened-37801

[joshcryer]

11. Great article.

[Vattel]

12. Things might improve? That's it? I am sure that is very comforting to all of the victims

of the violence and chaos that regime change has unleashed in Libya.

Tell me there was a follow-up question. Any journalist who left a lame answer like that go unchallenged is useless.