Forum Post: Former CIA director blames Obama for Ambassador's death in Libya
Posted 12 years ago on Sept. 13, 2012, 8:36 p.m. EST by arturo
(3169)
from Shanghai, Shanghai
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The violence in Libya that claimed the life of the U.S. ambassador was the result of President Obama's decision to intervene in the Libyan revolt without a "true or deep appreciation" for the consequences, former CIA Director (2006-2009) Michael Hayden said yesterday, continuing his recent campaign of speaking out against Obama's policies. "I'm reminded of Secretary of State Powell's comments about Iraq going back almost a decade ago — the 'Pottery Barn' theory that if you break it, you own it," Hayden said in an interview with Newsmax.com.
"Here's a case," Hayden explained, "where we went into Libya for reasons that seemed very powerful for some people at the time, almost all of them humanitarian, perhaps without a true or deep appreciation for what the secondary and tertiary effects of overthrowing Gadhafi would be. This was always the story we saw in those cell phone videos of oppressed and oppressor, but there were other stories going on too, other narratives — East versus West in Libya, tribal disputes in Libya, eastern Libya being home of the Islamic Libyan fighting group. All these subplots were always out there and once you shatter the old society, these subplots become far more powerful and now we are seeing the results of that: loss of control, manned portable air missiles, weapons from Libya being used to grab the northern half of Mali away from the Malian government, which is a good friend of the U.S."
"Now you've got a state, a heavily-armed state in Libya that is armed at the militia and tribal level," Hayden said. "I actually said when we first intervened that we now take on a moral responsibility for the future of the Libyan state and here we are."
"You've got the Russians, with some legitimacy, feeling that the U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya was bait and switch," Hayden declared. "It was never just humanitarian assistance, it was to overthrow the regime, and as for how that affects the Russians, think about Syria." Early last week, Hayden was in Israel, where he cautioned against an attack on Iran, and then on Friday, he gave a speech at the University of Michigan in which he pointed to the continuity between Presidents Bush and Obama on the war on terror, except, he pointed out, targeted killings have increased under Obama.
The CIA are the ones that probably made the decision to go into Libya to begin with, and you can bet it wasnt because Ghadafi "threatened" his people.
Being a large organization, there probably were factions for and against going into Libya in the CIA. I would assume that Obama made the final decision though. Its increasingly evident that he supports military intervention into Syria and Iran as well.
Considering that these nations are also within the spheres of influence of Russia and China, such an intervention could lead to a massively fatal confrontation between the world's nuclear super powers.
Whoever the next president is will be in WWIII
Perhaps so, unless Obama is impeached now, and we get Joe Biden for the interim. As a contender in the elections, Biden would probably beat Romney hands down, since the only good thing about Romney is that he is not Obama.
Biden is Obama.
There is no good thing about Romney.
You think? How do you see that happening? I'm curious. And who is involved? I've always wondered how many countries the government has to bomb before it's considered WWIII.
True. Some kind of look at this current situation as the beginning right now.
We have bombed 6 nations in 3 years, along with France and Germany. Russia just invaded Georgia at the end of the Bush presidency. Israel is openly calling for attacking Iran now.
Im not sure how it will play out, but I know all the fiannces are globally on a thread, so it has to happen soon.
Yea but we should've just taken out Ghadafi...
One of the high credibility bush/cheney gems:
Hayden's Wiretaps of domestic communication
under Hayden's leadership, the NSA created a domestic telephone call database. During his nomination hearings, Hayden defended his actions to Senator Russ Feingold and others, stating that he had relied upon legal advice that the White House order to build the database was supported by Article Two of the United States Constitution executive branch powers (in which the President must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed"), overriding legislative branch statutes forbidding warrantless surveillance of domestic calls, which included the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Previously, this action would have required a warrant from a FISA court. The stated purpose of the database was to eavesdrop on international communications between persons within the U.S. and individuals and groups overseas in order to locate terrorists.
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The guy is right it was common knowledge that extremists were operating in Libya. To not have an armed presence at the embassy was foolish, there blood is on his hands
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Libya was the most economically developed nation in Africa. Certainly there were some groups that were oppressed or did not benefit as much as others, but this is probably true throughout Africa.
The original orientation of America was to stay out of foreign wars and intrigues. I think we should return to this original path.
Did Ghadafi want to create a currency that was backed by something?
Something went affray. He was in power for 40 yrs.
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40 years in the driver's seat in control of a country, ZenDog.
If he was insane, he certainly had a lot of sane employees under him.
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Libya was planned under the Bush administration. I 100% agree with that... this administration is fulfilling the war plan.
Afghanistan - Iraq - Libya - Syria - Somalia - Lebanon - Iran
Democracy Now - 2007 - Wesley Clark - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSNyPS0fXpU
Kinda flimsy evidence for your conspiracy theory there trev.
You loved it back in 2007
Never saw it. It's sorta irrelevant. Human lives matter. I'm against these republican created drone bombings, against the republican created war on terror, against the republican created civil rights violations and the dems who continue them.
I support all efforts to end this obscenity. I support the reduction of US military killing from 1 million+ to thousands. I agitate to bring them to zero. I support the resistance of war mongers pressure to invade Iran.
I am against the killing of American diplomats, and support the moderates in the ME who are trying to create mod dem govts
I reject conspiracy theories. Sorry.
it's not just a theory when the government ends up bombing or sanctioning all 7 of those countries since then... as well as putting regime change on public policy documents.
Yeah. Great. I support the resistance of pressure by right wing war mongerers to invade Iran.
I do not support Iran and would love to see moderate Iranian people form a moderate dem govt.
"NATO recklessly bombed civilians in the name of saving civilians." - Dennis Kucinich
You call that casualties. Now when bad things happen as a result you blow it off as blow-back?
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