Conservapedia

Arab Spring

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The Arab Spring of 2011-2012 was largely an anti-Western, anti-Zionist movement orchestrated by the Obama administration to topple secular regimes in the Arab world. As a journalistic euphemism, it was intended to evoke reminiscences of the 1968 Prague Spring, or a peaceful demonstration against authoritarian rulers to bring about "socialism with a human face".

It was billed as an effort at democratitization in the Arab Middle East through regime change, along the lines of President George W. Bush's 2003 Iraq war without using US troops. Ultimately it ended in a bloody and humanitarian disaster and led to the rise of the Islamic State, eleven million dispossessed, in excess of 400,000 dead in Syria, and the European migrant crisis. A corollary to the plan was to build the image of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a great world leader and statesman as Obama's successor.[1]

The states of Libya, Yemen and others were destabilized. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton actively intervened in Syria and Libya, funnelling money and weapons to known Salafi jihadi groups. The powers that be remained in control of secular Egypt. Iran, with Western acquiescence, remained firmly on the path to becoming a nuclear power.

... the idea of an “Arab Spring” for the entire Arab world that President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and investor George Soros strongly promoted turned out to be based on a naïve idealism that instead undermined the rule of law and led to anarchy, starvation, and a refugee crisis that hurt citizens more than the dictatorships that preceded it.[2]

The policies of US President Barack Hussein Obama with regard to the Arab Spring seemed to be in the interest of Muslim theocracy, unlike previous American Presidents who have favored governments which are secular and pro-Israel.

Egypt

Following the resign of Hosni Mubarak as a result of the protests, Egypt was controlled by Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood from November 22, 2012 to June 3, 2013. In June 2013 he was overthrown by the military and since August 2014 Abdel Fattah el-Sisi rules the country.

Libya

Main article: Libyan War

February 2011 The original plan was for the fighting to be over in days, with some of the weapons captured at Benghazi to be used in ending Gaddafi's resistance, and some flown to the Turkish staging area at Adana, along the Syrian border, to be used in an uprising against Assad. The singular advantage both Gaddafi and Assad hold against an internal uprising is airpower. In Western propaganda this always translates into "using aircraft against civilians." Hence the call for a no-fly zone to make it a fair fight between government forces and rebel forces.

Sarkozy, Cameron, Hillary Clinton, and Obama wanted cover for their actions. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 (UNSC 1970) provided for an arms embargo - no weapons shipped in to either side. UNSC 1973 "authorized" a no-fly zone "by any means necessary," of course the UK, France, and US took to mean regime change, use of aggressive force, and direct arms deliveries to their jihadi rebels on the ground. The Russians didn't see it that way. The betrayal of assurance Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama gave to get Russia to withhold its veto on the UN Security Council marked a turning point in relations. Russia did not assent to NATO's use of aggressive force. The blatant disregard for international law Sarkozy, Cameron, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama flouted, coupled with Obama's drone strikes, caused Vladimir Putin to reaccess other international agreements Russia and the Western powers were party to, namely agreements over the Crimea and Ukraine.

  • 15 February. Benghazi uprising begins.[3]
  • 18 February. Joint British-French military assets in place.[6]
  • 19 February. Gaddafi loyalists in Benghazi have all retreated into the Katiba fortress compound.
  • 21 February. Walls of the Katiba compound are breached; local fighting ceases.
  • 22 February. Stratfor reports,[7]

STRATFOR has been hearing about plans in the works by a group of army officers planning to oust Gadhafi, move into Tripoli and reinvent a Revolutionary Command Council to take authority over the country. Now the names that are being thrown around to lead this Revolutionary Command Council include many of the original free officers that helped bring Gadhafi to power in the 1969 military coup. This group is currently lobbying for the U.N. Security Council which is currently in session to approve a no-fly zone that can be enforced by the United States. The army officers trying to lead this coup want to ensure that Gadhafi can’t rely on remaining loyal air force units to bombard them as they make their way into Tripoli. Now Gadhafi is likely betting that global concerns over energy cutoffs from Libya and fears over regime collapse in Libya leading to civil war will likely deter any such plans for a no-fly zone to be enforced by the United States. Still, the opposition, including many of these army officers, appear willing to call that bluff.

  • Gen. Abdul Fatah Younis, Gaddafi regime Minister of Interior openly defects from Gaddafi. Younis has worked at Gaddafi's side for 42 years since the bloodless coup of 1969 that deposed the monarchy.
  • 23 February. Pakistan Observer reports:[8]

"United States, Britain and France have sent several hundred “defence advisors” to train and support the anti-Gadhafi forces in oil-rich Eastern Libya where “rebels armed groups” have apparently taken over.

According to an exclusive report confirmed by a Libyan diplomat in the region “the three Western states have landed their “special forces troops in Cyrinacia and are now setting up their bases and training centres” to reinforce the rebel forces who are resisting pro-Qaddafi forces in several adjoining areas.

A Libyan official who requested not to be identified said that the U.S. and British military gurus were sent on February 23 and 24 night through American and French warships and small naval boats off Libyan ports of Benghazi and Tobruk.

The Western forces are reportedly preparing to set-up training bases for local militias set-up by the rebel forces for an effective control of the oil-rich region and counter any push by pro- Qaddafi forces from Tripoli .

Other reports claim that efforts to “neutralize” the Libyan Air Force were also underway to limit Qaddafi’s rule in Tripoli if not fully uprooted from the country.

Meanwhile, three Indian Navy warships, are also being dispatched to be deployed in the rebel-held areas of Libya .

According to reports the Indian Navy has already sent two warships plus one its largest amphibious vessel INS Jalashwa. According to defence experts “Jalshwa” is the largest ship of Indian Navy which was delivered by the U.S. four years ago. Jalashwa, formaly the USS Trenton, has the capability to embark, transport & land various elements of an amphibious force & its equipped with mechanised landing craft, Sea King helicopters & armed with raders, ship to air missiles & rapid firing guns.

Experts say that Indian ship Jalashwa has a Landing Platform Dock with a capability 1000 fully armed troops. The warship is also used for maritime surveillance, special operations, search & rescue and to undertake other tasks.

  • Italian Foreign Minister expresses concern that the number of Libyan refugees trying to reach Italy might reach between 200,000 and 300,000 people.[9]
  • 25 February. Hillary Rodham Clinton announces suspension of Libyan embassy operations in Washington.
 
Map showing immigration pathways
  • Gaddafi warns former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair by phone if his regime is allowed to fall, the jihadis would use Libya as a springboard for attacks in Europe.[10] As Gaddafi predicted, the Islamic State took credit for the November 2015 Paris attacks killing 137, wounding 368, and the February 2016 Brussels bombing killing 35 and injuring 340.
  • 26 February. UNSC 1970 passes arms embargo barring “the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer” of weapons to any party in Libya.[11]
  • Hillary Clinton directs efforts to remove all US embassy personnel from Tripoli and orders the closing of the embassy. Ken Dilanian of the Chicago Tribune reported the CIA has been on the ground in rebel-held areas of Libya since shortly after the US Embassy in Tripoli was evacuated.[12]
  • Hillary Clinton makes a series of calls to her foreign counterparts to help secure passage of UNSC 1970, imposing sanctions on Muammar Gaddafi and his family and refers Gaddafi and aides to the ICC.
  • 27 February. Transitional National Council (TNC) announces in the city of Benghazi its purpose is to act as the "political face of the revolution." French President Sarkozy later quoted “We created the TNC and without France’s backing, money and weapons, it would not exist.”[13][14]
  • TNC spokesman made clear to reporters that the Libyan Transitional National Council was not a provisional government and added that the newly formed council was not in contact with foreign governments and did not want them to intervene.[15]
  • TNC spokesman later said that an airstrike purportedly sanctioned by the UNSC 1973 would not be considered a foreign intervention.[16]
  • Vladimir Putin later reported Russian agreement to abstain from vetoing the UNSC 1973 in private talks with Hillary Clinton in no way sanctioned NATO use of aggressive force.
  • 28 February. Hillary Clinton travels to Geneva, Switzerland for consultations with European partners on Libya. She gives a major address in which she says: "It is time for Gaddafi to go." Works to secure the suspension of Libya from membership in the Human Rights Council.
  • Omar Karmi of the UAE The National reports Hillary Clinton saying that the US was in contact with leaders of the uprising in Benghazi, that the US stood ready to "offer any kind of assistance," and that the US military already deployed naval and air forces into position near Libya.[17]

March 2011 There is ample documentation by journalists, academics, and human rights groups demonstrating that Black Libyan civilians and sub-Saharan contract workers, a population favored by Gaddafi in his pro-African Union policies, were targets of “racial cleansing” by NATO-backed 'Libyan rebels' who saw Black Libyans as tied closely with the Gaddafi regime.

Many of the so-called 'Libyan rebels', or TNC, that the Obama State Dept. sold to the media and public were a diverse group of outsiders, including Sanusi Islamists, Egyptians from the Muslim Brotherhood, and jihadists from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Qatar, Afghanistan and elsewhere (jihadis' whose prime goal in life is to topple the secular regime of their homeland are always on the run seeking sanctuary somewhere). These men were led by two top defectors of the Gaddafi regime, former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil, and former Minister of Interior (secret police) Abdul al-Fatah Younis.

Knowing Gaddafi's days were numbered due to advanced age, Jalil and Younis were seeking to preserve the power they emassed, as heads of Gaddafi's law enforcement ministries, by deposing Gaddafi prematurely using rival tribes internally and outside help from a coalition Hillary Clinton put together of jihadis and NATO. Younis, who made many enemies as Gaddafi's top cop, eventually is murdered by Islamists in the TNC.

  • 2 March. Reports arrive by experts identifying weaponry recovered in Katiba compound. Most is 1970s-80s Soviet equipment, still effective and operational. Some equipment designs date back to World War II. Chinese equipment also is found. A Wired magazine article specifically states, "Most of the weaponry at the Katiba has been removed and handed over to the army," although the Benghazi rebels and TNC had not yet, nor ever were sufficiently organized into an "army." Wired reported, "everything had to be stripped, scrubbed, and reassembled before testing." Much anti-aircraft equipment was confiscated.
  • Wired notes jihadis have recruited "4,000 people, while at a larger army base outside of Benghazi, the total volunteer force numbers around 10,000."[18]
  • 4 March. Seven commandos of a UK SAS (Special Operations Force) group and an intelligence officer are taken captive by jihadi rebels in Benghazi when they arrive unannounced to assist them. The news becomes public and is a clear violation of international law, aggressive action and boots on the ground without UNSC vote on the proposed no-fly zone. UK Def. Minister openly states the mission was part of Britain's support for regime change in Libya.[19] The embarrassing flap is hushed up and ironed out.
  • 5 March. Bernard-Henri Levy shows up in Benghazi, meets with Jilil, and by phone arranges a meeting between Sarkozy and Jilil.[20]
  • 7 March. Ben Knight, reporting from the rebel side, tells an Australian radio audience about rebel equipment: "we saw some stinger missiles today."[21]
  • 10 March. Bernard-Henri Levy and Jalil arrive in Paris for meetings with Sarkozy; G8 foreign ministers will be arriving in a few days for conferences.
  • 11 March. Canadian Globe and Mail interviews the rebel appointed security chief in Derna: “We need Stingers. We don’t need your stupid words.”[23][24]
  • 13 March. Secretary Clinton travels to Paris for a series of meetings with foreign ministers from the Group of Eight countries. Bernard-Henri Levy is also in attendence to do introductions to the rebel group leaders.[25] She meets with Libyan Transitional National Council leader Mahmoud Jibril and consults with other foreign counterparts on further UN Security Council action.[26] She secretly adds that aggressive action and not just a no-fly zone will be adequate.
  • 14-16 March. Sec. Clinton participates in a series of high-level video- and teleconferences. She is a leading voice for strong UNSC action in the name of a NATO "civilian protection" (R2P) mission. A majority of NATO member states refuse to participate. This was not why the NATO alliance was founded or continues to exist.
  • Clinton meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov whose country's veto of UNSC 1973 could derail any planned intervention. Lavrov was intentially misled to believe that giving NATO a free hand in Libya could be had in exchange for a Russian free hand in Georgia and the Crimea.
  • 15 March. Clinton speaks with Obama by phone as a “strong advocate” for U.S. intervention. Obama, who had been weighing arguments from a divided NSC for days, sides with Clinton.
  • 17 March. Clinton secures a deal with Russia to abstain from vetoing UNSC Resolution 1973, supposedly granting authorization to a few NATO members “to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights” and “pure no-fly zone". Only 12 of NATO's 28 members participate, changing NATOs ostensibly defensive nature, founded on the premise that an attack on one is an attack against all, to an offensive mercenary force for hire in the service of private interests and politicians' quests for approval ratings.[27][28]
  • The resolution passes 10-0, with Russia, China, Germany, Brazil and India abstaining. It authorizes a “pure no-fly zone."
  • 19 March. Sarkozy convenes meeting in the Westin Hotel to solicit agreement for the immediate deployment of military aircraft to stop Gaddafi's efforts to put down the rebellion in Benghazi, and the establishment of a US no-fly zone in the country.
  • Before the meeting is over, French fighter planes attack Gaddafi forces outside Benghazi. Italian and Russian participants protest the French government's insistence on convening the meeting before agreeing to air strikes, and then launching strikes before the meeting was over.
  • Vladimir Putin later charges Obama and cohorts "violated the UN Security Council resolution on Libya, when instead of imposing the so-called no-fly zone over it they started bombing it too."[29]
  • The early attack so upset Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who recently signed a Friendship Pact with Libya, he warned of cutting access to Italian air bases vital to French, British, and American warplanes.
 
The Hillary Clinton Doctrine of Smart Power: using the technical surveillance capabilities of US to blackmail foreign leaders. Hillary Clinton has been blackmailing both men and women over sexual matters, from common prostitutes her husband patronized, to victims her husband assaulted and foreign leaders involved in scandal, to advance her entire career and ambition to be the first female president. Hillary Clinton blackmailed the Italian Prime Minister to cancel Italy's non-aggression pact with Gaddafi so NATO could use Italian airbases to attack Libya.
  • The Washington Post says, “It nearly broke up the coalition,” according to an eyewitness. "Yet the rift was quickly patched, thanks to a frenzied lobbying effort that kept the coalition from unraveling in its opening hours. 'That,' the source said, 'was Hillary.'... She spent hours on the phone and in person with Berlusconi."[30][31]
  • 29 October 2013. At a Goldman Sachs summit Hillary recounts, "Leaders who shall remain nameless, who were characterized as vain, egotistical, power hungry, corrupt. And we knew they were. This was not fiction. And I had to go and say, you know, our ambassadors, they get carried away, they want to all be literary people. They go off on tangents. What can I say. I had grown men cry. I mean, literally." Then, in a mocking Italian accent, "I am a friend of America, and you say these things about me."
  • Washington Post later reports Berlusconi "eventually provided air bases as staging grounds for attacks."
  • French officials claim that meeting participants were informed of the planned airstrike. The strikes clearly had been planned and coordinated with the knowledge of the United States and UK.[32]
  • That night, the first US airstrikes halt the advance of Gaddafi's forces on Benghazi and target Libya's air defenses. Members of Libya's Christian Coptic community are later decapitated en masse once Secretary Clinton and President Obama's objectives are met.[33]
  • 20 March. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, days before President Obama publicly disclosed his decision to intervene, that US the intelligence community knew of al Qaeda and Hezbollah elements among the rebels.[34][35]
  • 21 March. Obama announces US forces commenced operations in Libya two days earlier, on March 19, "to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe."
  • Sec. Robert Gates warned establishment of a no-fly zone meant attacking Libya.[36]
  • National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough oppose attacking Libya; but Hillary Clinton "won the bureaucratic battle to use Department of Defense resources to achieve what's essentially the State Department's objective... and Obama let it happen".[37] It is rare for a president to publicly go against the advice of his National Security Adivisor in a decision on military intervention, nonetheless Tom Donilon did not resign.
 
President Obama armed al-Qaeda rebels who later migrated to Syria to form the Islamic State.(Photo:Reuters).
  • United Nations Charter, Article 2(4), prohibits the “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence” of a member state, and many observers object that Obama's actions violate this prohibition.
  • Congressional Research Services advises that a no-fly zone imposed against a state that has not carried out an attack on its neighbors may consider the imposition an “armed attack.” CRS warns that even if a no-fly zone does not constitute an armed attack, "that state, and other members of the international community, might consider them a violation of the prohibition of the 'threat or use of force,' as well as of the customary duty of non-intervention in the affairs of other sovereign states."
  • 22 March. Stravidis email to David Manners, business partner of Marc Turi, former congressional staffer to Sen. John McCain until February 2011 regarding illegal weapons supply to the TNC per a State Department authorization.[38][39]
  • 23 March. UK Air Vice Marshal declares air superiority: the Libyan Air Force “no longer exists as a fighting force.” NATO controls the skies.[40]
  • Video of Berlusconi 'bunga bunga party' hits American cable news.[41]
  • 24 March. Clinton engages with Sarkozy, Cameron, and others to secure the transition of command and control of the "civilian protection mission" to NATO.
  • Clinton announces the transition in a statement.
  • Canada-based sociologist Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya later observed, "NATO is an undemocratic body and is not answerable to any constituency of voters. It is through NATO and international organizations that the voting public is being bypassed. The command of the war against Libya has deliberately been reassigned from the Pentagon to NATO as a clever means to bypass public scrutiny and accountability by the U.S. government and all other governments involved in this war."[42][43][44]
  • 26 March. A report from Rep. Dennis Kucinich corroborates the claim of Franco Bechis in Italy that "plans to spark the Benghazi rebellion were initiated by French intelligence services in November 2010."[45][46]
  • 27 March. An intelligence brief sent to Hillary by Sidney Blumenthal contains clear evidence of war crimes on the part of US-backed rebels. Citing a rebel commander source “speaking in strict confidence” Blumenthal reports:[47]

Under attack from allied Air and Naval forces, the Libyan Army troops have begun to desert to the rebel side in increasing numbers. The rebels are making an effort to greet these troops as fellow Libyans, in an effort to encourage additional defections.
(Source Comment: Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting…).

  • Extra-judicial killings are conventionally called “death squads."

Operation Zero Footprint

  • 28 March. AP reports Turkey takes over running the Benghazi airport.[48] This is the beginning of a direct flightline to Adana, Turkey where captured Gaddadi regime weapons are delivered to AQI/ISI jihadis, for the purpose of overthrowing the Assad regime. The group eventually evolves into the Islamic State.
  • 29 March. Clinton travels to London for a conference on Libya, where Clinton is a driving force behind the creation of a Contact Group comprising 20-plus countries to coordinate efforts to "protect civilians" and plan for a post-Gaddafi Libya. She is instrumental in setting up a rotating chair system to ensure regional buy-in.
  • Russia and China accuse US of exceeding UNSC 1973 mandate.[49]
  • 18-30 March. Hillary Clinton engages with UAE, Qatar, and Jordan to seek their participation in coalition operations. Over the course of several days, all three devote aircraft to the mission.
  • 31 March. Reuters reports "President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi...Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks"[50]
  • Another Reuters article notes Obama had CiA personal on the ground before signing the finding, and the Adm. Mike Mullen figured there were only about 1,000 rebels in number.[51]
  • Spring. Obama intel officials capture and record private communications between Rep. Kucinich, and a Libyan official.[53][54]

April 2011

File:0012760114.png
Circulated on #Libya in social media after the Americans left to focus on Syria: “#Derna and the future of her children.”[55] The jihadis in Derna were trained by Americans on Barack Hussein Obama's orders.
  • 2 April. Wall Street Journal reports on Americans' training terrorists in the port city of Derna;[56] when the Americans left to concentrate on the Syrian operation, terrorists beheaded people in front of small children as part of their training and 21 Christians were beheaded enmasse.

Stingers, SAM-7s, and MANPADs

  • 7 April. Gen. Carter Ham, head of US Africa Command, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that “we do estimate that there were as many as 20,000 [shoulder fired Stinger missiles capable of taking down a commercial airliner] in Libya before the conflict began.”
  • 14 April. According to a Hillary staff email, Sec. of State Clinton travels to Berlin for NATO meetings. Clinton is the driving force behind NATO adopting a communiqué that calls for Gaddafi's departure as a political objective, and lays out three clear military objectives: (1) end of attacks and threat of attacks on civilians; (2) the removal of Gaddafi forces; (3) [redacted from original]. Germans refuse to go along.[60]
  • 15 April. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Berlin conference accuses Obama administration of exceeding UNSC 1973 mandate and the agreements at the Paris summit. What started out as a mission to “protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone,” has transformed into an effort at "regime change" without having a clear understanding as to the nature of the rebel opposition.

May 2011

  • 5 May. Sec. Hillary Clinton travels to Rome for a Contact Group meeting. The Contact Group establishes a coordination system and a temporary financial mechanism to funnel money to the National Transitional Council.
  • 20 May. Washington Post reports Obama ignored the legal deadline set in the 1973 law that required him to obtain Congressional approval for U.S. military operations in Libya. Under the Nixon-era War Powers Resolution, the president must obtain Congressional authorization of military action within 60 days, or else begin withdrawing forces.[61][62][63]

June 2011

  • 8 June. Sec. of State Clinton travels to Abu Dhabi for another Contact Group meeting and holds a series of intense discussions with jihadi and rebel leaders.
  • 12 June. Clinton travels to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for consultations and a speech before the African Union, pressing the case for a "democratic transition" in Libya.
  • 30 June. Def. Sec. Robert Gates resigns. Leon Panetta moves over from CIA Director as replacement. Michael Morell becomes acting CIA Director.
  • Late June. Clinton meets with House Democrats and Senate Republicans to persuade them not to de-fund the Libya operation.

July 2011

  • 3 July. Turkey gives more aid to TNC to refurbish Benghazi airport.[64]
  • 12 July. Obama administration targets' Iraqis with new visa and background checks after terrorists residing in Bowling Green, Kentucky were discovered.[65]
  • 15 July. Hillary Clinton travels to Istanbul and announces that the US recognizes the Transitional National Council as the legitimate government of Libya. She also secures recognition of the TNC from the other members of the Contact Group.
  • 17 July. Alexandra Valiente, living in Tripoli, writes:[66]

The Coalition of the Willing had come to Libya to spare civilians from Gaddafi’s murderous madness. Four months later, the Libyan crowds have deserted “Liberated Benghazi” and are staging gigantic anti-NATO demonstrations. ... at present, the Libyan people are convinced that such a crackdown never took place and that the Libyan air force never attacked any residential area either in Benghazi or in Tripoli. That portion of the population who believed at first the information relayed through international television networks now thinks very differently. In the meantime, people have had the chance to obtain direct testimonies from family and friends scattered throughout the country and have reached the conclusion that it was all a disinformation campaign....
The National Transitional Council (TNC) has been incapable of constituting a social base. Its provisional capital Benghazi used to be a city of 800 000 inhabitants. In February, hundreds of thousands turned out to celebrate its creation. Today, the “city liberated by the rebels” and “protected by NATO” is virtually a lifeless agglomeration with barely 15 000 inhabitants left, most of whom are people who don’t have the means to leave. The Benghazis did not flee the fighting; they fled from the new regime.
...according to most experts, the number of “rebel forces” has dropped to between 800 and 1 000 combatants, armed to the teeth by NATO, but incapable of playing a significant role in the absence of popular support. It is very likely that there are more NATO Special Forces commandos on the ground than the number of Libyan combatants they are supposed to oversee.

  • 18 July. Clinton sends Sec. of State for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman, U.S. ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz, and a senior director at the National Security Council Derek Chollet, to meet with Gaddafi envoys in Tunis "to deliver a clear and firm message that the only way to move forward, is for Gaddafi to step down". Libyan representatives are confused as to thinking the US had been an ally in fighting the radical Islamic jihadis the Obama administration now was supporting to overthrow Gaddafi.
  • 28 July. Gen. Abdul Fatah Younis assassinated by Islamist members of the TNC.

August 2011 It is clear in reading Hillary Clinton's emails that, in the glow of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Hillary embraced the call to spike the football and clearly was planning to use Libya as evidence of her leadership and skill that qualified her to become President.

The attack on US diplomats and CIA officers in Benghazi on 11 September 2012 however, destroyed that dream. The dream became a nightmare and Hillary scrambled to pretend that she was not the mover-and-shaker that destabilized Libya and made it a safe haven for ISIS, uncorking the bottle for the European migrant crisis.

  • Early August. Hillary Clinton works to construct a $1.5 billion assets package to be approved by the UNSC and sent to the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC). That package is working through its last hurdles.
  • After military chief Abdel Fattah Younes is killed, Hillary's office sends a personal message to TNC head Jalil to press for a responsible investigation and a careful and inclusive approach to creating a new executive council.
  • Early August. Clinton secures written pledges from the TNC to a supposed "pluralistic democratic transition". Clinton continues to consult with European and Arab colleagues on the evolving situation.

First, brava! This is a historic moment and you will be credited for realizing it. When Qaddafi himself is finally removed, you should of course make a public statement before the cameras wherever you are, even in the driveway of your vacation house. You must go on camera. You must establish yourself in the historical record at this moment. The most important phrase is: ‘successful strategy.’

Just a few points:

  • The US has pursued a successful strategy in Libya... This was the right course, based on our interests and principles...
  • Do not skimp on the reasons in the US interest...The US has demonstrated its principled belief in the rule of law and acted on...By acting in Libya we have helped advance the cause of democracy and freedom...We have put Assad on notice that the sands of time have run out for him as well. Our successful strategy in Libya stands as a warning that our strategy will work again. Etc.
  • Be aware that some may attempt to justify the flamingly stupid ‘leading from behind’ phrase, junior types on the NSC imagining their cleverness. To refute this passive construction on US policy and help remove it as an albatross from the administration as it enters the election year, do not be defensive but rather simply explain that the US had a clear strategy from the start, stuck with it and has succeeded.
  • Then you can say whatever on future policy — but only after asserting the historic success and explaining the reasons why.
  • This is a very big moment historically and for you. History will tell your part in it. You are vindicated. But don’t wait, help Clio now.” (Blumenthal’s reference to “Clio” is to the Greek muse of history.)
  • Jake Sullivan writes "Secretary Clinton's leadership on Libya" memorandum:[68]

[Secretary Clinton] has been a critical voice on Libya in administration deliberations, at NATO, and in contact group meetings — as well as the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya. She was instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition, and tightening the noose around Qadhafi and his regime.

  • 26 August. Sharia law enshrined in TNC draft Constitution.[69]
  • 29 August. CBS News reports the indiscriminate killing of black people by US backed "Libyan rebels".[70]

September 2011

  • 3 September. Hillary Clinton directs Jake Sullivan and her staff to document the case of Hillary’s “brilliance” in providing leadership for the destabilization of Libya.
  • 6 September. David Petraeus become CIA Director, relieving Michael Morell as acting Director. Morell is immediately hired by David Rhodes, brother of Obama NSC staffer Ben Rhodes as CBS News National Security expert to spin Obama administration talking points.
  • 7 September. bloomberg.com/news publishes:[71]

Hillary Clinton Deserves Credit for U.S. Role in Libya:

View By the Editors –

The unsung hero of the Libya drama in the U.S. is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s actions were critical for several reasons. Most important, she overcame Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s caution about using military force in Libya and his reluctance to support an operation led by France and Britain. ...

Despite the unusual arrangement in which the U.S. was a supporter rather than a leader of NATO’s military operation, she defended intervention before a skeptical Congress and performed the hard slog of daily diplomacy ...

...the decision to support NATO military action in Libya is probably the Obama administration’s most important achievement in international affairs. Although ... the country is a long way from having a stable, representative government...

History will surely judge that, by intervening on the side of the rebellion, the West — primarily the governments of France, the U.K. and the U.S. — made a unique and invaluable contribution ... That said, the Obama administration’s decision-making process remains opaque. ...

...by breaking with Gates, Clinton tipped the balance within the administration in favor of action. Without her strong argument ... Washington probably would not have acted. The president’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, was declaring freedom in Libya to be outside the U.S. national interest, and both military and civilian officials in the Pentagon were reluctant to endorse or even opposed U.S. intervention. But Clinton’s push... appears to have been decisive.

...Congress not only opposed sending in ground troops but mostly opposed any U.S. involvement. Obama wisely resisted.

“For better or worse, the Libya model is not likely to be repeated anytime soon. This is not, as some say, because NATO will never again intervene in a situation like Libya’s. After the Kosovo war, many also said NATO would never again act against a dictator to save lives.

...Think about the conditions: ... a rebel army on the ground sought democratic change and espoused Western values; the UN at least loosely endorsed NATO air operations; ...Given those circumstances, it is still hard to explain why there were determined opponents, primarily in the Republican Party, to this mission in the first place.

Throughout most of Obama’s term in office, only a few administration officials have commanded respect and political power on national security matters: Clinton, Gates and General David Petraeus, the most decorated and admired officer of recent times. With Gates now gone and Petraeus in a non-policy role as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Clinton’s power will only increase as the president’s re-election campaign heats up. We hope she recognizes her opportunity and uses it well.

  • 10 September. Blumenthal emails Hillary, "Per our conversation. Jamie [Rubin] writes editorial... Sid", and includes text of Rubin's Bloomberg editorial.
  • 12 September. Reporting on eight hundred SAM-7 shoulder-fired missiles in the hands of Boko Haram from Gaddafi arsenals, David Ignatius of the Washington Post[72] claims a

"former CIA officer wrote his FBI friend that the Niger contacts “have determined locally that the [United States government] doesn’t want to help them” chase down the missiles. “I suspect [the Near East division of CIA] squashed this by their normal bureaucratic warfare,” he speculated.

  • 27 September. Brian Ross of ABC News in a report on Libya's 20,000 unaccounted for SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles (Soviet-era manufactured versions of the US Stinger missile capable of shooting down military or commercial aircraft within a distance of two miles):[73]

"the U.S. State Department has one official on the ground in Libya, as well as five contractors who specialize in 'explosive ordinance disposal', all working with the rebel Transitional National Council to find the looted missiles."

  • 28 September. According to David Ignatius's reporting,[74]

[A] frustrated ex-CIA officer wrote a U.S. military contact: “The missiles are in the hands of al-Qaeda and being distributed. I would really like to know who in the agency was the roadblock and why.”

October 2011

  • 3 October. Obama administration secretly changes longstanding policy. The change creates a “loophole” that Sen. Ron Wyden of the Intelligence Committee later says allows the NSA to conduct “backdoor searches” or “incidental collection” of US citizens’ domestic communications.[75]
  • 4 October. In an internal email, Attn. Gen. Eric Holder’s top press aide Tracy Schmaler emails White House operative Eric Schultz calling CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson “out of control."[76]
  • 20 October. Gaddafi brutally executed.

Qatar

  • 26 October. Qatar takes credit for sending hundreds of troops into Libya to provide training, communications and strategy. Qatar "acted as the link between the rebels and Nato forces." Guardian adds,[77]

Some, however, express concern at the emirate's support for Islamist elements such as the 17 February Martyrs Brigade, one of the most influential rebel formations, led by Abdel-Hakim Belhaj.

  • After Gaddafi shut down Libya’s Internet system in early March,[78] Qatar had given the revolutionaries access to its satellites.[79]

December 2011

  • December. David Ignatius of the Washington Post claims an ex-CIA's officer's attempt to track eight hundred shoulder-fired SAM-7s in the hands of Boko Haram hit a “speed bump” at the CIA, apparently blocking communication.[80]

McCain onboard

 
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Abdelhakim Belhadj, Sen. John McCain, and Sen. Lindsey Graham. Belhadj, a veteran jihadi, was kidnapped by the CIA in 2004 and "rendered" to Libya where he spent 7 years in prison being "rehabilitated." He was released in March 2010 to reactivate the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, of which Ansar al Shariah was part. In August 2011 he was appointed commander of the Tripoli Military Council by the TNC, and in 2015 head of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Derna.
  • 22 February. Sens. Blumenthal, McCain, and Graham visit Libya and meet with Abdulhakim Belhadj. Belhadj oversees training for the Obama administration in Eastern Libya (principally Derna and Benghazi) of jihadis for Syria.

May 2012

  • May. Justice Dept. official Lisa Monaco writes to Sec. Clinton asking to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization. The following month, Gen. Carter Ham, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, said that Boko Haram provided a ‘safe haven’ for al Qaeda in North Africa, and was likely sharing explosives and funds with the group.[81] The group had already bombed the United Nations headquarters in Abuja. Clinton refused despite requests coming from the US Justice Dept, the FBI, the CIA, and numerous Senators and Congressmen.

July 2012

  • 25 July. In Afghanistan, a US Chinook helicopter is shot down with a new generation of US Stinger missile procured by the Taliban from Qatar. A serial number from the missile casing is recovered, tracing the Stinger's origin to a lot disbursed to the CIA which the CIA delivered to Qatar intended for Libya and Syria during the early days of the Libyan war. Hillary Clinton's State Dept. & the CIA jointly ran the covert weapons supply program.[82] Some of the Stinger's that Qater illegally transfered to the Taliban may have been recovered in a trade for 5 Taliban commanders released from Guantanamo.
  • 5 September.Barack Obama delivers Acceptance speech in Charlotte, NC for re-nomination as president.
  • Bill Clinton introduces Obama; at the exact moment Clinton in speaking, the first black female combat pilot, Army Chief Warrant Officer Thalia S. Ramirez, was shot down and killed by a shoulder-fired missile in Afghanistan, most likely procured from Libya.

Benghazi massacre

 
Amb. Stevens was specifically in Benghazi to oversee and facilitate transfer of captured weapons from the Gadaffi regime to groups in Syria which ultimately became the Islamic State. Few people had knowledge of this program beyond Stevens, Clinton, and Obama. Once the mission was completed, Stevens was expendable.[83]
  • Some Obama officials become frustrated with CIA Dir. Petraeus as he opposes efforts to whitewash the terrorist attack from the public Benghazi talking points. Petraeus deputy Mike Morell is given authority over the fake news, and aligns with Hillary Clinton’s State Department against Petraeus’s desires.
  • 14 September. The Benghazi "talking points" were born out of a request from Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. CIA Dir. David Petraeus had just given a classified briefing to Ruppersberger and other Intelligence Committee members. A source who was present said that following the briefing, "Ruppersberger wanted to know 'what can I say on TV'?"[84]
  • Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes emailed that there would be a Deputies meeting the next morning to work out the issues.
  • The administration's "Dream Team" to write the talking points to fool Congress on Benghazi. The "Dream Team" consisted of: Maj. Gen. Darryl Roberson, Vice Dir. of Operations, Joint Staff; Matt Olson, Dir. of the National Counterterrorism Center; Andy McCabe, Asst. Dir. of Counterterrorism for the FBI, later involved in the Hillary Clinton email coverup investigation; and Linda Weissgold from CIA Office of Terrorism Analysis (OTA).
  • Linda Weissgold testified she changed one such talking point to say that extremists in Benghazi with ties to al Qaeda were involved in “protests,” despite the fact that no such protests had occurred on the day of the attack.[85]
  • The final version called the attacks "demonstrations" that "evolved" after being "spontaneously inspired" by protest at the US Embassy in Cairo. All mentions of terrorism, al Qaeda and previous warnings given by the CIA had been excised.
  • 16 September. Susan Rice appears on 5 Sunday talk shows to put out a fake news narrative​ that the Benghazi massacre was a "spontaneous demonstration" rather than a terrorist attack.[86] The presidential election is less than two months away, and the White House is fearful of upsetting President Obama's chance of winning by giving the public the truth.
 
Obama crowing just days after the murder of Americans, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."
  • 25 September. President Obama crows from the speakers platform at the United Nations, "[T]he future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."[87]

October 2012

  • 2 October. Sec. Hillary Clinton announces her selection of appointees to an Accountability Review Board (ARB), which will conduct an internal review and whitewash of the Benghazi massacre. The board begins work the same week. Clinton ultimately will never be interviewed by the Accountability investigators.
  • 3 October. Sec. Hillary Clinton responds to question at press conference, "I believe that our diplomats, our leaders, and the American people deserve a rigorous, serious, careful process."
  • 15 October. Hillary Clinton first acknowledges that the State Dept. considered using outside assets to rescue Amb. Stevens and those under siege in Benghazi, but decided against it: "Well we considered everything and, um, we did as you know send additional assets from Tripoli. But it was a fast moving, very difficult assault to try to figure out. As you know, the assault on the post ended, there was a gap of time, then the assault on the annex, um, so everybody who had any responsibility was scrambling very hard to figure out what more could be done." Clinton said they did not send assets from outside Libya "partly because of the difficulties of trying to do that...but I think all of this will be examined in the Accountability Review Board because after all we have this independent board to sort through everything." The Accountability Review Board never spoke with Clinton.
  • 16 October. President Obama issues top secret presidential directive on ordering intelligence officials to draw up a list of overseas targets for cyberattacks. According to The Guardian, the directive also “contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the US.”
  • 19 October. In the weeks before his murder, Amb. Stevens sent the State Dept. several requests for increased security for diplomats in Libya, CBS News' Attkisson reports.
  • 20 October. Attkisson reports no outside US military help was sent to Benghazi despite the presence of a major naval air base in Sigonella, Italy, less than one hour's flight away.
  • 23 October. Sharyl Attkisson obtains some of the Obama administrations's first internal emergency alerts sent during the Benghazi attack. As the assault began, at 4:05 p.m. ET on September 11, an alert from the State Dept. Operations Center was issued to various government emergency watch lists including the White House Situation Room, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FBI. Entitled "US Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack," the alert reports "approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four COM (Chief of Mission/embassy) personnel are in the compound safe haven."
  • Another alert an hour later reports: "the firing... has stopped...A response team is on site attempting to locate COM personnel."
  • At 6:07 p.m. ET, an alert was sent with the subject heading "Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack." The US Embassy in Tripoli, says the alert, reports the group "claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli." That alert was sent around midnight in Benghazi, hours before the wave of mortar attacks against the CIA Benghazi annex began.
  • October. CBS begins airing Attkisson’s Benghazi stories which rely on whistleblowers and numerous government-linked confidential sources. These sources report that the Executive Branch is clamping down on leaks to reporters regarding the Benghazi massacre.
  • Justice Dept. continues its stepped-up National Security Division cyber efforts, holding specialized training at DOJ headquarters for the National Security Cyber Specialists (NSCS) network and the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS).
  • As CIA Dir. Petraeus’s interagency relationships deteriorate over his refusal to go along with White House and State Dept. Benghazi talking points, unnamed FBI agents reach out to Republicans in Congress to tell about Petraeus’s affair. They eventually land at the office of Republican majority leader Eric Cantor. With the presidential elections about a week away, Cantor stays mum on the Petraeus rumors and instead contacts the FBI about them.
  • The FBI interviews Petraeus and Broadwell a second time.

November 2012

  • 1 November. CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports that the Obama administration did not convene an emergency meeting of the Counterterrorism Security Group during the Benghazi attack. Attkisson also reports on a draft letter obtained by ForeignPolicy.com, written the very day of the Benghazi attack, that someone on the US team in Benghazi spotted a member of the local police photographing the inside of the US mission. The letter, intended for the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Benghazi, called for an investigation. Another draft letter written two days before complained of an inadequate local police presence around the compound, requested ahead of Amb. Chris Stevens' arrival.
  • 6 November. Obama reelected.
  • Officials claim this day is the first time Dir. of National Intelligence Clapper is notified about the Petraeus affair by an unspecified official at the Justice Dept. Clapper calls Petraeus and urges him to resign.
  • 7-9 November. Attn. Gen. Eric Holder hosts a national training conference at Justice Dept. headquarters for the expanded efforts of DOJ’s National Security Cyber Specialists (NSCS).
  • Obama administration says somebody notifies somebody at the White House about the Petraeus affair on Nov. 7. The President is reportedly looped in for the first time on Nov. 8.
  • 8 November. Senate Intelligence Committee schedules closed hearing on the Benghazi attack November 15. Among those called to testify are CIA Dir. Gen. David Petraeus.
  • 9 November. CIA Dir. Gen. Petraeus resigns under threat of prosecution by Eric Holder's Justice Dept.
  • 13 November. FBI initiates a body of cyber security case investigations that would later relate to Attkisson’s computer intrusions.
  • 16 November. Gen. Petraeus gives closed-door briefings to Congress on the Benghazi attack, and when exactly U.S. officials knew there were terrorists involved. After the hearing, members emerge saying CIA talking points on the attack were altered.
  • 19 November. Dana Milbank of the Wahington Post writes, "President Obama had a rare “bring-it-on” moment...'If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me...For them to go after the U.N. ambassador . . . and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous.' ... Obama’s over-the-top defense of Rice was surprising...She is ill-equipped to be the nation’s top diplomat....The Russian business daily Kommersant quoted an anonymous Russian foreign ministry official as saying that Rice, who quarreled with Russia over Syria, is “too ambitious and aggressive,” and her appointment would make it “more difficult for Moscow to work with Washington.” ...in her much-criticized TV performance, she was reciting talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies. But that’s the trouble. Rice stuck with her points even though they had been contradicted by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s Face the Nation just before Rice, said there was “no doubt” that the attack on Americans in Benghazi “was preplanned.” Rice rebutted the Libyan official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning. True, Rice was following orders from the White House, which she does well. But the nation’s top diplomat needs to show more sensitivity and independence — traits Clinton has demonstrated in abundance. Obama can do better at State than Susan Rice.[88]
  • A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said, "The talking points about the intelligence assessment that Amb. Rice used were produced by the intelligence community. Officials determined that the unclassified points should use the broader term 'extremists' when referring to those responsible for the attack."
  • 27 November. Susan Rice meets with Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham on Capitol Hill to explain her initial remarks on the Benghazi attack. Graham said afterword he was "more disturbed now than I was before," and McCain said he was "significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't get."
  • 29 November. Washington Post reports Susan Rice's net worth at $20 million. Rice is a career civil servant.[89]

December 2012

  • 14 December. President Obama signs the Magnitsky Act.[90] John McCain is a chief sponsor.[91] Russian parliament retaliates banning Americans from adopting Russian children. European Union stymied, under pressure from the US to pass similar legislation, but with much closer social and economic ties to Russia, fails to act. The incident is seen by some as a provocation for a new, brewing Cold War.
  • 27 December. Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, publicly warn of the “back-door search loophole” or "incidental" collection of innocent Americans. Udall says,

As it is written, there is nothing to prohibit the intelligence community from searching through a pile of communications, which may have been incidentally or accidentally been collected without a warrant, to deliberately search for the phone calls or e-mails of specific Americans.

  • December. Two intelligence-connected sources separately suggest to Attkisson that she’s likely under government surveillance due to her reporting. One source tells her the government has pushed the envelope like never before and that the public would be shocked to “learn the extent that the government is conducting surveillance of private citizens.”

Syria

Main article: Syrian War

By 2012 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both were running for president, Obama for re-election in 2012, Hillary to succeed him in 2016. Removing dictators in the Arab Spring was intended to give the impetus to both. But the Benghazi fiasco of September derailed Hillary's chances of remaining on in the State Department in Obama's second term, exposing covert operations, and slowed the progress of overthrowing Assad.

Nevertheless, Hillary established an important donor base in the Middle East who had provided funds for the removal of Assad and Gadaffi,[92] then had a stake in seeing Hillary's election in 2016 through contributions to the Clinton Foundation.[93]

The failure of the quick removal of Assad, along with Obama's complete disengagement of US troops from Iraq earlier, led to the unanticipated rise of the Islamic State in 2014, which further highlighted the failure of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, and weakened Hillary's 2016 prospects.

March 2011

  • 11 March. Reuters reports ‘a large shipment of weapons and explosives and night-vision goggles … in a truck coming from Iraq’ carrying 'dozens of grenades and pistols as well as rifles and ammunition belts’ is seized at al-Waleed (known in Syria as al-Tanf) southern bordering crossing, some 400 west of Baghdad. The Syrian Government News Agency (SANA) said the weapons were intended ‘for use in actions that affect Syria’s internal security and spread unrest and chaos.’ The driver said the weapons had been loaded in Baghdad and he was to be paid $5,000 to deliver them to Syria.[94]
  • 18 March. Armed protesters in Daraa, Syria open fire on regime security forces.[95] Security forces return fire.[96] What began as a popular movement for greater freedom and democracy is over by April 2011. The continuing war is fueled and funded by outside sources, and foreign fighters entering Syria from Turkey and Northern Iraq. The fighters are principly equiped and funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, although the CIA by June 2011 is supplying jihadist elements with weapons from captured Libyan stockpiles. Airial transport originates in Benghazi and flown to Incirlik, Turkey. Sea transport originates in Derna, Libya to the Turkish port of Iskenderun, 35 miles from the Syrian border.[97]
  • 20 March. In Syria, Ba'ath party headquarters burnt down.
  • 23 March. Syrian government seizes weapons stored at Al-Omari mosque in the city of Daraa.[98][99] Daily Mail reports "'an armed gang' of 'peaceful protesters' opened fire on an ambulance, killing 'a doctor, a paramedic and a policeman'".
  • A blogger in Latakia, Syria, a majority Alewite/Shia port city in northern Syria, posts there is the "presence of foreign armed elements...The situation in Lattaka is terrible, [on March 26] five people got killed, and there were snipers who shot at the people from buildings...It looks as if certain groups there want to stir up a sectarian conflict to make people afraid and to become more powerful themselves,..."[100] evidence the Syrian uprising was planned by professionals who brought in snipers that killed people from both sides: regime supporters and Sunni protesters to create blind hatred and anger.
  • 28 March. AP reports Turkey takes over running the Benghazi airport.[101] This is the beginning of a direct flightline to Adana, Turkey where captured Gaddadi regime weapons are delivered to AQI/ISI jihadis, for the purpose of overthrowing the Assad regime. The group eventually evolves into the Islamic State.

April 2011

  • 22 April. Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq, later ISIS] supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, are infiltrated into the southwest Syrian border town of Daraa, a town of 150,000 inhabitants. Western media previously claimed 300,000 protesters were in the streets. 20 Syrian government soldiers are ambushed and beheaded. These are the first known instances of what would become the US-backed Salafi-jihadi's trademark use of terrorism. Government troops are lured into the town after rooftop snipers begin shooting at police during a civil demonstration. 90 people are killed in the days fighting. This marks the end of civil opposition to the regime. For the next half decade, Syria's "Civil War," as it is referred to in Western media, is a war between the Syrian Army and foreign jihadists backed by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the Gulf states.

June 2011

  • 6 June. Jisr ash-Shugur massacre in Syria. 120 Syrian regime personnel are executed by US-backed "unarmed peaceful opposition protesters," according to Western media accounts. Many are beheaded and their bodies thrown from a bridge into the Orontes river.[102] The atrocity is videotaped and uploaded to YouTube, later censored by Western cyberwarfare information specialists.

July 2011

Again, congratulations are in order...It is a pleasure to see the State Department again leading the administration on this. Syria, too......the White House doesn’t seem like it cares very much. In general, the NSC seems uncomfortable with creative applications of American power and influence. And we all know the military and the Pentagon resist limited military operations, especially airpower-only engagements. So, it must be you and your colleagues at State. Well done. . . . even a small success like the one that is coming in Libya will turn around the steady decline in American influence in the region and around the world. I suspect that you know this, but European elites, Gulf elites, East Europeans and many others regard the Administration as weak.

November 2011

  • 27 November. Telegraph reports that the new Libyan authorities offered money and weapons to the insurgency against Bashar al-Assad.[103]

[Abdulhakim Belhadj] also discussed sending Libyan fighters to train troops, the source said. Having ousted one dictator, triumphant young men, still filled with revolutionary fervour, are keen to topple the next. The commanders of armed gangs still roaming Tripoli's streets said yesterday that "hundreds" of fighters wanted to wage war against the Assad regime.
"Everyone wants to go. We have liberated our country, now we should help others," said the commander of the 'Fighting Village' brigade, "This is freedom. This is Arab unity".[104]
Increasing volumes of video footage have been uploaded to YouTube of Syrians calling on Libyans to join their fight. In a clip backed by dramatic musical effects, a veiled Syrian woman entreats men from Misurata, the west Libyan city that fought off a month-long siege by forces loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi, to come to save her country."

December 2011

  • 7 December. Special Operations Forces from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey are already on the ground in Syria training opposition forces and ready to act within 2–3 months.[105]
 
The Northern Syria jihadi corridor (in grey). Weapons and foreign jihadis enter Syris from Turkey through the jihadi corridor.

January 2012 Just as France and the UK were the driving forces in persuading Obama and Hillary to get behind Libyan regime change, so to were Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey the driving forces behind Syrian regime change. In Libya, Gaddafi's African unity policy and development bank threatened established French and UK commercial investments. In Syria, Iranian support and the sanctuary given to Hezbollah - basically a standing contingent of the Iranian Quds Force on Israel's northern border[106] - threatened both the Saudi kingdom and Israel. In both cases, Libya and Syria, Obama's policy of leading from behind - giving aid to minor allies who started unnecessary wars - had catastrophic consequences for the men, women, and children on three continents, victims of the parochial ambitions of minor state actors and ambitious career opportunists.

Overall, on a covert level, it had been a co-ordinated strategy from the beginning, to get rid of Gaddafi and Assad at once. First Gaddafi, then with captured weapons caches and experienced, fired up jihadis, ship them off to dispose of Assad, with Qatar and the US in the background as players since the UNSC 1970 was passed. Gaddafi took a little longer than anticipated, most thought he'd be out by April 2011, but it took until October. UK & France would bow out in the Syrian operation, where Saudi Arabia and Turkey stepped forward to play leading roles. And this was expected to be a tougher and slightly more enduring fight, six months behind schedule, but unlike Gaddafi, Assad still retained WMD, as well.

When the history of this era is finally written, the biggest misperception and misnomer to emerge is the Syrian Civil War. There never was a Syrian Civil War. The first shots fired were by foreign actors intent upon regime change.

"Al Qaeda is on our side"

 
Jake Sullivan[107] to Hillary Clinton: Al Qaeda is on our side.
  • January. A Saudi diplomatic cable reads that the Kingdom "must seek by all means available and all possible ways to overthrow the current regime in Syria," expresses fear of Russian intervention if it cannot be done quickly, and note "there is a lack of ‘desire’ and not a lack of ‘capability’ on the part of Western countries, chief among them the United States, to take firm steps…”[108]

February 2012

  • 12 February. Deputy Assistant to President Barack Obama,[109] emails Sec. Clinton to notify her "[Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria. Otherwise, things have basically turned out as expected;"[110] the only legal basis Obama has for the use force (2001 AUMF) is to destroy Al Qaeda and associated groups.[111]

April 2012

  • 23 April. [week of 22-29]. 18328 Wikileaks Hillary Clinton email archive. NEW IRAN AND SYRIA 2.DOC. Lays out justification and strategy for the anti-Assad campaign.[112]

May 2012

  • May. Obama and Clinton had already armed al Qaeda in North Africa, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and Ansar al Shariah to destabilize the Gadaffi and Assad regimes.

June 2012

  • 21 June. New York Times reports "C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government...[weapons] are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar."[113][114]

July 2012

  • 27 July. Adventure film maker Bernard-Henri Levy tells al-Arabiya TV, "What we did in Libya is more doable in Syria."[115]
  • 30 July. The Guardian reports, [116]

these were not average members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida. They call themselves the ghuraba’a, or “strangers”, after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden’s time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year.

They try to hide their presence. “Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags” ...

...[they] are working closely with the military council that commands the Free Syrian Army brigades in the region. “We meet almost every day,” he said. “We have clear instructions from our [al-Qaida] leadership that if the FSA need our help we should give it. We help them with IEDs and car bombs. Our main talent is in the bombing operations” ...

“The FSA lacks the ability to plan and lacks military experience. That is what [al-Qaida] can bring. ...

“In the beginning there were very few. Now, mashallah, there are immigrants joining us and bringing their experience,” he told the gathered people. “Men from Yemen, Saudi, Iraq and Jordan...

“[Al-Qaida’s] goal is establishing an Islamic state and not a Syrian state,” he replied. “Those who fear the organisation fear the implementation of Allah’s jurisdiction...
  • 31 July. NBC News reports anti-Assad forces obtained shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles.[117]

August 2012

  • 1 August. Reuters reports Obama issued a secret Presidential Finding earlier in the year authorising transfer of captured weapons from Libya to Syria.[118]

under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.

Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad’s opponents.

This “nerve center” is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles (100 km) from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.

Turkey’s moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with growing vehemence. Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment.

European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad’s departure.
  • Amb. Christopher Stevens put in charge of the covert operation. The aim is to arm jihadist groups which transformed themselves into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to overthrow Bashar al Assad.

Flynn report

AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] SUPPORTED THE SYRIAN OPPOSITION FROM THE BEGINNING, BOTH IDEOLOGICALLY AND THROUGH THE MEDIA…

... AFTER THE RISE OF THE INSURGENCY IN SYRIA, THE RELIGIOUS AND TRIBAL POWERS IN THE REGIONS BEGAN TO SYMPATHIZE WITH THE SECTARIAN UPRISING. THIS (SYMPATHY) APPEARED IN FRIDAY PRAYER SERMONS, WHICH CALLED FOR VOLUNTEERS TO SUPPORT THE SUNNIS IN SYRIA...

THE FUTURE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE CRISIS:

...DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRENT EVENTS INTO PROXY WAR: …OPPOSITION FORCES ARE TRYING TO CONTROL THE EASTERN AREAS (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), ADJACENT TO THE WESTERN IRAQI PROVINCES (MOSUL AND ANBAR), IN ADDITION TO NEIGHBORING TURKISH BORDERS. ...

WESTERN COUNTRIES, THE GULF STATES AND TURKEY ARE SUPPORTING THESE EFFORTS. ...SIMILAR TO WHAT TRANSPIRED IN LIBYA WHEN BENGHAZI WAS CHOSEN AS THE COMMAND CENTER OF THE TEMPORARY GOVERNMENT...

...THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…

…ISI COULD ALSO DECLARE AN ISLAMIC STATE THROUGH ITS UNION WITH OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS IN IRAQ AND SYRIA...
  • Gen. Michael T. Flynn had been Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency for about three weeks. Flynn opposed the creation of the Islamic State. After it was declared in June of 2014, Flynn was fired.

September 2012

  • 5 September. A Libyan ship called Al Entisar (“The Victory”) docks in the Turkish port of Iskenderun carrying 400 tons of cargo including weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and shoulder-launched SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles (aka MANPADS) destined for Syrian rebels.[119][120]
  • Barack Obama delivers Acceptance speech in Charlotte, NC for re-nomination as president.
  • Bill Clinton introduces Obama; at the exact moment Clinton in speaking, the first black female combat pilot, Army Chief Warrant Officer Thalia S. Ramirez, was shot down and killed by a shoulder-fired missile in Afghanistan, most likely procured from Libya.

October 2012

  • 5 October. Time magazine announces the formation of the 20,000 strong Omar al-Farouq Brigade in Syria, one of the "moderate rebel" groups receiving American funding under the umbrella Free Syrian Army.[121] In May 2015 Human Rights Watch releases a video of one of its commanders carving the heart and liver out of a dead Assad regime soldier and eating the heart.
  • 21 October. In debate, Obama chastises Mitt Romney with:

I’m glad that you recognize that al Qaeda is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia.

Although the line is meant as a zinger, the mainstream media is not reporting (a) Obama armed and supported al Qaeda to overthrow Gaddafi; (b) the same al Qaeda groups Obama armed and assisted attacked the US embassey in Benghazi and murdered Americans; and (c) at that very moment Obama was arming al Qaede in Syria which mutated into the Islamic State.

November 2012

  • 19 November. Dana Milbank of the Wahington Post writes, "President Obama had a rare “bring-it-on” moment...'If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me...For them to go after the U.N. ambassador . . . and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous.' ... Obama’s over-the-top defense of Rice was surprising...She is ill-equipped to be the nation’s top diplomat....The Russian business daily Kommersant quoted an anonymous Russian foreign ministry official as saying that Rice, who quarreled with Russia over Syria, is “too ambitious and aggressive,” and her appointment would make it “more difficult for Moscow to work with Washington.” ...in her much-criticized TV performance, she was reciting talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies. But that’s the trouble. Rice stuck with her points even though they had been contradicted by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s Face the Nation just before Rice, said there was “no doubt” that the attack on Americans in Benghazi “was preplanned.” Rice rebutted the Libyan official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning. True, Rice was following orders from the White House, which she does well. But the nation’s top diplomat needs to show more sensitivity and independence — traits Clinton has demonstrated in abundance. Obama can do better at State than Susan Rice.[122]
  • November. The New York Times reported David Petraeus had been instrumental in helping to get an aviation network moving to supply ISIS rebels and prodded various countries to work together on it.
  • Three Royal Jordanian Air Force C-130s landed in Esenboga, in a hint at what would become a stepped-up Jordanian and Saudi role. “Within three weeks, two other Jordanian cargo planes began making a round-trip run between Amman, the capital of Jordan, and Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, where, officials from several countries said, the aircraft were picking up a large Saudi purchase of infantry arms from a Croatian-controlled stockpile." Two Jordanian Ilyushins bearing the logo of the Jordanian International Air Cargo firm but flying under Jordanian military call signs made a combined 36 round-trip flights between Amman and Croatia from December 2012 through February 2013. The same two planes made five flights between Amman and Turkey in January 2013. "As the Jordanian flights were under way, the Qatari flights continued and the Royal Saudi Air Force began a busy schedule, too — making at least 30 C-130 flights into Esenboga from mid-February 2013 to early March 2013, according to flight data provided by a regional air traffic control official.”
  • “American officials have confirmed that senior White House officials were regularly briefed on the shipments.”
  • Snowden leaks detail a program that trained approximately 10,000 rebel fighters at a cost of $1 billion a year.[123]

December 2012

  • 6 December. New York Times confirms "Qataris provided weapons, money and training to various rebel groups in Libya [destined for Syria]. One militia that received aid was controlled by [Abdelhakim Belhadj], then leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who was held by the C.I.A. in 2004..."[124]

2013

January 2013

  • 3 January. Arms flight reported from Qatar to Istanbul destined for Islamic State rebels.
  • 21 January. Obama re-inaugurated for second term.

February 2013

  • 5 February. In Copenhagen Denmark cartoonist Lars Hedegaard narrowly escapes an assassination attempt in his home from a man who fires from a yard away. Danish Prime Minister condemns the attack, and says the case was even more severe if the motive was to prevent Hedegaard from exercising free speech.[125] In November 2016, the US State Department issued a note, designating three persons as terror-operatives: "Basil Hassan is an external operations plotter for ISIL. In 2013, Hassan was accused of shooting Lars Hedegaard, a 70-year old Danish author and journalist. After being arrested in Turkey in 2014, he was released as part of an alleged exchange for 49 hostages held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). After his release, Hassan was believed to have travelled to Syria to join ISIL."[126]

March 2013

  • 5 March. CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports some of the first revelations on "who changed the Benghazi talking points." One source who reviewed the documents said removal of the word "al Qaeda" from the talking points was initiated by one of the "press shops." The source said press officers from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the White House and the FBI were "looped in" from the start and that some of them expressed concerns in writing that the media would ask follow up questions if certain words or phrases were used. The source added that the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell were included in these emails. A DNI spokesman acknowledged that press officers from his agency and other agencies were looped in and took part in the talking points exchanges, but he said "no press officers suggested the edits of the specific words 'al Qaeda.'"
  • 7 March. Senate confirms John Brennan as CIA Director. Brennan is now in charge of writing the CIA's response to torture allegations in the Senate Intelligence Oversight Torture report which implicates Brennan.[127]
  • 12 March. In public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden asked Obama Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions, of Americans?" Clapper replied, “No sir. Not wittingly."[128]
  • 14 March. CBS News reports Libyan and US investigators have been questioning a suspect long affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), and is believed to have connections to other Islamist radicals. LIGF is one of the main terror groups the Obama administration funded.
  • March. CIA awards a $600 million contract to Amazon Web Services for a computing cloud system which would allow all 17 agencies of the US intelligence community to coordinate and share information.[129] The General Accounting Office found the deal violated the open bidding process, but a federal court stood by CIA's action.

April 2013

  • 8 April Islamic State of Iraq (aka AQI) proclaims itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
  • 12 April. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court secretly approves the latest FBI request to continue obtaining daily telephone records of millions of Verizon customers.[130] The judge orders Verizon to turn over the information to the National Security Agency (NSA). This directly contradicts Clapper’s March 12 testimony to Congress.
  • 17 April. CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports that the House Oversight Committee sent letters to the three federal agencies—the CIA, the Defense Department and the State Department—in response to new whistleblower revelations on the Benghazi attacks. The letters instruct how whistleblowers are to be able to share sensitive or classified information with their own attorneys, and ask for each agency's official description of the legal steps that process must follow. The letters also state that additional witnesses may be "compelled by subpoena to give testimony."
  • 22 April. EU lifts oil sanctions to make it legal for European entities to buy oil from al Nusra and Islamic State.[131]
  • 23 April. Five House Committees issue interim report on Benghazi attacks naming Sec.of State Hillary Clinton and other Obama administration officials responsible for reducing security levels at the consulate, contradicting testimony Hillary Clinton gave under oath before Congress. The report issued by the Armed Services, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight and Government Reform Committees reaches three major conclusions:
  • First, Clinton approved security reductions at the consulate, pointing to an April 2012 State Dept. cable bearing her signature. The cable was a formal request from then-Amb.Cretz for more security. In her testimony before Congress in January, Clinton said, "With specific security requests they didn't come to me. I had no knowledge of them."
  • The report charges that White House and senior State Dept. officials attempted to protect the State Dept. from criticism by altering accurate talking points drafted by Gen. Petraeus and the intelligence community. The report says that, after a Sept. 15, 2012 meeting, administration officials removed references to the likely participation of Islamic extremists.
  • The report contradicts Obama administration claims that the talking points were altered to protect classified information. None of the emails reviewed ever mentioned a concern about classified information.
  • 30 April. Attorney for a whistleblower on the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi says the Obama administration is impeding her clients and others' efforts to speak.[132]
  • April. A secret memo later exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden discusses how the US, along with Brirish intelligence, is collecting information “directly from the servers of …Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”[133]
  • Foundation for Open Society Macedonia (FOSM) is awarded 18 USAID grants by the US State Dept.;[134] FOSM is a Soros-run foundation. Recipients of grants in Macedonia are known as 'Soros army'. Soros is later accused of wanting to destroy Macedonia, its name, language, and identity."[135] Obama and Soros have been accused of interfering in Macedonia's democratic process.[136][137][138]

May 2013

  • 5 May. Excerpts of an interview investigators conducted with Gregory Hicks, the no. 2 U.S. diplomat in Libya who was in Tripoli during the Benghazi attack are leaked to CBS News. The US diplomat contradicted the Obama White House version.

I never reported a demonstration; I reported an attack on the consulate. Chris [Stevens] last report, if you want to say his final report - is, 'Greg, we are under attack.'...I've never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day" (that Susan Rice appeared on talk shows calling the attack the result of a demonstration,) The net impact of what has transpired is, [Rice,] the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world, has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar or doesn't know what he's talking about. ....My jaw hit the floor as I watched this."

  • 6 May. CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports more details from private testimony in which a team of Special Operation Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by US Special Operations Command Africa. Investigators heard that if the US had quickly sent military aircraft over Benghazi, it might have saved American lives. The US Souda Bay Naval Base is an hour's flight from Libya.
  • 8 May. Three US officials stationed in Libya the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack deliver accounts of the events and their aftermath. They renew criticism against the Obama administration for issuing stand-down orders to Special Operations Forces who were ready to assist.
  • 10 May. Brennan meets with Obama in the White House to discuss CIA's response to the Torture Report.[139]
  • A senior administration official tells CBS News' that reports State Dept. officials helped make final edits to the false information supplied to Congress about the Benghazi attacks -- the same false information Susan Rice lied about in her television appearances on Sept. 16, 2012 were "just false."
  • 11 May. CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports details of approximately 100 interagency government emails, sent on Sept. 14 and Sept. 15, 2012 regarding the content of the talking points to be used by Susan Rice on the Sunday shows about the Benghazi attacks. The talking points were revised numerous times.
  • 13 May. The AP announced telephone records for 20 of their reporters had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department. News sources reported the US Attorney's office for the District of Columbia was conducting a criminal investigation into publication of a foiled May 2012 terrorist plot. While journalists are protected, leakers in the government are subject to prosecution. The Justice Dept. subpoenaed the phone records of AP from Verizon and other service providers.[140] The AP claimed these acts were a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering.[141][142] The "intrusion" is the frightening off of government sources, the bread and butter of the Washington news gathering industry. CEO Gary Pruitt of AP stated: "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know;"[143][144] a "conceivable right to know" would be a hunt for leakers of FISA information within the administration.
  • Human Rights Watch releases video of an Obama administration "moderate rebel" group commander carving the heart and liver out of a dead Assad regime soldier and eating it.[145][146][147]
  • 15 May. White House releases some 100 pages of internal emails showing how CIA talking points originally referenced al Qaeda's links to the Benghazi attack. After revisions the al Qaeda references were removed.
  • 16 May. Financial Times reports Qatar has spent $3 billion over the past two years bankrolling the jihadi rebels in Syria.
  • 22 May. Lee Rigby, a British soldier, beheaded on a London public street in daylight while hundreds of ordinary citizens stand about and watch.[148]
  • 23 May. Open rift emerges between Ayman Zawahiri the leader of al Qaeda, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the leader of ISIS. Zawahiri headquartered in Pakistan forbid his group in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, from merging with the Islamic State of Iraq. Baghdadi was attempting to consolidate the two into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Negotiations continue for months until February 2015 when a mediator sent by Zawahiri to resolve differences among local commanders is killed by ISIS suicide bombers.
  • The policy dispute between ISIS and al Qaeda centers on ISIS wanting immediately to declare the Islamic State, whereas al-Nusra and its al Qaeda leadership wish to focus on overturning the local regimes in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, recapturing Mecca and Medina before declaring a Caliphate.
  • 25 May. A French soldier is stabbed in the neck by a Muslim in a Paris shopping district.

June 2013

  • 6 June. Asked at a hearing if the Justice Dept. spies on members of Congress, Attn. Gen. Holder refuses to answer.[149]
  • The UK Guardian reveals NSA unlimited metadata collection under FISA protection. Data collection on 4 million of Verizon customers are collected daily.[150]
  • 7 June. Guardian reveals NSA tapping through back doors into US internet companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook with a program called Prism [GCHQ counterpart = Tempora].[151]
  • An 18-page memo shows Obama ordering intelligence officials to draw up a list of overseas targets for cyberattacks.[152]
  • Obama defends NSA wiretapping.[153]
  • The Guardian story, soon to be known as the Snowden leaks, is more evidence Obama Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper misled Congress and public about the true nature and extent of domestic intelligence gathering in his 12 March sworn testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
  • 8 June. Documents reveal the NSA's Boundless Informant program, which gives the agency near real-time ability to understand how much intelligence coverage there is on certain areas through use of a "heat map."[154]
  • 9 June. Edward Snowden steps forward as source of NSA leaks published in The Guardian.[155] Introducing himself Snowden says,[156]

“I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the president if I had a personal e-mail.

It’s getting to the point you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you have ever made.”

Training materials provided by Snowden for XKeyscore propgram detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous NSA databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed. The program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata. Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized FISA warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets. But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known.
  • 10 June. Wall Street Journal reports FISA Court has rejected only 11 of 33,900 warrant requests in the 33 years the law has been in existence.[157]
  • 16 June. Snowden reveals intelligence sharing on Britain's GCHQ (its intelligence agency) intercepting phone and internet communications of foreign politicians attending two G-20 meetings in London in 2009.
  • Snowden leaks top-secret procedures steps the NSA must take to target and collect data from "non-US persons" and how it must minimize, or mask, data collected on US citizens.[158]
  • 21 June. Snowden leaks how Britain's GCHQ taps fiber-optic cables to collect and store global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories, and calls, and then shares the data with the NSA.
  • 27 June. CIA responds to Torture Report, attacks Committee; Sen. Mark Udall issues a statement alleging intelligence officials leaked "inaccurate information" critical of the Committee report. Udall states that the CIA and the White House "repeatedly rejected requests to discuss the Committee's report."[159]
  • June. FBI secretly opens a case on Sharyl Attkisson’s computer intrusions under the auspices of 'national security.' FBI contacts CBS without Attkisson’s knowledge, but fails to contact or interview Attkisson. FBI later ignores multiple FOIA request and other documents.
  • News of the FBI case involving Attkisson’s computer intrusions is circulated internally to the Justice Dept.’s national cyber security group, and grouped with a set of cases opened on 20 November, shortly after the president's re-election in 2012.[160]

July 2013

  • 31 July. NSA analysts, using the XKeyscore program, can search through enormous databases of emails, online chats, and browsing histories of targets.[161][162]
  • July. In an undated letter from DNI Clapper posted on Sen. Wyden's website the final week of July, Clapper acknowledged that NSA analysts have exceeded even legal limits as interpreted by the NSA in domestic surveillance. Acknowledging what he called "a number of compliance problems", Clapper attributed them to "human error" or "highly sophisticated technology issues" rather than "bad faith".[160] Sen. Wyden responded on the Senate floor: "These violations are more serious than those stated by the intelligence community, and are troubling."
  • Manning convicted.

August 2013

  • 1 August. The US government paid Britain's GCHQ roughly $155 million over three years to gain access and influence over its spying programs.
  • 2 August. Seven of the world's leading telecommunications companies provide GCHQ with secret, unlimited access to their network of undersea cables.
  • 5 August. Reuters runs an article on how the NSA shares information, collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with other agencies to frame criminal cases against American citizens using a process called "parallel construction" to manufacture probable cause, violating a person's due process rights.[163]
  • 6 August. Menagh Air Base captured from the Syrian government by ISIS, celebrated as great victory by Western news media.[164]
  • 7 August. CBS News publicly announces confirmation of Attkisson’s computer intrusions. “Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012…This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion."[165]
  • 9 August. Internal NSA document reveals an agency "loophole" that allows a secret backdoor for the agency to search its databases for US citizens' emails and phone calls without a warrant.
  • 23 August. 2011 NSA minimization procedures submitted to the FISA Court.[167]
  • 29 August. NSA found to be paying hundreds of millions of dollars each year to US companies for access to their networks.
  • August. Ukraine submits an application for observer status to in the Eurasian Economic Union.[168]

September 2013

  • 5 September. Joint investigation by ProPublica, The New York Times, and The Guardian finds the NSA is winning its war against internet encryption with supercomputers, technical know-how, and court orders.
  • 7 September. NSA has the ability to access user data for most major smartphones on the market, including Apple iPhones, BlackBerrys, and Google Android phones.
  • 9 September. Daily Caller publishes article detailing how the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a supposed independent lobbying group asking Congress for money to support anti-Assad forces was receiving funding from the State Department. Elizabeth O'Bagy is SETF political director.[169]
  • 27 September. UN declares Assad regime has surrendered all it chemical weapons.

October 2013

  • 7 October. Reports indicate, "Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria." "Evidence leads directly to the White House, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, CIA Director John Brennan, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar, and Saudi Arabia´s Interior Ministry. The Strategic Situation, leading up to the Use of Chemical Substances in the Eastern Ghouta Suburb of Damascus on 21 August 2013."[170] Seymour Hersh later reports Hillary Clinton approved sending captured Libyan stocks of sarin gas to Syrian rebels and jihadis.[171]
  • 12 October. In Scotland a Muslim burns his 'too Westernized' wife to death after asserting that Islam teaches a man's superiority over women.
  • 23 October. NSA tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
  • 27 October. Der Spiegel reports Obama personally approved wiretapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone conversations.[172]
  • October. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com purchases the Washington Post for less than half of his ongoing contract for cloud service with the CIA.[173] The Institute for Public Accuracy releases a statement condemning the move.[174] Washington Post begins promoting Hillary Clinton as their preferred candidate for President in 2016.[175]

November 2013

The NATO organization was founded on the solitary premise of collective security to contain Soviet expansion in Europe. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, many questioned the need for it's continued existence against an enemy that no longer existed. Several former Soviet satalite states (East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech and Slovak Republics) as well as newly independent former Soviet Republics (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine) wanted EU membership, which of coarse would ultimately mean NATO membership, as well (military alliances exist to protect economic alliances). Russia under Boris Yeltsin wanted EU and NATO membership. The NATO powers that be made clear they had no interest in going out of business, and Russia argued how unfair it was that they should dissolve their defense alliance (the Warsaw Pact) and be thrust into another arms race against a growing NATO, which was swallowing up many of Russia's former military allies.

But the case of Ukraine was unique. Ethnic Ukrainians wanted out of the Russian orbit. But the territory of Ukraine is inhabitted by nearly 50% ethnic Russians, too, who wanted to maintain close ties to Russia.[Citation Needed] The official US State Department's position under President George Herbert Walker Bush at the time was that the Ukraine should remain a sovereign republic within the Russian Federation. Bush argued as much in a speech written by Condoleezza Rice to the Ukrainian parliament. But the Clinton's took over in early 1993, and caved in to Ukrainian nationalists. In exchange for US recognition of a Ukraine independent of the Russian Federation, Ukraine would give up its nuclear stockpile from the Soviet era, and the US would guarantee Ukraine's security, should the Russians ever invade. The agreement reeked a lot like the assurances Great Britain and France gave Poland at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 that bound them to war with Hitler in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland.

Like the Treaty of Versailles, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances negotiated by Bill Clinton lasted exactly 20 years. Unlike Great Britain and France who went to war with Nazi Germany when the agreement was violated, Barack Obama broke the pledge that Clinton had committed the United States to. US/Russian relations have deteriorated ever since. And converting NATO from a purely defensive alliance based on the idea of collective security to a military machine waging aggressive wars - as it had done in Libya - fulfilled many people's worst nightmare. No longer can negotiation and diplomacy be used to keep the peace, as the Obama administration had thrown American promises on the dunghill. Gaddafi ceased terrorism, gave up his WMD, and became an ally, all predicated on accepting American promises, only to be brutally murdered at the hands of Hillary Rodham Clinton and NATO. Ukraine had given up its Soviet-era nuclear stockpile based on assurancess given by Bill Clinton, ignored by Barack Obama. Military force now is the only option remaining to remove nuclear weapons from the hands of Kim Jong-il.

Since the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 it should be clear to anyone,[176] Russia will never allow an aggressive and hostile military force, such as NATO transformed itself into in the Obama era, to ally itself or encamp within the Ukraine.


  • 1 November. Snowden leaks reveal Britain's GCHQ and other European spy agencies work together to conduct mass surveillance. The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies. The Guardian article reports,[177]
     
    Edward Snowden warned of such abuse played out in 2016 and 2017: an Executive branch with unlimited. unrestrained power to spy on investigative Committees of Congress, political opponents, and even the Supreme Court.

It is clear from the Snowden documents that GCHQ has become Europe's intelligence hub in the internet age, and not just because of its success in creating a legally permissive environment for its operations. Britain's location as the European gateway for many transatlantic cables, and its privileged relationship with the NSA has made GCHQ an essential partner for European agencies. The documents show British officials frequently lobbying the NSA on sharing of data with the Europeans and haggling over its security classification so it can be more widely disseminated. In the intelligence world, far more than it managed in diplomacy, Britain has made itself an indispensable bridge between America and Europe's spies.

  • 20 November. UK government struck a secret deal with the NSA to share phone, internet, and email records of UK citizens.
  • ABC News reports on terror suspects arrested in Bowling Green, KY.[178]
  • 21 November. Democratically elected government of the Ukraine rejects European Union association agreement in favor of maintaining relations with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The path to securing a NATO naval base in Sevastopol on the Black Sea is effectively cut off. Soros-sponsored[Citation Needed] Euromaiden riots erupt.
  • 22 November. NSA strategy document reveals the agency's goal to acquire data from "anyone, anytime, anywhere" and expand its already broad legal powers.[179]

Yemen

al-Qaeda is stronger in Yemen with control on some cities. In 2015 Shia Houthi-rebels took control over parts of Yemen.

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.unz.com/efingleton/assange-hillary-thought-libya-would-be-her-stepping-stone-to-the-presidency/
  2. ↑ The Best Policy Ideas of the 2016 Presidential Candidates, Gordon Anderson - February 8, 2016
  3. ↑ "Libyan Islamists seize arms, take hostages", Sydney Morning Herald, 21 February 2011. 
  4. ↑ Hooper, John. "Silvio Berlusconi sent for trial accused of paying for sex with teenager", The Guardian, 15 February 2011. 
  5. ↑ "Silvio Berlusconi faces Ruby sex charge trial in April", BBC News, 15 February 2011. 
  6. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110409131649/http://www.southern-mistral.cdaoa.fr/GB/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38&Itemid=104
  7. ↑ http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?action=printpage;topic=2158.0
  8. ↑ https://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/us-uk-french-forces-land-in-libya/
  9. ↑ Squires, Nick. "Libya: Italy Fears 300,000 Refugees", The Daily Telegraph, 23 February 2011. 
  10. ↑ Colonel Gaddafi warned Tony Blair of Islamist attacks on Europe, By Robert Mendick, Telegraph 07 Jan 2016. telegraph.co.uk
  11. ↑ http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1970(2011)
  12. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110404001700/http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/sc-dc-0331-cia-libya-20110330,0,2762769.story
  13. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8630778/Libya-France-risks-Nato-split-over-call-for-Gaddafi-talks.html
  14. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/world/europe/01france.html
  15. ↑ "Libya Opposition Launches Council", Al Jazeera, 27 February 2011. 
  16. ↑ "Libyan Rebels Said To Debate Seeking U.N. Airstrikes", The New York Times, 1 March 2011. 
  17. ↑ http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/us-deploys-naval-and-air-forces-near-libya#full
  18. ↑ https://www.wired.com/2011/03/inside-gadhafis-secret-underground-arsenal/
  19. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8365069/Libya-SAS-mission-that-began-and-ended-in-error.html
  20. ↑ http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2011/03/18/01003-20110318ARTFIG00671-la-campagne-libyenne-de-bernard-henri-levy.php
  21. ↑ http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3156632.htm
  22. ↑ US Names Chris Stevens Liaison to Libyan Opposition, ABC News Radio, March 14, 2011.
  23. ↑ The article says "foreign intelligence agencies have bitter experience with supplying Stinger missiles to anti-Soviet freedom fighters in Afghanistan, only to spend years struggling to keep them out of the hands of terrorists."https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/libyan-rebels-at-pains-to-distance-themselves-from-extremists/article570971/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
  24. ↑ TWA Flight 800 may have been brought down by a Stinger missile supplied to the Afghan mujihadeen by the CIA in the 1980s and smuggled back into the United States. https://www.amazon.com/TWA-800-Crash-Cover-Up-Conspiracy/dp/1621574717
  25. ↑ http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/did-bernard-henri-lvy-take-nato-to-war
  26. ↑ https://anarchitext.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/bhl-war-in-libya/
  27. ↑ National Security Hillary’s war: How conviction replaced skepticism in Libya intervention, By Joby Warrick, Washington Post, October 30, 2011.
  28. ↑ LESSONS OF LIBYA FOR FUTURE WESTERN MILITARY FORAYS, By John Barry, Newsweek National Security Correspondent. europeaninstitute.org
  29. ↑ [1]
  30. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hillarys-war-how-conviction-replaced-skepticism-in-libya-intervention/2011/10/28/gIQAhGS7WM_story.html?utm_term=.eae1c96f2b72
  31. ↑ https://www.buzzfeed.com/tamerragriffin/clinton-apparently-did-a-berlusconi-impression-while-discuss?utm_term=.yomzmw2VeL#.xdPA0pxW89
  32. ↑ https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc99034/
  33. ↑ https://youtu.be/v-5WjfiIIbA
  34. ↑ [2]
  35. ↑ Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Stavridis was asked by Republican Sen. James Inhofe to comment on "reports about the presence of al Qaeda among the rebels, among those with whom we are associated." "As you can imagine, we are examining very closely the content, composition, the personalities, who are the leaders in these opposition forces," Stavridis responded. "The intelligence that I am receiving at this point makes me feel that the leadership I am seeing are responsible men and women who are struggling against Colonel Gadhafi. We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah, we've seen different things, but at this point I don't have detail sufficient to say that there is a significant al Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among these folks. We'll continue to look at that very closely. It's part of doing due diligence as we move forward on any kind of relationship." http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2011/03/saceur-j2-please-call-your-office.html
  36. ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20038391-503544.html
  37. ↑ How Obama turned on a dime toward war.
  38. ↑ http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2015/09/11/exclusive-new-emails-in-benghazi-weapons-mystery.html
  39. ↑ http://www.captainsjournal.com/2015/09/14/the-weapons-of-benghazi/
  40. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12837330
  41. ↑ http://video.foxnews.com/v/4603745/?#sp=show-clips
  42. ↑ http://www.voltairenet.org/article170202.html
  43. ↑ While Supreme Allied Commander Europe. U.S. Admiral James G. Stravridis is the supreme commander of NATO military operations, Adm. Stravridis can still work operationally independent of NATO. He is totally subordinate to the Obama Administration and the Pentagon. United States Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. European Command and U.S. Strategic Command in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2012 and the Future Years Defense Program, 112th Congress, 2011, 1st Session, 29 March 2011.
  44. ↑ http://www.eurasianet.org/node/63185
  45. ↑ French plans to topple Gaddafi on track since last November, by Franco Bechis, VoltaireNet, March 26, 2011.
  46. ↑ http://fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/war/news.php?q=1305727776
  47. ↑ https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/110327-new-intel-State-Dept.pdf
  48. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110618103616/http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/turkey-will-run-benghazi-airport-prime-m
  49. ↑ http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/russia-china-accuse-west-exceeding-un-resolution-making-libyan-crisis-worse
  50. ↑ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-usa-order-idustre72t6h220110331
  51. ↑ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-usa-rebels-idUSTRE72U7NM20110331
  52. ↑ https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/266629.htm
  53. ↑ http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/audio/kucinich-no1/
  54. ↑ http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/audio/kucinich-no2/
  55. ↑ http://islamexposedonline.com/2015/06/08/isiss-kiddie-educational-menubeheading-101-benghazigates-knock-on-effects/
  56. ↑ https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703712504576237042432212406
  57. ↑ Sinjar Documents
  58. ↑ The Sinjar Documents are a collection of al Qaeda computer data captured by Americans in 2007 in a predawn raid near Sinjar, Iraq, six miles from the Syrian border.
  59. ↑ http://news.trust.org//item/?map=exclusive-al-qaeda-acquiring-weapons-in-libyaalgerian-official
  60. ↑ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29143.htm
  61. ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-likely-to-miss-deadline-for-congressional-approval-of-libya-operations/2011/05/19/AFFLKn7G_story.html
  62. ↑ http://lugar.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=332967&
  63. ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-obama-above-the-law/2011/05/26/AGL5zyCH_story.html
  64. ↑ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43626058/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/turkey-recognizes-libya-rebels/#.WQ_p0U5MHMI
  65. ↑ [3]
  66. ↑ https://libyadiary.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/nato-and-the-ingratitude-of-the-libyan-people/
  67. ↑ https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23902
  68. ↑ https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23898
  69. ↑ http://www.scribd.com/doc/62823350/Libya-Draft-Constitutional-Charter-for-the-Transitional-Stage
  70. ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/au-libya-rebels-killing-black-workers/
  71. ↑ consortiumnews concludes, "This is how propaganda, press manipulation and lying to the public is manufactured in Washington, DC. Hillary and her crew, with the help of Jamie Rubin, pushed the meme that Hillary, not Obama, deserved the credit for the “success” in Libya. Absolutely. Let her have it. Hang this festering turd of a policy around Hillary’s neck. To do so is only just. She is a power hungry thug who helped cause the deaths of thousands just to advance her own vile political ambitions." https://consortiumnews.com/2016/07/07/hillary-clintons-libyan-fingerprints/?print=print
  72. ↑ http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-31/islamic-state-claims-responsibility-russian-airplane-crash#comment-6734249
  73. ↑ http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nightmare-libya-20000-surface-air-missiles-missing/story?id=14610199#.UZ4nrYdwrng
  74. ↑ Libyan missiles on the loose, By David Ignatius, Washington Post Opinion writer, May 8, 2012
  75. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls
  76. ↑ http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/control/ p.764 pdf
  77. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/qatar-troops-libya-rebels-support
  78. ↑ http://goodtimesweb.org/surveillance/wsj-libya-spies-firms-aug-30-2011.html
  79. ↑ https://consortiumnews.com/2011/10/28/sen-mccains-libyan-two-step/
  80. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/libyan-missiles-on-the-loose/2012/05/08/gIQA1FCUBU_story.html?utm_term=.a091217ed1fd
  81. ↑ Morrissey, Ed (May 8, 2014). Did Hillary refuse to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization? Hot Air website.
  82. ↑ http://nypost.com/2014/06/08/how-the-taliban-got-their-hands-on-modern-us-missiles/
  83. ↑ https://www.amazon.com/REAL-Benghazi-Story-White-Hillary/dp/1531817130
  84. ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/officials-on-benghazi-we-made-mistakes-but-without-malice/2/
  85. ↑ http://www.weeklystandard.com/mcmaster-interviewed-cia-operative-to-replace-trump-nsc-official/article/2007219
  86. ↑ https://youtu.be/uFf0dUH3OtU
  87. ↑ http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obamafuture.asp
  88. ↑ The article states, "Rice has managed to make an impressive array of enemies ...when she was an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration, she appalled colleagues by flipping her middle finger at Richard Holbrooke during a meeting with senior staff at the State Department, according to witnesses. Colleagues talk of shouting matches and insults. Among those she has insulted is the woman she would replace at State. Rice was one of the first former Clinton administration officials to defect to Obama’s primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Rice condemned Clinton’s Iraq and Iran positions, asking for an “explanation of how and why she got those critical judgments wrong.” Clinton got a measure of revenge in 2010 after she worked out a deal with the Russian foreign minister on a package of Iran sanctions to be adopted by the U.N. Security Council. The White House wanted Rice to make the announcement (part of a campaign to increase her profile that included high-visibility foreign trips and TV appearances), but a Clinton aide got Kerry to ask Clinton about the matter during an unrelated Senate hearing...It was Rice’s own shoot-first tendency that caused her to be benched as a spokesman for the Obama campaign for a time in 2008. She unnerved European allies when she denounced as “counterproductive” and “self-defeating” the U.N. policy that Iran suspend its nuclear program before talks can begin. She criticized President George W. Bush and McCain because they “insisted” on it. But, as The Post’s Glenn Kessler pointed out at the time, European diplomats were rattled by such remarks because the precondition was their idea. Rice’s pugilism provoked the Russians to weigh in this week in opposition to her nomination as secretary of state." http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1112/milbank111912.php3#.WOvs0_9MHMI
  89. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/susan-rice-not-your-typical-diplomat/2012/11/29/c83ac58c-3a6e-11e2-a263-f0ebffed2f15_story.html?utm_term=.0ad1efc38c87
  90. ↑ https://www.ft.com/content/e18677dc-54d8-11e2-a628-00144feab49a
  91. ↑ https://www.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Finance-Murder-Justice/dp/1476755744
  92. ↑ http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/04/2012412022613580.html
  93. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign-charity.html
  94. ↑ Syria says seizes weapons smuggled from Iraq, Mar 11, 2011
  95. ↑ [4]
  96. ↑ http://www.trans-int.com/wordpress/index.php/2014/04/14/father-frans-on-the-syrian-rebellion-the-protestors-shot-first/
  97. ↑ http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/5897
  98. ↑ https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=abc_1357562508#KLo202ZH2GdJQ6Jj.99
  99. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110324084454/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143026
  100. ↑ https://ikvpaxmenablog.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/angst-neemt-toe-onder-syriers/
  101. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110618103616/http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/turkey-will-run-benghazi-airport-prime-m
  102. ↑ https://www.ted.com/talks/markham_nolan_how_to_separate_fact_and_fiction_online/transcript?language=en
  103. ↑ Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group, Ruth Sherlock in Tripoli 9:00PM GMT 27 Nov 2011. The Telegraph, telegraph.co.uk/.
  104. ↑ See The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants, Der Spiegel, "The Unification Phase," Interview with Ayman Zawahiri.
  105. ↑ https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/16/1671459_insight-military-intervention-in-syria-post-withdrawal.html
  106. ↑ https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/18328
  107. ↑ http://www.defenddemocracy.org/a-conversation-with-jake-sullivan-video/
  108. ↑ https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/02/26/newly-translated-wikileaks-saudi-cable-overthrow-the-syrian-regime-but-play-nice-with-russia/
  109. ↑ Jake Sullivan b. 1976. Sullivan, who was 35 years old at the time is presumably one of the "35-year-old PhDs who love to talk, because that's the way you let everybody know how smart you are, is how much you talk." Sec. Hagel continues, "[Obama] has a staff around him that's very inexperienced. I don't think there's one veteran on his senior staff at the White House. I don't believe there's one business person. I don't believe there's one person who's ever run anything. Other than Vice President Biden, none of them have ever been elected to anything." Sec. Gates criticized "staffers calling senior commanders out in the field and asking them questions, of second guessing commanders...I told my combatant commanders and field commanders … if you get calls from … the president, that's one thing. But if you get a call from some White House or National Security Council staffer, you tell them to call me instead, and then tell them, by the way, go to hell." Hagel also criticized Susan Rice's approach and subservience to Obama. https://youtu.be/GPPx83VoLyY
  110. ↑ [5]
  111. ↑ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-perils-of-president-obamas-latest-undeclared-war/413566/
  112. ↑ The document reads in part: "Iran's nuclear program and Syria's civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about -- but cannot talk about -- is losing their nuclear monopoly. An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would not only end that nuclear monopoly but could also prompt other adversaries, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to go nuclear as well. The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today."https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/18328
  113. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html
  114. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/25/world/middleeast/an-arms-pipeline-to-the-syrian-rebels.html?_r=0
  115. ↑ https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=87e_1456332942
  116. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/30/al-qaida-rebels-battle-syria
  117. ↑ http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/48427738
  118. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20170216061621/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/obama-secret-syria-order_n_1730712.html?tw_p=twt
  119. ↑ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/25/was-syrian-weapons-shipment-factor-in-ambassadors-benghazi-visit.html
  120. ↑ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/syrian-rebels-squabble-over-weapons-as-biggest-shipload-arrives-from-libya-pr2rmxkpg8d
  121. ↑ http://world.time.com/2012/10/05/syrias-up-and-coming-rebels-who-are-the-farouq-brigades-2/
  122. ↑ The article states, "Rice has managed to make an impressive array of enemies ...when she was an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration, she appalled colleagues by flipping her middle finger at Richard Holbrooke during a meeting with senior staff at the State Department, according to witnesses. Colleagues talk of shouting matches and insults. Among those she has insulted is the woman she would replace at State. Rice was one of the first former Clinton administration officials to defect to Obama’s primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Rice condemned Clinton’s Iraq and Iran positions, asking for an “explanation of how and why she got those critical judgments wrong.” Clinton got a measure of revenge in 2010 after she worked out a deal with the Russian foreign minister on a package of Iran sanctions to be adopted by the U.N. Security Council. The White House wanted Rice to make the announcement (part of a campaign to increase her profile that included high-visibility foreign trips and TV appearances), but a Clinton aide got Kerry to ask Clinton about the matter during an unrelated Senate hearing...It was Rice’s own shoot-first tendency that caused her to be benched as a spokesman for the Obama campaign for a time in 2008. She unnerved European allies when she denounced as “counterproductive” and “self-defeating” the U.N. policy that Iran suspend its nuclear program before talks can begin. She criticized President George W. Bush and McCain because they “insisted” on it. But, as The Post’s Glenn Kessler pointed out at the time, European diplomats were rattled by such remarks because the precondition was their idea. Rice’s pugilism provoked the Russians to weigh in this week in opposition to her nomination as secretary of state." http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1112/milbank111912.php3#.WOvs0_9MHMI
  123. ↑ http://fair.org/home/down-the-memory-hole-nyt-erases-cias-efforts-to-overthrow-syrias-government/
  124. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/africa/weapons-sent-to-libyan-rebels-with-us-approval-fell-into-islamist-hands.html
  125. ↑ "Denmark shooting: Gunman targets Islam critic Hedegaard", BBC, 2013-02-05. 
  126. ↑ http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/11/264498.htm#.WDU00aUkCWk.twitter
  127. ↑ https://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324034804578346692855187354
  128. ↑ https://youtu.be/nsmo0hUWJ08
  129. ↑ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/
  130. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order
  131. ↑ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22254996
  132. ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/benghazi-whistleblowers-still-waiting-to-tell-their-story/
  133. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html?hpid=z1&utm_term=.c188c8af0ba0
  134. ↑ http://soros.org.mk/en/Home/NewsAndActivity?newsID=660&catID=7&pageIndex=1&month=10&year=0&additionalID=73
  135. ↑ http://katehon.com/article/george-soros-wants-destroy-macedonia-its-name-language-and-identity
  136. ↑ http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/macedonia-forms-anti-soros-movement-01-18-2017
  137. ↑ http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/02/u-s-gives-soros-groups-millions-destabilize-macedonias-conservative-govt/
  138. ↑ In Google translation the article reads (boldening in original, excerpted):"...Washington has operated continuously through USAID, the US government agency that works to "promote American interests" and whose goal is "to support US foreign policy (...) expand stable free societies, create markets and business partners for the United States". For about 20 years the USAID action was altogether balanced, ruled by a sense of realism and limited to create spheres of influence in the country in line with the legitimate demands of geopolitical​ America. But after Obama entered the White House, things have changed.
    SOROS COMING! On February 27, 2012, the Open Society of George Soros has entered into an agreement with the Government of the United States, more than 2.5 million dollars to make in Macedonia the Civil Society Project, the democratization floor of the small Balkan nation through a series of Macedonian NGOs and associations. In 2014, the agreement was expanded to four other civil organizations (all related to the Open Society or funded by it), for a total investment of 5 million dollars from USAID and $500,000 in the same Soros Foundation. The data, figures, associations and activities, are published in a very precise report drawn up by a group of Macedonian journalists gathered under the name "STOP SOROS" report denouncing the collusion between the US government and the financier and shows the complexity of the connections and of the plots. The report explains how the organizations that have received millions of dollars from the US government, through the Open Society, are all emanations of the Macedonian left-wing party SDSM (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia) derivation of the old Yugoslav Communist Party era; and it is no accident that from 2015 to 2016 these organizations coordinated by the SDSM, were the protagonists of the protests and riots of the "colored revolution" that shook Macedonia leading to the resignation of the Conservative government in office and to early elections; clashes led by leaders like LGBT activist Pavle Bogoevski and even today the parliamentary left, in the photo portrait with a t-shirt ironic that says, 'Soros-army'. Now Macedonia is crossed by a serious political crisis without a government majority with ethnic tensions that begin to burst with the Albanian minority. In short, a perfect creative chaos similar to many other artificially created by Geroge Soros in Eastern Europe. In Macedonia the scheme is very similar to the scheme in Ukraine (where among other things we remember, the role of Soros is well documented) Even the characters are the same as Victoria Nuland, responsible for the Eurasian policies of Obama, who during the Revolution colored He traveled to Macedonia "to meet civil activists and encourage them to continue their work" exactly what he did during Maidan. (For those who wish to learn who is Victoria Nuland, and what role did the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, we refer to this video editorial two years ago, made for Il Giornale)
    STOP SOROS In a long and complex analysis of The American Spectator':, Victor Gaetan , explained how the attempts at destabilization of Macedonia by Soros has commenced, even in 1995, but are made only when the arrival of Obama to the White House given away for free (and American money) to infiltration strategy of the Open Society. Cvetin Chilimanov, journalist MIA (Macedonian Information Agency) and Vice President of STOP SOROS, explained how the goal of the USA/Soros is not help the Macedonian nation but to seize power in the political forces of the left radicals. And it is evident also in Macedonia (as in the rest of Europe) the left is perfectly functional globalist ideology that Soros wants to impose in the West: migration, dissolution of nation states, disarticulation of the fabric of traditional values of the Royal Society (and not ideological). On the other hand, Macedonia remains a culturally and socially conservative country, whose population is strongly linked to the values of Orthodox Christianity, with public opinion in a clear majority opposed to issues such as abortion and gay marriage (among the most expensive issues George Soros).
    SOMETHING IS CHANGING (?) Financing Operations Use/Soros to the Macedonian NGOs have continued even in recent times, and many are still active. Not only that, but according to Gaetan an additional funding of $9.5 million was awarded a year ago at the Open Society and entrusted to Macedonian organizations, if it were not blocked by the new Secretary of State Tillerson, appointed by Trump. But this is a sign that maybe something is changing. Strengthened by Trump victory, thousands of Macedonians took to the streets to ask the new US administration the end of the financial support of the Open Society and the American ambassador's removal as the very executor of the Soros project...    http://blog.ilgiornale.it/rossi/2017/04/04/macedonia-di-soros/?repeat=w3tc
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  140. ↑ Gallagher, Ryan (May 16, 2013). Verizon Wireless Secretly Passed AP Reporters' Phone Records to Feds. www.slate.com.
  141. ↑ Sanchez, Raf (May 13, 2013). US Justice Department secretly seizes Associated Press phone records. The Telegraph.
  142. ↑ Washington (AP) (May 13, 2013). US government secretly obtained Associated Press phone records. The Guardian.
  143. ↑ Matt Smith and Joe Johns (May 14, 2013). AP blasts feds for phone records search. CNN.
  144. ↑ Gary B. Pruitt (May 13, 2013). AP letter to Eric Holder on seizure of phone records. USA Today. Retrieved on June 1, 2013.
  145. ↑ https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/13/syria-brigade-fighting-homs-implicated-atrocities
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  147. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3524976/CANNIBAL-moderate-Syrian-rebel-cut-ate-Assad-soldier-s-heart-liver-killed.html
  148. ↑ https://youtu.be/4q4hNOKOWRs
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  150. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
  151. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data
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  154. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining
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  166. ↑ https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/06/nyt-retreats-on-2013-syriasarin-claims/
  167. ↑ https://www.lawfareblog.com/nsa-documents-part-vi-2011-minimization-procedures
  168. ↑ Ukraine seeking observer status in Eurasian Economic Union - Yanukovych, Interfax-Ukraine (19 December 2013)
  169. ↑ http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/09/who-funds-syrian-rebel-advocate-obagy-and-the-syrian-emergency-task-force-you-do/
  170. ↑ https://nsnbc.me/2013/10/07/top-us-and-saudi-officials-responsible-for-chemical-weapons-in-syria/
  171. ↑ http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/28/seymour-hersh-hillary-approved-sending-libya-sarin-syrian-rebels.html
  172. ↑ http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/17/flashback-barack-obama-wiretapped-german-chancellor-angela-merkel-in-2010/ <
  173. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/washington-post-closes-sale-to-amazon-founder-jeff-bezos/2013/10/01/fca3b16a-2acf-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html?utm_term=.8fea51fb3097
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  175. ↑ http://www.mockingbirdpaper.com/content/leaked-dnc-emails-prove-washington-post-both-fundraiser-and-attack-dog-clinton-and-national
  176. ↑ https://youtu.be/RC4fE6sm4r8
  177. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/01/gchq-europe-spy-agencies-mass-surveillance-snowden
  178. ↑ http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-qaeda-kentucky-us-dozens-terrorists-country-refugees/story?id=20931131
  179. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/nsa-report-outlined-goals-for-more-power.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1402013607-O4V0y2ArhGWsYy8IcbXOpQ
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