Here is what I see as the ignored Libyan issue that is of vital importance and why I have problems with it: we helped AQ take Libya. It is central to this story and is being overlooked in an election year where taking small talking points out of context is more important than looking at larger and more complex issue.
As I recall, and I admit it may be flawed, but Benghazi was the starting point of a Civil War against Kaddafi; it was also a known Al Qaeda stronghold. The main group behind said uprising, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group or LIFG was known to the State Department as an AQ group whose leader was caught in 2002 fighting in Afghanistan against us and sent to Libyan prison. In 2006, the State Department declared the LIFG an AQ offshoot and forbid assistance.
Fast forward to the Civil War. We gave aid to the LIFG in their war against Qaddafi based on a threat to destroy Benghazi civilians; the main source of this info was the LIFG. We decided to help the rebels in the spirit of an Arab Spring we didn’t understand, but were too eager to make friends in the region and hoped despite decades of their hating us after our help that this time would be different.
Fast forward again: Kaddafi is dead and the rebels won. Their first act: They fly an AQ flag in Benghazi; a clear sign of who exactly won the civil war.
Fast forward one last time: a riot that ends with our embassy overrun and 4 people killed including a US Ambassador; the first killed in over 30 years. The spark of said riot is the current distraction, but not the issue. The issue is this: given all I have listed above which is all easily confirmed, why would we depend on the rebels to defend an embassy in a known stronghold of the enemy we are currently engaged in a world wide war against?
Obama’s statements and Romney’s statements are distractions from a major FUBAR in our national security. It is an easy way to get us fighting amongst ourselves in an election year and ignoring the main people who FUBARed it and are NOT subject to election. This entire affair must be looked into, not from the perspective of a video or who said “terrorism” and when, but why we helped rebels we knew were allies of an enemy we were fighting in other countries.
In light of the recent talk of Syria and their civil war, the time is well past now to look into what went wrong with Libya and how we ended up aiding our enemies before we possibly do it again: Most of the time the enemy of my enemy is just another asshole who will end up screwing me over too.
