March 25, 2015
The Christian Science Monitor warns that last week’s attack on a museum in Tunisia that killed 23 may endanger the supposed “democratic transition” the African nation underwent after the Western engineered Arab Spring.
“Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things,” formerSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared after the invasion of Iraq. “Stuff happens,” he added.
The untidiness of the revolution against Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia — a ruthless dictator visited by Rumsfeld in 2006 — resulted in the rise of the Salafist brand of Islam and the rise of Ansar Al Sharia, the group responsible for attacking the CIA compound in Libya.
Now we learn that the gunmen who carried out the attack in Tunis were trained in neighboring Libya, another country where stuff happened and the transition to democracy was, to say the least, messy.
The violent overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya was conducted by CIA supported “rebels” who subsequently turned the country into the failed state it is today.
In 2011, we reported that Khalifa Hifter, a former Gaddafi military officer, was appointed to lead the rebel army supported by the United Nations, the United States and its cobbled together coalition. Hifter has worked with the CIA since he “defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his own militia,” according to the Le Monde diplomatique published book Manipulations africaines.
In addition, Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, admitted to working for the CIA. “Mr. al-Hasidi,” we wrote in March, 2011, “is reportedly a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), also known as Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya. It is the most powerful radical faction waging Jihad in Libya and was officially designated as an affiliate of al-Qaeda and the Taliban – both CIA creations – by the UN 1267 Committee. LIFG was founded in the fall of 1995 by Libyans who had fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, in short for the CIA and the ISI.”
The order out of chaos effort in Libya continues today as al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya and other Salafist groups — undoubtedly the same folks who allegedly trained the gunmen in Tunis — are funded by the Gulf Emirates and the CIA, partners since the successful CIA effort to force the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
The attack signals the ascension of the Salafist jihad in northern Africa. “The consolidation of a jihadist Caliphate in eastern Libya accelerated starting early 2014 because of the need to support the Egyptian Islamist jihadists against the growing power and popularity of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi,” writes theWorld Tribune.
The failure of “democracy” in Tunisia — formerly held out as the shining star of the Arab Spring — and corporate media warnings that such freedom allows the Salafist revolution to grow serves as yet another signal that the war on terror is an ever-expanding enterprise.
In addition to growing the national security state in the United States, Canada and Europe and feeding associated industries in militarism and surveillance, the continuing expansion of the Islamic State, most recently in Libya and soon in Tunisian and across the Arab Maghreb, will extend the expiry date on the so-called war on terror, possibly for a generation or longer.
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