by WorldTribune Staff, June 9, 2016
Hillary Clinton, in a June 8 interview with PBS, claimed no American lives were lost in the U.S. intervention in Libya and hinted that “pre-existing rivalries” were the primary cause of the chaos that followed.
“After due diligence, we came up with a way of supporting their efforts that did not cost a single American life,” Clinton claimed. “And we saved a lot of Libyan lives.”
The Democratic presidential candidate apparently forgot about U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty, who were all killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
Clinton initially blamed the Benghazi attack on an anti-Islamic YouTube video.
In the PBS interview, host Judy Woodruff asked Clinton: “We know that you, and you’ve talked about this, you encouraged the president to intervene in Libya in 2011. Recently President Obama said his worst mistake in office was probably failing to plan for the day after what he thought was the right thing to do in intervening there. How do you see your responsibility in that?”
Clinton replied: “Well, first of all, it’s important to remember where we were and why the president made the decision he did because this was a presidential decision.
“I have advised the president, sometimes he follows my advice, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he uses a combination of what he hears from his advisers. We were looking at a potential disaster as Gadhafi threatened to massacre large numbers of his population. The Europeans, our Arab allies were urging us to help them to try to prevent that.”
Several media reports concluded that U.S intelligence did not concur with Clinton’s rationale for invading Libya and in fact “had come to the opposite conclusion: that [Gadhafi] would not risk world outrage by killing civilians en masse even as he tried to crush the rebellion in his country.”
Clinton went on to claim: “Now, could we have done more after the Gadhafi regime was ended? That’s always second-guessing and I’m sure there’s more we could have done.”
“But let’s look at what we did do? We along with the UN and others helped to superintend two free and fair elections, something that is still quite an accomplish by the Libyan people. They chose moderate leaders. Unfortunately, pre-existing rivalries within the country has prevented the government from really being able to act on behalf of the nation,” Clinton admitted. “So of course if there were more things to be done that we could have influenced, I think that’s something we should be looking at and evaluating because Libya still is a country that is struggling to be successful.”
Writing for Breitbart, Ben Shapiro encapsulated Clinton’s role in Libya:
“Hillary Clinton was largely responsible for a pointless invasion of Libya, which promptly turned into a terrorist-run hellhole. She was responsible for the security of her diplomats in Libya, but she didn’t provide for it. She had no correspondence with those diplomats on the ground but plenty of time for Sidney Blumenthal. When those diplomats and those who ran to help them were killed, she blamed a YouTube video. And finally, she used her jerry-rigged email server to selectively edit the material the public would see.”