Elizabeth Jones, GOVT 2305, Synonym 10506, Section 026

United States Foreign Policy in Libya and Syria

While a world-wide sweep of mistrust for the United States, coupled with Syrias
close connections with Russia, help to explain why the US was denied an UNSCR to
attack Syria, even though we were granted one for Libya, the continued presence of the
US in the Middle-East may originate from a greedy cocktail of protecting the federal
reserve currency and a plot to bring down Israel.
The birth of modern US-Libyan relations can be traced to Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi's conspicuous resistance to Israel in the early 1980s. He was known
to have supported resistance militias in Palestinian territories and was believed to be
rapidly advancing Libyas nuclear program 1. Israel being a pet project of the US at the
time, the newly elected president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, made keeping
an eye on Libya a priority. Libya also showed alignment with the USSR, a cause for
alarm in Cold War era America. US suspicion grew with Gaddafis occupation of the
uranium rich Chad which would potentially provide Libya with more ammunition, literally,
in their nuclear efforts.
Watchfulness bred tension in 1986 when several bombings erupted around Europe,
namely the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub that killed two US soldiers and a Turkish
civilian. The events were blamed on Libya and Gaddafi, prompting an air strike by the
United States just a few days later. While Gaddafi survived, his infant daughter, Hanna,
was killed. This made the conflict personal. Then in 1988, a US commercial plane, Pan
Am flight 103, went down over Scotland after a bomb exploded, killing all 259 people on
1 Kenneth Timmerman, "Weapons of Mass Destruction: the Cases of Iran, Syria, and Libya," Simon
Wiesenthal Center Middle East Defense News, August 1992, p. 89

board.2 This attack was also pegged as an act of terror on the United States by Libya.
For years, this blame-game would poison the relationship between Libya and America.
2011 is when one sees the conflict of today take shape, beginning with the Libyan Arab
Spring where rebel forces started assembling against Gaddafis authority. These
forces, called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, are Sunni Muslim
fundamentalists who aim to create a strict Islamist theocracy. The group was labeled a
Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Department of State in 2002 due to their
anti-American beliefs and their apparent alignment with Al-Qaeda. Though LIFG and AlQaeda have publicly announced their disunion 3, the two still share many of the same
ideals, and have personal links due to LIFGs leadership. Abdelhakim Belhadj, LIFGs
front man, has a relationship with Al-Qaeda leading back to Afghanistan and close ties
with Osama bin Laden, the notorious founder of Al-Qaeda.
Gaddafi had continually fought LIFG in the past, jailing thousands of its members
after their anti-American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was, as investigative
journalist Bob Powell puts it, an active partner in the war on terror. 4
Reports that Gaddafi's regime was attacking innocents in the streets, his own
people, prompted a response from the United States almost immediately. Probably
because we were expecting it. As United States media outlets exploded with the news
of Gaddafi's abuse, little verification of the claims arose. Regardless, the US gained
support through making the situation into a human rights issue, and therefore invoking

2 Clipper Maid of the Seas: Remembering those on flight 103. panamair.org. 2007.
3 David Blair. "Extremist group announces split from al-Qaeda". London: The Telegraph. 2009.
4 Bob Powell. Bob Powell: Weve been lied to by every media outlet in the world. voltairenet.org.

their R2P or Right to Protect the people of Libya. On this basis, the United Nations
Security Council passed two resolutions (UNSCRs) against Libya, establishing a no-fly
zone that allowed NATO to prevent Gaddafi from bombing rebel troops. The resolutions
also allowed for a humanitarian bombing campaign of Gaddafis bases and soldiers.
Another less-publicized, though probable, reason for the US intervention could
be Gaddafis announcement that Libya would start trading their oil in the gold dinar, a
North African currency. Shifting the federal reserve currency from the US dollar, which
provides America with more control and an economic advantage in the oil trade, to
essentially gold bullion, a natural resource of no abundance in the United States, would
have had dire consequences. Thus, it had to be stopped, even if under the disguise of a
fight for human rights.
The biggest contributor to the U.S. gaining approval for their interventions was
the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) which rounded up seventy nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), many of which later admitted to not being human
rights groups at all, to write letters, pleading for help from the Obama administration.
The LLHR has now been revealed to have been very much associated with the
Transitional Council that is now coordinating the Libyan government alongside
influences from NATO and the Obama Administration.5 This tie gives greater weight to
the suspicion that the U.S. had something to do with the fabricated allegations against
Gaddafi that lead to his oust and murder on Oct 20th. After being humiliated,
sodomized, beaten and tortured, Gaddafi was killed by rebel troops, flinging Libya into
total disarray.
5 Nazemroaya. Libya: Human rights imposters used to spawn NATOs fraudulent war. voltairenet.org

With LIFG and the Transitional Council in power, due to the assistance from the
U.S. and NATO, thousands of known terrorists and members of military groups were
freed, flooding the country with extremists and employing a policy of brutality:
beheading opposition and conducting genocide on black Libyans. In fact, LIFG was
known to have flagrantly racist ideology long before NATO got its UNSCR, as Dr.
Webster Tarpley discussed in his 2011 appearance on the Alex Jones show.67 Leaving
Libya in shambles, the United States began to engage the same plan of attack in Syria.
Relevant United States foreign policy towards Syria begins with the rocky period
of the 1960s and the Six-Day War of 1967, which ended with Israels claim of Golan
Heights with the help of the U.S. This conflict left a bad taste in the mouth of the
American government and resulted in severed ties between the two countries. Then,
with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, conditions worsened as the United
States armed Israel and provided support both politically and militarily. Though, after the
Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria, relations were regained in
1974. From then until the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the US and Syria
remained comfortable in their relationship, Syria even cooperating with America in the
first Gulf War.
After 2001, Syria and the United States have experienced a slow decline in
friendly association due namely to U.S. involvement in Iraq. With the expulsion of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Syria was forced to accept a considerable influx of Iraqi
refugees past its borders and was therefore subjected to experience a war in which it
6 Cartalucci. NATOs Slow Genocide in Libya: Syria is Next. The Land Destroyer Report.
7 Dr. Webster Tarpley on The Alex Jones Show. May 1st, 2011. http://tarpley.net/2011/03/01/imperialistrampage-envelops-libya-in-civil-war/

played no part. The United States ongoing concerns became Syrias interest in
developing WMDs and their continual support of Palestinian rejectionist groups that
pledge to fight against Israel.
The picture of our current foreign policy towards Syria sharpened in 2011 when,
much like in Libya, news outlets began to report that the regime of Bashar al-Assad,
Syrias President, was attacking civilians in the city of Homs. In a report by Dr. Tarpley in
November of 2011, he interviews citizens about the attacks, concluding that the
perpetrators attacked randomly and were doubted by the people to be backed by the
Syrian government.8 This was a suspicious and partially-formed excuse for the United
States to get involved, again on the grounds of protecting human rights and enabling
freedom fighters who, in Syrias case come in the form of the Al Nusra Front (ANF)
and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), both jihadist and extremist groups snugly
related with Al-Qaeda.
This time though, instead of winning the faith of the UN and congress by enlisting
fake NGOs, Obama defined a red line that Assad should not cross unless he wished to
incur US military interventions. This red line was the use of chemical weapons. 9 Then, in
the convenient fashion that is becoming a staple in US foreign affairs, attacks with
chlorine and sarin popped up in Syria beginning in 2013.
The first of the attacks, those using chlorine gas, were invalidated shortly after
coming to light. The compounds used were found to be highly unsophisticated, close to
what is used in water purification, and incongruent with what would be used by an
8 Dr. Webster Tarpley on the Alex Jones Show. Nov 15th, 2011. http://tarpley.net/2011/11/15/report-fromsyria/

9 Glenn Kessler. President Obama and the Red Line on Syrias Chemical Weapons. The Washington
Post.

organized government military such as Assads. Despite the push of the mainstream
media to hang the blame on Assad, suspicion of where the chlorine originated from was
generated by the ambiguity of the situation.
Next came the sarin attacks of 2013, where rockets filled with the gas were shot
into the suburb community of Ghouta, killing hundreds of Syrians. At first, this attack too
was blamed on Assads troops and would constitute a violation of the Chemical
Weapons Commision, crossing the red line, but these allegations too were soon
thwarted. As senior UN official Carla Del Ponte publicly stated: This was use on the
part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities. 10 After an analysis
of the sarin used in the attack, British intelligence determined that it did not match the
sarin known to be in Syrias arsenal, and therefore, the attack was probably conducted
by rebel forces.11
Despite the consistent denouncement of the chemical attacks being carried out
by the Assad regime, President Obama requested an UNSCR to again intervene in
Middle-Eastern affairs, asserting that Assad was indeed responsible for the attacks. But
this time, the UNSC rejected the resolution after a veto from Russia, one of its
permanent members. This was a shock to America, a military and political power that is
accustomed to getting its way. Yet it worked. Instead of the UNSCR, Russias president,
Vladimir Putin, proposed a plan to force his ally, Assad, to relinquish Syrias arsenal of
chemical weapons. This compromise was accepted by the United States, albeit
reluctantly.
10 Damien Gayle. UN accuses Syrian rebels of carrying out sarin gas attacks which had been blamed
on Assads troops. Daily Mail Online.

11 Seymour Hersh. The Red Line and the Rat Line London Review of Books. p 1.

So why was the US allowed to interfere with Libyas political unrest, assuming
there would have been any without our involvement, but not Syrias? It comes down to a
few main reasons.
First of all, the past two decades have shown America lying itself into wars over
and over again, cultivating leeriness in the leaders of other world powers. We simply
arent to be trusted. The Iraq war is a great example and perhaps a leading cause for
suspicion, as the US blatantly lied about the existence of WMDs in the country and then
employed several supporting lies to inspire advocacy for the invasion. The real reason
for that particular bill of goods may be, at least primarily, the intention of Saddam
Hussein, then president of Iraq, to stop trading oil in US dollars, the reserve currency,
and start using the euro. This upset of the status quo would have posed many problems
for the US, including a drop in the worth of the dollar.
Another example is the Benghazi scandal of 2012 that resulted in the death of a
US ambassador. The story as circulated by the US and European media made the
situation look as if there was a spontaneous riot at the US consulate. The real story
might be a bit more complicated. In the wake of US involvement, Libyas new leaders,
LIFG, were left with a surplus of weapons from Gaddafis military. In a piece by awardwinning journalist Seymour Hersh, the conspiracy is broken down. It seems that these
weapons were being purchased from LIFG with money from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and
Qatar and sent to Syrian rebels via Turkey. Without the use of American funds, this US
led operation did not have to seek approval from congress. 12 This would suggest even
more of a contribution to the destabilization of Libya than was earlier implied.
12 Pulitzer-Prize Winning Reporter Sy Hersh: Benghazi is a HUGE Scandal But Not For the Reason
You Think. Washingtons Blog. p 1.

Another reason for Russias veto was their own ties with Libya. Seeing the writing
on the wall with the mess that became of the Libyan conflict, Russia made a strategic
move by not allowing the US to intervene. Syria is the home of Russias only military
base in the Mediterranean and their single ally in the Mid-East. With Syria destabilized,
the influence of Russia in this crucial tactical area might have been greatly diminished
or all together ended.
The one culminating force, though, that aligns all of the United States
involvement in the Mid-East, is Israel. All one needs to see the connection is a map of
the region and a basic understanding of the violent Zionist-Muslim conflict that has been
raging for millennia. The United States has dedicated its recent foreign policy to putting
Islamic extremist regimes into power in certain countries. All of which happen to border
or nearly border the Jewish state of Israel. By pinning it in, the US has virtually
guaranteed the destruction of Israel. Whether this quest is to allow the US to intervene
and redraw borders or for a more radical and religiously charged reason, one cant be
too sure. But what is clear is that the US has consistently made choices that may well
force Israel, a state that was protected fiercely by the US in the past, out of existence.
This could also be a contributing factor in Russias decision to veto. Judging by
the significant number of Russians who reside in Israel and visa-versa, Russia might not
be too keen on its destruction. Russias military ties to Israel must not be overlooked
either, with their purchasing over $550 million of drone technology from the small but
militarily elite state. The two maintain strong political ties, even having a plan to open up
free trade in the pipeline.13 If Russia was forward-thinking enough to see the pattern of
13 Israel may create free trade zone- Customs Union. Voiceofrussia.com. March 18, 2014.

US involvement in the Middle-East, they could have foreseen the fall of Israel and used
their veto to buy time.
The US has all but sealed the fate of Libya and Syria, doing everything they can
in forcing Islamic fundamentalists into power under the front of a moral obligation. As for
what will come of the United States systematic isolation of Israel, only time will tell.