It’s been three months since the media outcry over the open market slave trading in Libya and yet, the problem persists.
And the root cause of how these slave markets were created, thanks to U.S. foreign policy, has been ignored.
Do you want to end the slave trade in Libya?
We’ll tell you the biggest step toward making that happen… in a Reality Check you won’t get anywhere else.
The video shocked the world. CNN posted the images: men who appeared to be sold at auction in Libya for $400. The grainy undercover video appears to show smugglers selling off a dozen men outside of the capital city Tripoli.
So how did we get here? Most media will tell you that Libya is the main transit point for refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe by sea.
“In each of the last three years, 150,000 people have made the dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya. For four years in a row, 3,000 refugees have died while attempting the journey, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the U.N.’s migration agency.”
What’s more, according to a September report by the United Nations Human Rights Agency, there are estimates that “400,000 to almost one million people” are now bottled up Libya. “Detention centers are overrun and there are mounting reports of robbery, rape, and murder among migrants.”
Read just about any mainstream report on what is happening in Libya, and what you will not hear is who is responsible for the utter failure of Libya.
The policies that have created some of the most horrific conditions in the world fall squarely on the shoulders of former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Keep in mind, in 2003, under the Bush administration, the long time leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, had entered into an agreement where Gaddafi would give up any weapons of mass destruction and the U.S. would leave Gaddafi and Libya alone.
But under Obama and Clinton, the U.S. broke that agreement. In 2012 the U.S. insisted that there was an “Arab Spring” uprising taking place in Libya. There was not. As I reported at the time, the fighters attempting to overthrow Gaddafi were al Qaeda fighters.
Under Obama and Clinton, on March 21st of that year, a no fly zone was imposed over Libya. And then, seven months later, with the U.S. tracking a Gaddafi convoy, the Libyan leader was caught and killed in the streets.
Was Muammar Gaddafi a dictator? Yes. No question.
But was Libya under Gaddafi a relatively peaceful place? Yes.
Gaddafi actually promoted a Pan-Africanism, spoke out against anti-black Arab racism and was pushing for unified African currency.
Bragging about her so-called accomplishments after the fact, Hillary Clinton famously said…
“We came, we saw, he died.”
The problem is, so many others are dying now as a result.
In an interview after the leaving the White House, former President Obama called the overthrow of Gaddafi his greatest single mistake in office. While that is difficult to argue, what is truly stunning about that statement? The policy to overthrow Gaddafi was attempted again for the next four years by the Obama administration as they attempted to overthrow the Assad regime, even as Libya continued to slip deeper into chaos.
And that’s what you need to know. Because Obama is no longer president, Clinton is no longer secretary of state and Gaddafi is no longer alive.
The answer to how Libyans should fix what is happening in Libya is beyond me. But the answer as to what the U.S. should do about Libya is not.
If we want to prevent these chaotic failed states around the world, the U.S. must stop intervening and thereby creating them through the toppling of governments in the Middle East and Africa.
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This video and text were originally published on Truth in Media.
Ben Swann is an investigative journalist working tirelessly to dissolve the left/right paradigm prevalent in most mainstream media narratives. As a news reporter and anchor in the earlier days of his career, he has gained a wealth of experience while earning two Emmy Awards and two Edward R. Murrow awards.
Featured image is from TruePublica.
