Number of families displaced in Libya doubles since September as fighting rages

[Jefferson23]

Fighting continued to rage in eastern Libya on Tuesday, as the UN warned that the numbers of people internally displaced throughout the country have doubled since September.

Twenty-one troops fighting with the internationally recognised government have been killed since Saturday during fierce battles near the eastern town of Derna.

Government forces from the House of Representatives, which has its headquarters in eastern Libya, on Saturday began an offensive to regain control of the town of Ain Mara, some 15 kilometres east of Derna.

The clashes were mostly with the Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade, a small armed group that has most recently fought fierce battles with the Islamic State group (IS) in a southern suburb of the large coastal town of Derna.

The high death toll was reported as diplomatic efforts intensified, aiming to find a political solution to a crisis that has seen nearly half a million people forced to leave their homes.

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/number-families-displaced-libya-doubles-september-fighting-rages-1713992440#sthash.jpWQhS34.dpuf

[Maedhros]

1. "We came, we saw, he died."

Yes, Hillary. And a whole lot of innocent people are still dying.

The primary reason for intervention in Libya was allegations of "genocide" by Qaddafi, which have since been debunked.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23387/lessons_from_libya.html

BOTTOM LINES

• The Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong. Libya's 2011 uprising was never peaceful, but instead was armed and violent from the start. Muammar al-Qaddafi did not target civilians or resort to indiscriminate force. Although inspired by humanitarian impulse, NATO's intervention did not aim mainly to protect civilians, but rather to overthrow Qaddafi's regime, even at the expense of increasing the harm to Libyans.

• The Intervention Backfired. NATO's action magnified the conflict's duration about sixfold and its death toll at least sevenfold, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If Libya was a "model intervention," then it was a model of failure.

• Three Lessons. First, beware rebel propaganda that seeks intervention by falsely crying genocide.Second, avoid intervening on humanitarian grounds in ways that reward rebels and thus endanger civilians, unless the state is already targeting noncombatants. Third, resist the tendency of humanitarian intervention to morph into regime change, which amplifies the risk to civilians.

Worse, NATO intervention has led to actual genocide:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/31/the-top-ten-myths-in-the-war-against-libya/

What foreign military intervention did do, however, was to enable the actual genocidal violence that has been routinely sidelined until only very recently: the horrific violence against African migrants and black Libyans, singled out solely on the basis of their skin colour. That has proceeded without impediment, without apology, and until recently, without much notice. Indeed, the media even collaborates, rapid to assert without evidence that any captured or dead black man must be a “mercenary”. This is the genocide that the white, Western world, and those who dominate the “conversation” about Libya, have missed (and not by accident).

Obama and Clinton do not deserve a "pass" for inflicting this nightmare on Libya. They lied us into a war, just like Bush.

[KoKo]

2. ...!

Will she live that down?

[Maedhros]

3. Many Democrats are still in deep denial over Libya.

Despite evidence to the contrary, they insist that the Libyan intervention was "necessary" to stop Qaddafi from committing "genocide."

These same people were gung-ho to use the same manufactured casus belli to remove Assad in Syria, before it was discredited as well (and Kerry's gaffe forced the Administration to the negotiating table).

If there is anything we should have learned by now, whenever an American President or General makes claims of "genocide" they are lying us into war.