Free Republic

Russia is planning to expand its Syrian bases at Tartus and Hemeimeem to Libya. The possible Russian move into Libya represents the most recent failure stemming from the policies of President Obama that backed Islamist rebels who overthrew and killed Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Mr. Obama has said that the failure to prepare for the aftermath of the ouster of Gadhafi was the worst mistake of his presidency. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also came under fire for failing to provide security for Americans who were attacked and killed in Benghazi after Gadhafi’s fall. The push for a...

African migrants threatened to kill the crew of an Italian cargo vessel that had rescued them in the Mediterranean, in an attempt to avoid being returned to detention centres in Libya. The Italian coastguard picked up the migrants after receiving a call for help from the ship. They were being taken yesterday to Italy where the ringleaders will be questioned by police over the incident. The mutiny on the Vos Thalassa marked an escalation in problems in the Mediterranean after Italy’s new populist government refused entry to migrants picked up by charity boats and handed over rescue responsibilities to the...

Italy’s hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Thursday said he wanted to put a complete stop to migrant arrivals in Italy by boat. The aim is that “not one more person arrives by boat” on Italian shores, said Salvini during a news conference with Ahmed Maiteeq, vice president of the Libyan UN-backed Government of National Accord. Salvini said that as “a minister and a father” he did not want any more “women or babies to get into rubber dinghies”. […] “Pregnant women, children and refugees will remain in Italy,” said the minister, who has promised to speed up deportations of...

FORMER US SECRETARY of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton has been conferred with an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin. Clinton was one of five people recognised for what the college calls “their contribution to society”.(snip) Professor Anna Chahoud’s oration this afternoon paid tribute to Clinton’s life’s work: “Almost 66 million people have given her their vote of confidence, sharing her belief that a true democracy is a society in which everyone is equally valued as a human being, from infancy to old age, irrespective of gender, status or nationality; it is a society in which women have the...

Italy’s Matteo Salvini warned Saturday that no NGO-operated ships carrying migrants would be allowed to dock at Italian ports. “Italy no longer wants to be an accomplice of human traffickers and contribute to the business of illegal immigration,” Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right League, said in a Facebook post on Saturday. More than 600 migrants are expected to reach Italian shores on Saturday on board Italian, British and U.S. military ships, according to a statement by the Italian interior ministry cited by La Repubblica. Salvini’s post specifically targeted NGO-operated two ships flying Dutch flags — which he described as...

Italy’s interior minister has sparked a new migration crisis in the Mediterranean by barring two rescue boats from bringing refugees to shore, a week . “Two other ships with the flag of Netherlands, Lifeline and Seefuchs, have arrived off the coast of Libya, waiting for their load of human beings abandoned by the smugglers,” Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant party the League, wrote on his Facebook page. “These gentlemen know that Italy no longer wants to be complicit in the business of illegal immigration, and therefore will have to look for other ports [not Italian] where to go.”...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has largely abandoned support for the European Union’s migrant quota system, instead, pushing for what she has termed “flexible solidarity” and a “Marshall Plan” for Africa to prevent illegal migration. Merkel made her remarks on Wednesday at a meeting of the European People’s Party, a European Union parliamentary group of which Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CSU) is a member, Le Point reports. “If we fail to provide a common answer to questions of illegal migration, the foundations of the European Union will be called into question. Action is really needed here,” she said. Merkel appeared to...

Heh. I think the right will divide into two camps about this. Devout Trumpers who hate any report of conflict within the administration will declare “fake news” and point to the double whammy of CNN citing anonymous sources. Whereas devout hawks who love Bolton and hate the idea of pointless diplomacy with a propaganda-hungry Kim will say, “I sure hope it’s true.” Trump was caught off guard by Bolton’s comment & wasn’t happy once he saw how it was playing out, according to multiple officials. No one in Trump admin knew Bolton would make Libya model comments. (via @PamelaBrownCNN...

When Donald Trump canceled his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—before hinting that it might happen anyway after all, as the South Koreans moved into damage-control mode on Saturday with an impromptu summit of their own—it followed days of discussion over a historical parallel: Libya. U.S. National-Security Adviser John Bolton said the basis for a deal with North Korea was the “Libya model” from 2003 to 2004, when Muammar Qaddafi essentially handed over his entire nuclear program to the United States. For North Korea, however, this allusion to Libya looked “awfully sinister” because, in 2011, less than...

After months of pretending to be normal and reasonable on the diplomatic stage, North Korea's mask has slipped, and Pyongyang is back to threatening a "nuclear-to-nuclear showdown" that will "make the U.S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined up to now." Why is Kim Jong Un's regime lashing out? It's not because it is offended at talk of a "Libya model." It's because it was hoping to follow the "Iran model" -- sanctions relief up front and weak inspections -- and is starting to realize that is not going to happen. When national security adviser...

Will we ever find out about the people who were saved from our Consulate and the Annex in Benghazi? Are they in Witness Protection? Will the investigations reveal their fate? Were they interviewed when they returned to the USA?

Pence: North Korea will 'end like the Libyan model' if Kim does not cooperate BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 05/21/18 07:42 PM EDT Vice President Pence warned in an interview on Monday that talks between the U.S. and North Korea could end like Libya's denuclearization process if Kim Jong Un does not cooperate. "You know, there was some talk of the Libyan model last week. And as the president made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn't make a deal," Pence told Martha MacCallum on Fox News. "It would be a great mistake...

Donald Trump's warning to Kim Jong-un: make a deal or suffer same fate as Gaddafi Asked about ‘Libya model’, Trump says: ‘That model … was total decimation. That model would take place if we don’t make a deal’ Donald Trump has threatened Kim Jong-un with the same fate as Muammar Gaddafi if the North Korean leader “doesn’t make a deal” on his nuclear weapons programme. The US president issued the threat at the White House when he was asked about the recent suggestion by his national security adviser, John Bolton, that the “Libyan model” be a template for dealing with...

President Donald Trump tried to keep his planned talks with North Korea’s leader on track with reassuring words — then appeared to threaten “total decimation” if Kim Jong Un fails to reach a deal with the U.S. on nuclear arms. Trump, responding to North Korea’s sudden threat on Tuesday to pull out of scheduled June talks, promised that Kim would remain in power and his country would get “very rich” if he abandons his nuclear weapons program. But the president appeared to issue his own warning if the two leaders fail to reach a deal. Trump’s comments came after national...

After a three-year wait and a number of broken promises, the Egyptian Coptic families of 20 men beheaded by IS in Libya in 2015 have finally received their loved ones’ remains. The leader of the Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, accompanied by several bishops, priests and deacons, welcomed the 20 coffins at the Cairo airport on Monday evening, 14 May, with prayers and Coptic chants. From there the coffins were transported to the village of Al-Our in Minya province, where the Church of the Martyrs of Faith and Homeland, dedicated to the victims, had been inaugurated in February in anticipation...

President Donald Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by this May, South Korea's national adviser announced at the White House Thursday evening. He had briefed the president on a message from Kim earlier in the day. The South Korean envoy said that in his recent talks with Kim, the North Korean leader had expressed an eagerness to meet with Trump as soon as possible. He said that Kim had said he was committed to denuclearization, suspending more missile tests, and had agreed that U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises the North objects to must continue....

On Friday, shortly after President Donald Trump's announcement of air strikes against Syria, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow twice put on her tinfoil hat, alleging that there is a "perception that the president may have ordered these strikes in part because of scandal," and that Trump's decision "may have ... (been) inflected by the scandals surrounding him." Maddow even contended that this alleged perception of scandal-driven decision-making will "affect the impact and the effectiveness of these military strikes." Maddow's first speculation appeared shortly after Trump's announcement:Transcript RACHEL MADDOW: As we follow the news in these incredible days that we have been having recently...

Jointly published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon and the Middle East Forum   Vol. 2   No. 6 Table of ContentsMEIB Main Page 1 July 2000  Lockerbie Trial Document: Susan Lindauer Deposition4 December 1998 Last month, MEIB reported that Dr. Richard Fuisz, a major CIA operative in Syria during the 1980s, met with a congressional staffer by the name of Susan Lindauer in 1994 and told her that that the perpetrators of the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland were based in Syria [see "The Lockerbie Bombing Trial: Is Libya Being...

Former Iranian intelligence officer says Tehran ordered downing of plane over Lockerbie in retaliation for US attack on Iranian airliner. Who was responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland? While the Libyan government was thought to have masterminded the terrorist attack, a bombshell documentary by Al Jazeera quotes a former Iranian intelligence officer as saying that it was Iran that ordered the atrocity. The former agent, Abolghassem Mesbahi, who defected to Germany from Iran, is quoted by the Telegraph as saying that flight 103 was downed in retaliation for a US Navy strike on...

The dominant narrative of modern Middle East history emphasizes European colonization and accepts as a truism that the former colonial powers prioritized the protection of their material interests—in oil, above all—above the dignity and self-determination of the region’s inhabitants. --Thus did botched decolonization result in endless instability...Thus did the region become a breeding ground for radicalism, intensified by Cold War rivalry between the superpowers, who replaced the European colonizers as the region’s meddling overlords...Then came Mikhail Gorbachev—a Westernizing reformer. At last, the Cold War was over. A new world order was at hand. What if this conventional wisdom is nonsense?...