Vigilante
Diamond Member
- Mar 9, 2014
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Two weeks after France began bombing Libya, in March, 2011, Hillary Clinton's old friend and advisor Sidney Blumenthal passed her an intelligence memo that supposedly revealed France's true — and quite unflattering— motivations for toppling Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. While France's then-President Nicolas Sarkozy publicly said he wished to free the Libyan people from tyranny, Blumenthal's memo argues that he was driven by a cocktail of less lofty incentives, including a desire for Libyan oil, and a fear that Qaddafi secretly planned to use his vast supply of gold to displace France's primacy in the region.
Libya watchers aren't so sure that Blumenthal was passing the US Secretary Of State solid intelligence. "For me, it's not credible," former French diplomat and Libya expert Patrick Haimzadeh told VICE News when asked about the Blumenthal memo. Haimzadeh worked at the French embassy in Tripoli from 2001 to 2004, and wrote the 2011 study In the Heart of Qaddafi's Libya. "In 2011, everyone was saying anything and everything about Libya," Haimzadeh said. "But in fact, no one really knew what was going on. At the time, the French intelligence services and the CIA were in the dark. For example, the French services said the war would last three days — in reality, it took eight months."
It appears that Clinton's office too was awash in Libya rumors....
Libya watchers aren't so sure that Blumenthal was passing the US Secretary Of State solid intelligence. "For me, it's not credible," former French diplomat and Libya expert Patrick Haimzadeh told VICE News when asked about the Blumenthal memo. Haimzadeh worked at the French embassy in Tripoli from 2001 to 2004, and wrote the 2011 study In the Heart of Qaddafi's Libya. "In 2011, everyone was saying anything and everything about Libya," Haimzadeh said. "But in fact, no one really knew what was going on. At the time, the French intelligence services and the CIA were in the dark. For example, the French services said the war would last three days — in reality, it took eight months."
It appears that Clinton's office too was awash in Libya rumors....
