
© ReutersLibya, post-NATO.
Libya risks becoming "a failed state" if the UN-brokered unity government flops, Secretary John Kerry has said. While Libya remains broke and insecure five years after NATO's 2011 military intervention, Kerry believes "a wealthy nation" can rebuilt itself. The remarks by the head of the Department of State came during his second visit to Capitol Hill seeking to defend a proposed $50 billion foreign aid budget for 2017, the last of the Obama administration. While he focused mostly on recent developments in Syria, Kerry's attention was briefly shifted to Libya. When asked if "Libya is a failed state," he replied: "It's close."
"We have been working really hard for the last months, particularly, to bring together the government in Tripoli," Kerry told the House Appropriations Committee on Foreign Operations. "We have a Prime Minister designate, we have a government now; we have a couple of outliers that are resisting that effort. If they cannot get themselves together, yes it will be a failed state."
Since the 2011 ouster and killing of its long-term leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has essentially been "torn apart" by two factions based in opposite sides of the country that simultaneously claim power. After an election in 2014, an Islamist-dominated body settled in Tripoli in the west, while an internationally recognized legislature is based in the eastern city of Tobruk.
Comment: Before NATO's 2011 military intervention and killing of its long-term leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi:
1. There was
no electricity bill in Libya; electricity was free for all its citizens.
2. There was
no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to all its citizens at zero percent interest by law.
3. Having
a home [was] considered a human right in Libya.
4. All newlyweds in Libya received $60,000 dinar (U.S.$50,000) by the government to buy their first apartment so to help start up the family.
5.
Education and medical treatments was free in Libya. Before Gaddafi only 25 percent of Libyans were literate. Today, the figure is 83 percent. Read the rest of the
16 Things Libya Will Never See Again.See also:
NATO Slaughter: James and Joanne Moriarty expose the truth about what happened in Libya
Comment: The Maidan sniper massacre initiated so many tragic events in Ukraine's history, including an ethnic cleansing, a rise in neo-Nazi gangs, the loss of Crimea, and an all-out economic collapse. Each of them seemed designed, in their own way, to draw Russia in and trap her in a Ukrainian quagmire. It didn't work, so those responsible quickly 'washed their hands' of the mess and walked away, leaving Ukraine to die: