WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.
Now evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September.
But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government.
We shouldn't be selling or giving arms to any country.Friends can turn into enemies and in this case fall into enemy hands.
It was worth getting rid of Gaddafi and it will be worth getting rid of Assad. It's time for democracy and development.
Democracy and development like what they got going on in Egypt? The Arab Spring didn't do anything but take the ME away from ruthless dictators who wanted nothing but to be left alone to run their tyrannical governments the way they wished and hand it over to ruthless jihadis who want to kill all the infidels, around the globe.
There's a bit more to it than that. Democracy takes time. Look how ours started, definately barbaric by today's standards. Societies don't catch up decades of development in months.
In the case of the ME, it will enver happen. Egypts first elected president took less than six months to attempt a power grab. The guy that takes his place will do the same thing.
The people are sufficiently empowered to reject such again and again, that's evidenced. They want their vote and their rights, that's apparent. The women are not gonna lay down and go back to enforced ignorant servitude (politically, if not literally in most case).
It doesn't matter if a weapon is allegedly outdated, it can still be a threat to our troops.Weapons can be modified,upgraded,used against our allies,innocent civilians or used for something outside their origingal use.You really think a few small arms and outdated (for us) surface to air missiles is a threat to the US? No, it's not.
Dictators cannot be allowed to bomb people with their own airforce unopposed militarily.
I agree and in Egypt's case, they've demonstrated that they're not going to tolerate any bull****. Hopefully the will of the people can outlast the will of the jihadis.
Even if the jihadis win for a while, the people (especially the women) are not going back. The kind of brutality required for such is simply not tolerated, unless the regime has nukes; then, there's little we can do to help.
It doesn't matter if a weapon is allegedly outdated, it can still be a threat to our troops.Weapons can be modified,upgraded,used against our allies,innocent civilians or used for something outside their origingal use.
Then send our own forces or ask a country who cares to send in a force to bomb their airforce if we are that worried that a dictator is bombing his own people.
We shouldn't be supplying other countries or groups with weapons period.
U.S.-Approved Weapons Transfer Ended Up With Libyan Jihadis - NYTimes.com
They raided the consulate in Benghazi and killed our Ambassador with weapons provided to them by the Obama Administration
There's more
Apparently the same tactic has been deployed in Syria, where terrorists groups have been armed with US made surface to air missiles.
I'd like to note that presuming the badguys can MacGyver anything negates caring about what they had. They woulda got something somewhere. A shoelace, a thimble, lightbulb and *bam* tactical nuke. Think they couldn't get stuff from other places? Are we gonna pretend that this attack could not have happened were it not for those specific weapons? Nonsense.
Well that certainly removes all culpability. The North Koreans are going to torture and kill millions this year, may as well give them the stuff to do it since they'll get it anyway.
Claiming that the weapons facilitated the attack is just a fallacy to note. That being a fallacy is not the basis of Obama being justified. You've taken a minor side note, to head off full-on CT, and pretended it's the basis for Obama's defense.
They killed innocent people with American arms. Doesn't matter where they were going to get the weapons from, the problem is that they got weapons from us.
Oh, c'mon. They're gonna MacGyver an AT4 into what... a stealth ICBM?
We wiped out Gaddafi's airforce. I'm not sure why we have not done the same to Assad.
This is nonsense. The US sells weapons. That's not gonna change.
Don't worry, we're not gonna sell 'em stealth
or space shuttles.
I disagree. I think the problem is that terrorists are gonna use whatever they can get, black market and otherwise, to kill innocent people. But hey, blaming the tool works too.
They don't need to MacGyver an AT4 into a stealth ICMB. They can use the weapon to take out US troops,fire at buildings Americans are in, take out American vehicles and other uses.
I bet idiots several years ago were saying the same about the weapons we are currently selling to other countries today.
I could care less if they sell them space shuttles.Those are not military weapons or military aircraft.
So just give them weapons and take zero accountability for facilitating this behavior. Wonderful.
That the weapons facilitated the attack is an obvious fallacy, such weapons are all over the country and from many places; it just so happens that these were American made. That Obama gave weapons to the terrorists is another fallacy. Did you read the OP?
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