Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 21:17:00 +0200
Washington Fights Fire With Fire in Libya
How Not to End Violence in a War-Torn Land
By <http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse> Nick Turse
April 15, 2014.
Is the U.S. secretly training Libyan militiamen in the Canary Islands? And
if not, are they planning to?
That's what I asked a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). "I am
surprised by your mentioning the Canary Islands," he responded by email. "I
have not heard this before, and wonder where you heard this."
As it happens, mention of this shadowy mission on the Spanish archipelago
off the northwest coast of Africa was revealed in an official briefing
prepared for AFRICOM chief General David Rodriguez in the fall of 2013. In
the months since, the plan may have been permanently shelved in favor of a
training mission carried out entirely in Bulgaria. The document nonetheless
highlights the U.S. military's penchant for simple solutions to complex
problems -- with a well-documented potential for
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/> blowback in Africa and beyond. It
also raises serious questions about the recurring methods employed by the
U.S. to stop the violence its actions helped spark in the first place.
Ever since the U.S. helped oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi, with air and
missile strikes against regime targets and major logistical and surveillance
support to coalition partners, Libya has been sliding into increasing chaos.
Militias, some of them jihadist, have sprung up across the country,
<http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/30/uk-libya-militias-insight-idUKBREA
2T05L20140330> carving out fiefdoms while carrying out increasing numbers of
assassinations and other types of attacks. The solution seized upon by the
U.S. and its allies in response to the devolving situation there: introduce
yet another armed group into a country already rife with them.
The Rise of the Militias
After Gaddafi's fall in 2011, a wide range of militias came to
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/world/middleeast/militias-flee-libyas-cit
ies-leaving-chaos.html> dominate Libya's largest cities, filling a security
vacuum left by the collapse of the old regime and providing a
<http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/30/uk-libya-militias-insight-idUKBREA
2T05L20140330> challenge to the new central government. In
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/world/africa/attack-in-libya-was-major-bl
ow-to-cia-efforts.html?pagewanted=all> Benghazi alone,
<http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=2> an array of these
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/world/africa/attack-in-libya-was-major-bl
ow-to-cia-efforts.html?pagewanted=all> armed groups arose. And on September
11, 2012, that city, considered the cradle of the Libyan revolution,
experienced
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/world/africa/attack-in-libya-was-major-bl
ow-to-cia-efforts.html?pagewanted=all> attacks by members of the
anti-Western Ansar al-Sharia, as well as other
<http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=0> militias on the
American mission and a nearby CIA facility. During those assaults, which
killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, local
armed groups <http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=0>
called on for help or which might have intervened to save lives reportedly
<http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=4> stood aside.
Over the year that followed, the influence of the militias only continued to
grow nationwide, as did the chaos that accompanied them. In late 2013,
following deadly
<http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/15/world/africa/libya-fighting/> attacks on
civilians, some of these forces were chased from Libyan cities by protesters
and armed bands, ceding power to what the New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/world/middleeast/militias-flee-libyas-cit
ies-leaving-chaos.html> called "an even more fractious collection of armed
groups, including militias representing tribal and clan allegiances that
tear at the tenuous [Libyan] sense of common citizenship." With the
situation deteriorating, the humanitarian group Human Rights Watch
documented dozens of assassinations of judges, prosecutors, and members of
the state's already weakened security forces by unidentified assailants.
The American solution to all of this violence: more armed men.
Fighting Fire with Fire
In November 2013, U.S. Special Operations Command chief Admiral William
McRaven <http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/17/world/africa/libya-unrest/> told an
audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library that the United States
would aid Libya by training 5,000 to 7,000 conventional troops as well as
counterterrorism forces there. "As we go forward to try and find a good way
to build up the Libyan security forces so they are not run by militias, we
are going to have to assume some risks," he said.
Not long after, the Washington Post
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-plan-for-new-libyan-forc
e-faces-obstacles/2013/12/01/2160c2fa-5694-11e3-bdbf-097ab2a3dc2b_story.html
> reported a request by
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/12/world/africa/libya-pm/> recently ousted
Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan that the U.S. train his country's security
forces. In January, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency,
which <http://www.dsca.mil/> coordinates sales and transfers of military
equipment abroad, formally
<http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/libya-general-purpose-force-training>
notified Congress of a Libyan request for a $600 million training package.
Its goal: to create a 6,000 to 8,000-man "general purpose force," or GPF.
The deal would, according to an official statement, involve "services for up
to 8 years for training, facilities sustainment and improvements, personnel
training and training equipment, 637 M4A4 carbines and small arms
ammunition, U.S. Government and contractor technical and logistics support
services, Organizational Clothing and Individual Equipment (OCIE), and other
related elements of logistical and program support."
In addition to the GPF effort, thousands of Libya troops are to be trained
by the militaries of
<http://www.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=5412&utm_so
urce=April+9+2014+EN&utm_campaign=4%2F09%2F2014&utm_medium=email> Morocco,
<http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/12/07/libyan-soldiers-start-military-traini
ng-in-turkey/> Turkey, the
<https://www.gov.uk/government/news/libyan-armed-forces-to-be-trained-in-uk>
United Kingdom, and
<http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/en/blogs/natosource/two-thousand-libyan-troo
ps-to-receive-training-in-italy> Italy. The Libyan Army also hopes to
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/02/26/282594241/outmanned-and-outgu
nned-libya-struggles-to-fix-its-broken-army> graduate 10,000 new troops at
home annually.
While Admiral McRaven has emphasized the importance of building up "the
Libyan security forces so they are not run by militias," many recruits for
the GPF will, in fact, be
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-plan-for-new-libyan-forc
e-faces-obstacles/2013/12/01/2160c2fa-5694-11e3-bdbf-097ab2a3dc2b_story.html
> drawn from these very groups. It has also been widely reported that the
new force will be
<http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33
343:libya-seeks-600-million-training-package-from-us&catid=50:Land&Itemid=10
5> trained at Novo Selo, a recently refurbished facility in Bulgaria.
The U.S. has said little else of substance on the future force. "We are
coordinating this training mission closely with our European partners and
the U.N. Support Mission in Libya, who have also offered substantial
security sector assistance to the Government of Libya," a State Department
official told TomDispatch by email. "We expect this training will begin in
2014 in Bulgaria and continue over a number of years."
There have been no reports or confirmation of the plan to also train Libyan
militiamen at a facility in Spain's Canary Islands mentioned along with Novo
Selo in that Fall 2013 briefing document prepared for AFRICOM chief
Rodriguez, which was obtained by TomDispatch.
Officials at the State Department say that they know nothing about this part
of the program. "I'm still looking into this, but my colleagues are not
familiar with a Canary Islands component to this issue," I was told by a
State Department press officer. AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson said
much the same. "[W]e have no information regarding training of Libyan
troops to be provided in the Canary Islands," he emailed me. After I sent
him the briefing slide that mentioned the mission, however, he had a
different response. The Canary Islands training mission was, he wrote, part
of an "initial concept" never actually shared with General Rodriguez, but
instead "briefed to a few senior leaders in the Pentagon."
"The information has been changed, numerous times, since the slide was
drafted, and is expected to change further before any training commences,"
he added, and warned me against relying on it. He did not, however, rule
out the possibility that further changes might revive the Canary Islands
option and demurred from answering further questions on the subject. A
separate U.S. Army Africa document does mention that "recon" of a second
training site was slated to begin last December.
Neither the State Department nor AFRICOM explained why plans to conduct
training in the Canary Islands were shelved or when that decision was made
or by whom. Benson also failed to facilitate interviews with personnel
involved in the Libyan GPF training effort or with top AFRICOM commanders.
"Given the continuing developing nature of this effort, it would be
inappropriate to comment further at this time, and we have not been giving
interviews on the topic," he told me. Multiple requests to the Libyan
government for information on the locations of training sites also went
unanswered.
Training Day
Wherever the training takes place, the U.S. has developed a four-phase
process to "build a complete Libya security sector." The Army's 1st Infantry
Division will serve as the "mission command element for the Libyan GPF
training effort" as part of a State Department-led collaboration with the
Department of Defense, according to official documents obtained by
TomDispatch.
Agreements with partner nations are to be finalized and Libyans selected for
leadership positions as part of an initial stage of the process. Then the
U.S. military will begin training not only the GPF troops, but a border
security force and specialized counter-terror troops. (Recently, AFRICOM
Commander David Rodriguez told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the
U.S. was also helping to build up what he termed Libyan "Special Operations
Forces.") A third phase of the program will involve developing the
capacities of the Libyan ministries of justice, defense, and the interior,
and strengthening Libya's homegrown security training apparatus, before
pulling back during a fourth phase that will focus on monitoring and
sustaining the forces the U.S. and its allies have trained.
Despite reports that training at Novo Selo will begin this spring, a State
Department official told TomDispatch that detailed plans are still being
finalized. After inspecting a briefing slide titled "Libya Security Sector
Phasing," AFRICOM'S Benson told me, "I do not see us in any phase as
indicated on the slide. the planning and coordination is still ongoing."
Since then, Lolita Baldor of the Associated Press
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-army-team-heads-libya-begin-training-prep
> reported that, according to an unnamed Army official, a small team of U.S.
soldiers has now headed for Libya to make preparations for the Bulgarian
portion of the training.
A timeline produced by U.S. Army Africa as part of a December 2013 briefing
indicates that the Novo Selo site would be ready for
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175831/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentago
n%2C_libya%2C_and_tomorrow%27s_blowback_today/>
trainershttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png
sometime last month. After communications systems and security sensors are
set up, that training range will be ready to accept its first Libyan
recruits. The timeline suggests that this could occur by early May.
While this may have been an early version of the schedule, there's little
doubt the program will begin soon. Baldor notes that formal Libyan
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-army-team-heads-libya-begin-training-prep
> approval for the training may come this month, although AFRICOM Commander
David Rodriguez
<http://www.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=5412&utm_so
urce=April+9+2014+EN&utm_campaign=4%2F09%2F2014&utm_medium=email> pointed
out at a Pentagon press briefing that the Libyan government still has to
ante up the funds for the program, and a Libyan official confirmed to
TomDispatch that the training had yet to commence.
Experts have, however, already expressed skepticism about the effectiveness
of the program. In late 2013, for instance,
<http://africacenter.org/security/experts/dr-benjamin-p-nickels/> Benjamin
Nickels, the academic chair for transnational threats and counterterrorism
at the Department of Defense's Africa Center for Strategic Studies,
<http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2013/10/10/pitfalls-for-libya-s-general-p
urpose-force/gpnp> raised a number of problematic issues. These included the
challenge of screening and vetting applicants from existing Libyan militias,
the difficulty of incorporating various regional and tribal groups into such
a force without politicizing the trainee
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175831/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentago
n%2C_libya%2C_and_tomorrow%27s_blowback_today/>
poolhttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png; and
the daunting task of then devising a way to integrate the GPF into Libya's
existing military in a situation already verging on the chaotic.
"For all their seriousness," wrote Nickels, "these implementation
difficulties pale in comparison to more serious pitfalls haunting the GPF at
a conceptual level. So far, plans for the GPF appear virtually unrelated to
projects of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) and
security sector reform (SSR) that are
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175831/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentago
n%2C_libya%2C_and_tomorrow%27s_blowback_today/>
vitalhttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png to
Libya's future."
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/killanythingpbk.jpg
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> Berny
Sebe, an expert on North and West Africa at the University of Birmingham in
the United Kingdom, noted that, while incorporating militiamen into a
"mainstream security system" could help diminish the power of existing
militias, it posed serious dangers as well. "The drawback is, of course,
that it can infiltrate factious elements into the very heart of the Libyan
state apparatus, which could further undermine its power," he told
TomDispatch by email. "The use of force is unavoidable to enforce the rule
of law, which is regularly under threat in Libya. However, all efforts
placed in the development of a security force should go hand in hand with a
clear political vision. Failure to do so might solve the problem
temporarily, but will not bring long-term peace and stability."
In November 2013, Frederic Wehrey, a senior associate with the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace and an expert on Libya,
<http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140240/frederic-wehrey/modest-missio
n> pointed out that the project seemed reasonable in the abstract, but that
reality might be another matter entirely: "[T]he force's composition, the
details of its training, the extent to which Libyan civilians will oversee
it, and its ability to deal with the range of threats that the country faces
are all unclear." He suggested that an underreported 2013 mission to train
one Libyan unit that ended in abject failure should be viewed as a
cautionary tale.
Last summer, a small contingent of U.S. Special Operations Forces set up a
training camp outside of Libya's capital, Tripoli, for an elite 100-man
Libyan counter-terror force whose recruits were personally
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-plan-for-new-libyan-forc
e-faces-obstacles/2013/12/01/2160c2fa-5694-11e3-bdbf-097ab2a3dc2b_story.html
> chosen by former Prime Minister Ali Zeidan. While the Americans were
holed up in their nighttime safe house, unidentified militia or "terrorist"
forces twice raided the camp, guarded by the Libyan military, and
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/25/theft-us-weapons-in-libya-involv
ed-hundreds-guns-sources-say/> looted large quantities of high-tech American
equipment. Their haul included
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/25/theft-us-weapons-in-libya-involv
ed-hundreds-guns-sources-say/> hundreds of weapons, Glock pistols and
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/11/us-military-weapons-equipment-st
olen-in-libya-raids/> M4 rifles among them, as well as night-vision devices
and specialized lasers that can only be seen with such equipment. As a
result, the training effort was
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/11/us-military-weapons-equipment-st
olen-in-libya-raids/> shut down and the abandoned camp was reportedly
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/25/theft-us-weapons-in-libya-involv
ed-hundreds-guns-sources-say/> taken over by a militia.
This represented only the latest in a
<http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1993886,00.html>
series of
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175128/tomgram%3A_ann_jones%2C_us_or_them_i
n_afghanistan> troubled U.S. assistance and
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/02/afghanistan-police-training-green-
on-blue_n_1850065.html> training efforts in the Greater Middle East and
Africa. These include
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR200609270
2134.html> scandal-plagued endeavors in
<http://www.armytimes.com/article/20120730/NEWS/207300301/U-S-audit-200M-was
ted-training-Iraqi-police> Iraq and
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/28/after-200-million-afghan-s
oldiers-still-can-t-read.html> Afghanistan, as well as a program that
produced an officer who led the coup that overthrew Mali's elected
government, and an eight-month
<http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Article/7727/750-congolese-soldiers-graduat
e-from-us-led-milita> training effort in the Democratic Republic of Congo by
U.S. Special Operations forces that yielded an elite commando battalion that
took part in mass rapes and other atrocities, according to a United Nations
report. And these are just the tip of the iceberg
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/29/kenya-police-abuse-nairobi-s-refugees>
among
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/07/22/indonesia-us-resumes-military-assistance
-abusive-force> many
<http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/fighting-terrorism-in-mauritan
ia-even-it-means-torture/?src=recg> other
<http://www.thenation.com/blog/178453/how-us-aid-fosters-human-rights-violat
ions-philippines> sordid
<http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2030767,00.html> examples
from around the world.
The Answer?
The U.S. may never train a
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175831/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentago
n%2C_libya%2C_and_tomorrow%27s_blowback_today/>
singlehttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png
Libyan militiaman in the Canary Islands, but the plan to create yet one more
armed group to inject into Libya's already fractious sea of
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/02/26/282594241/outmanned-and-outgu
nned-libya-struggles-to-fix-its-broken-army> competing militias is going
forward -- and is fraught with peril.
For more than half a year, a
<http://news.yahoo.com/east-libyan-rebels-agree-end-oil-port-blockage-201341
924.html> militia
<http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-11/a-libyan-militia-tries-and-
fails-to-sell-crude-oil-to-north-korea> controlled the three largest ports
in Libya. Other militiamen have
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/17/libya-militias-kill-unarmed-protesters>
killed unarmed protesters. Some have
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/17/libya-militias-kill-unarmed-protesters>
emptied whole towns of their residents. Others
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/03/libya-militias/1802523/
> work with criminal gangs, smuggling drugs, carrying out kidnappings for
ransom, and engaging in human trafficking. Still others have carried out
arbitrary arrests, conducted torture, and been responsible for deaths in
detention. Armed men have also
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/03/libya-relocates-parliam
ent-after-attack/5968663/> murdered foreigners, targeted Christian migrants,
and fought pro-government forces. Many have
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/18/libya-end-violence-it-needs-shut-down-mi
litias> attacked other nascent state institutions. Last month, for
instance, militiamen <http://allafrica.com/stories/201403040059.html>
stormed the country's national assembly,
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/03/libya-relocates-parliam
ent-after-attack/5968663/> forcing its relocation to a
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175831/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentago
n%2C_libya%2C_and_tomorrow%27s_blowback_today/>
hotelhttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png.
(That assault was apparently triggered by a separate unidentified group,
which
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/03/libya-relocates-parliam
ent-after-attack/5968663/> attacked an anti-parliament sit-in, kidnapping
some of the protesters.)
Some militias have quasi-official status or are
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/02/26/282594241/outmanned-and-outgu
nned-libya-struggles-to-fix-its-broken-army> beholden to individual
parliamentarians. Others are
<http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/30/uk-libya-militias-insight-idUKBREA
2T05L20140330> paid by and
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/02/26/282594241/outmanned-and-outgu
nned-libya-struggles-to-fix-its-broken-army> support the rickety Libyan
government. That government is also reportedly engaging in widespread
abuses, including
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/07/libya-government-institutions-risk-colla
pse> detentions without due process and
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/01/21/libya-end-impunity-reform-repressive-law
s> prosecutions to stifle free speech, while failing to repeal Gaddafi-era
laws that, as Human Rights Watch has
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/01/21/libya-end-impunity-reform-repressive-law
s> noted, "prescribe corporal punishment, including lashing for extramarital
intercourse and slander, and amputation of limbs."
Most experts
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/12/16/libya-training-africa-c
ommand-/4043043/> agree that Libya needs assistance in strengthening its
central government and the rule of law. "Unless the international community
focuses on the need for urgent assistance to the justice and security
systems, Libya risks the collapse of its already weak state institutions and
further deterioration of human rights in the country," Sarah Leah Whitson,
Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch,
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/07/libya-government-institutions-risk-colla
pse> said recently. How to go about this remains, however, at best unclear.
"Our Defense Department colleagues plan to train 5,000 to 8,000 general
purpose forces," Anne Patterson, the assistant secretary of state for Near
Eastern Affairs,
<http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20140211/101730/HHRG-113-AS00-Wstate
-PattersonA-20140211.pdf> told the House Armed Services Committee earlier
this year, noting that the U.S. would "conduct an unprecedented vetting and
screening of trainees that participate in the program." But Admiral William
McRaven, her "Defense Department colleague," has already
<http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/17/world/africa/libya-unrest/> admitted that
some of the troops to be trained will likely not have "the most clean
record."
In the wake of failed full-scale conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.
military has <http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175557> embraced a
light-footprint model of warfare, emphasizing drone technology, Special
Operations forces, and above all the training of proxy troops to fight
battles for America's national security interests from
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_pr
oxy_wars_in_africa> Mali to
<http://www.vice.com/read/syria-deraa-USA-Jordan-FSA-regime-CIA> Syria --
and soon enough, Libya as well.
There are, of course, no easy answers. As Berny Sebe notes, the United
States "is among the few countries in the world which have the resources
necessary to undertake such a gigantic task as training the new security
force of a country on the brink of civil war like Libya." Yet the U.S. has
repeatedly suffered from poor intelligence, an inability to deal effectively
with the local and regional dynamics involved in operations in the Middle
East and North Africa, and massive doses of wishful thinking and poor
planning. "It is indeed a dangerous decision," Sebe observes, "which may
add further confusion to an already volatile situation."
A failure to imagine the consequences of the last major U.S. intervention in
Libya has, perhaps irreparably, fractured the country and sent it into a
spiral of violence leading to the deaths of Americans, among others, while
helping to <http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/> destabilize
neighboring nations, enhance the reach of local terror groups, and aid in
the proliferation of weapons that have fueled existing regional conflicts.
Even Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs Amanda Dory
<http://www.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=5412&utm_so
urce=April+9+2014+EN&utm_campaign=4%2F09%2F2014&utm_medium=email> admitted
at a recent Pentagon press briefing that the fallout from ousting Gaddafi
has been "worse than would have been anticipated at the time." Perhaps it
should be sobering as well that the initial smaller scale effort to help
strengthen Libyan security forces was an abject failure that ended up
enhancing, not diminishing, the power of the militias.
There may be no nation that can get things entirely right when it comes to
Libya but one nation has shown an unnerving ability to get things wrong.
Whether outside of Tripoli, in Bulgaria, the Canary Islands, or elsewhere,
should that country really be the one in charge of the delicate process of
building a cohesive security force to combat violent, fractious armed
groups? Should it really be creating a separate force, trained far from
home by foreigners, and drawn from the very militias that have destabilized
Libya in the first place?
Nick Turse is the managing editor of <http://www.tomdispatch.com/>
TomDispatch and a fellow at the Nation Institute. A 2014
<http://www.ithaca.edu/news/releases/journalists-glenn-greenwald-and-jeremy-
scahill-named-to-i.f.-stone-hall-of-fame:-john-carlos-frey-and-nick-turse-sh
are-annual-izzy-award-36968/#.UxyUHYVl7Kf> Izzy Award winner, his pieces
have appeared in the
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/opinion/for-america-life-was-cheap-in-vie
tnam.html?_r=0> New York Times, the
<http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/24/opinion/la-oe-turse-afghanistan-and
-vietnam-20120424> Los Angeles Times, and
<http://www.thenation.com/afghanistan> the Nation, at the
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23427726> BBC, and
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175635/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_war_victi
m%27s_question_only_you_can_answer/> regularly at TomDispatch. He is the
author most recently of the New York Times bestseller
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> Kill
Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (now in paperback).
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on
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<http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/> Tumblr. Check out the newest Dispatch Book,
Ann Jones's
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> They
Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America's Wars -- The Untold
Story.
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gpftraining_large.jpg> Click
here to see a larger version
http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gpftraining_small.jpg
Official briefing slide mentioning a U.S. military training effort in the
Canary Islands.
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/securitysector_large.jpg> Click
here to see a larger version
http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/securitysector_small.jpg
U.S. Army Africa document details four-phase plan for U.S. training of
Libyan forces.
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gpftimeline_large.jpg> Click
here to see a larger version
http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gpftimeline_small.jpg
U.S. Army Africa timeline of U.S. training of Libyan "General Purpose
Force".
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