Issue 4

10/26/2015
Editor: Will Porter

Government is the
great fiction, through
which everybody

The Abolitionist
The Young Americans for Liberty Campus Newsletter

Bizarre Revisionism: Hillary Claims Libya Shows

Consequences of US Military Withdrawals

endeavors to live at

By Jason Ditz

the expense of

In testimony at a House of Representatives hearing today, former Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton offered a particularly bizarre assessment of the death of US
Ambassador Christopher Stevens in the 2012 attack on the Benghazi consulate,
suggesting it was the consequences of the US withdrawing its military after the
Libya War.

everybody else.
Frederic Bastiat

Yet while the US illegally participated in the NATO war against Libya in 2011, they
never actually had a ground presence in the country in the first place, and security
was simply at the embassy level, as it is in most non-occupied countries.
While Clinton presented the situation as a power vacuum that was fueling
extremism and led to the death of Stevens, the 2012 situation was much different,
and the centerpiece of the US operations in the country at the time was a CIA
weapons smuggling operation inside Benghazi.
Given that, far from the wages of an insufficiently gargantuan US military presence,
the Benghazi incident can be seen as fairly straightforward blowback, a common
enough occurrence in US interventions abroad, if not usually in such dramatic
fashion as in Benghazi.
What happened, however, is that everyone has spent the past several years trying to
spin the situation there as not only unique, but somehow politically advantageous for
them. Indeed, the only reason there are still Benghazi hearings going on three years
after the fact is that House Republicans hope to politically undermine Clinton in her
2016 run, and Clintons testimony today paints the solution as even more aggressive
meddling abroad.
The reality is that when dozens of CIA agents are smuggling arms into a city, the
American Consulate in that city inevitably houses that operation, and necessarily
becomes a high-value target. This is true not just in Benghazi, but across the region,
wherever CIA intervention is ongoing.
Far from a lesson learned, Clintons testimony likely reflects the beltways
conventional wisdom on the matter, and the fact that, years later, Benghazi could
easily happen again in any number of places, with the attack only strengthening
official resolve to meddle.

[This article originally appeared on Antiwar.com October 23, 2015.]

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

About YAL :
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Chaos in Jerusalem is a Warning

of Things to Come
By Jonathan Cook
Among Palestinians and Israelis, the recent upsurge in violence has been variously
described as the childrens-, lone-wolf-, Jerusalem-, and smartphone-intifadas.
Each describes a distinguishing feature of this round of clashes.
The steady erosion of Fatah and Hamas authority during the post-Oslo years, as the
Palestinian factions proved incapable of protecting their people from the structural
violence of the occupation, has driven Palestines politically orphaned children to the
streets, armed with stones.
The growing hopelessness and sense of abandonment have led a few so-called lone
wolves to vent their fury on Israelis with improvised weapons such as knives,
screwdrivers and cars. These attacks have attracted the most publicity, becoming the
equivalent of the second intifadas suicide bomber. But they serve chiefly as a
barometer of Palestinian despair.
Jerusalem is the center of events, with the Palestinians only unifying symbol, alAqsa mosque, at its heart. For Palestinians, the incremental takeover of the
compound and the Wests indifference is like watching the mass dispossession of
1948 play out again in slow motion.
In addition, Jerusalem is the main fault line. Israels illegal annexation of the city
has left Palestinians there in an extreme form of isolation indefinitely stateless and
supremely vulnerable.
And finally, the smartphone camera has allowed Palestinians to document their
suffering and witness unmediated their compatriots personal acts of resistance and
self-sacrifice.
Futile knife attacks may appall outsiders, but for many Palestinians they are the
moment when an individual briefly reclaims his or her agency and fights back on
behalf of a collectively subjugated and humiliated people.
The need for so many different labels for these events reveals another important
facet of the current Palestinian struggle: its disorganized nature.
Israel has almost completed the division and enclosure of Palestinians into
disconnected enclaves. As they hear the sound of the prison doors closing, Palestinian
youths are lashing out at the guards closest to hand.
Because the divisions between Palestinian populations have become so entrenched
geographicallyand their leaders politicallyit is hard for Palestinians to find a
unifying vision or organizing principle. Do they fight first against their occupiers or
their spent leadership?
But the lack of planning and discipline has exposed Israels own limitations too.
Israel has little but stopgap measures to defend against the protests. Its intelligence
agencies cannot predict the lone wolf, its guns cannot deter the knife, its military
strength cannot subdue the craving for justice and dignity.

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

3
Strangely, in the face of all this, there are signs of a parallel breakdown of order and
leadership on the Israeli side.
Mobs of Jews patrol Jerusalem and Israeli cities, calling out Death to the Arabs! A
jittery soldier causes pandemonium by firing his rifle in a train carriage after a bogus
terror alert. An innocent Eritrean asylum seeker is shot by a security guard during
an attack because he looks Arab, then beaten to a pulp by a lynch mob that
includes soldiers.
Meanwhile, politicians and police commanders stoke the fear. They call for citizens to
take the law into their own hands. Palestinian workers are banned from Jewish
towns. Israeli supermarkets remove knives from shelves, while 8,000 Israelis queue
up for guns in the first 24 hours after permit rules are eased.
Some of this reflects a hysteria, a heightened sense of victimhood among Israelis,
fuelled by the knife attack videos. But the mood dates to before the current
upheavals.
It is also a sign of the gradual leaching of the settlers lawlessness into the
mainstream. A popular slogan from the past weeks is: The armys hands are tied.
Israeli civilians presumably believe they must take up arms instead.
After six uninterrupted years of the extreme right in power, Israelis dont blame their
governments policy of relentless force for the backlash. They demand yet more force
against the Palestinians.
Polls show Avigdor Lieberman, the former Moldovan bouncer who became the hard
man of the Israeli right, is most favored to lead the nation out of the crisis.
Solutions are being applied most savagely in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians are
being locked even more tightly into neighborhood ghettoes. Israels eternal, unified
capital is being carved up by roadblocks. Palestinian residents are made to endure
daily searches and insults that will sow the seeds of yet more fury and resistance.
As Israel tries to slam shut the door of one prison cell in Jerusalem, the inmates
threaten to break open the door of another, in Gaza. Israels leadership has watched
uneasily the repeated breaches of Gazas fence over the past days by youths enraged
by their own misery and what they see happening in the other prison wings.
The current unrest may recede, but more waves of protest of ever greater intensity
are surely not far behind.
Jafar Farah, a Palestinian leader in Israel, has warned of it heading slowly from a
national conflict into a civil war, one defined by the kind of debased one-state
solution Israel is imposing.
The chaotic violence of the past weeks looks like a warning from the future a future
Israel is hurtling towards.

[This article appeared on Mondoweiss.net October 21, 2015.

The original version was first featured in the National (Abu Dhabi).]

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

YAL Group Schedule:

10/27/2015 Liberty in North
Korea (LiNK) Nomads
meeting. 4:30pm-6:00pm in
LA 163 (one room over from
our usual meeting place in
LA 161.)

The US Governments Not-So-Secret

Support for Al Qaeda & ISIS
By Dan Sanchez

10/28/2015 General
meeting. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.

9/11: Never forget, the tee-shirts insisted. Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
the country crooner warbled. September 11th global terrorism! the candidate for
President of 9/11, Rudolph Giuliani, endlessly repeated.

11/4/2015 General
meeting. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.

To this day we are bombarded with such reminders whenever reductions of the
swollen national security state are proposed and need to be fended off with a fresh
round of fear-mongering. And proponents of such reductions are smeared as friends
of the terrorists.

11/7/2015 Students for

Liberty (SFL) Michigan
Regional Conference.
11/11/2015 General
meeting. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.
11/18/2015 General
meeting. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.
11/25/2015 General
meeting. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.
[Note: This schedule is subject to
change.]

And because President Obama is deemed not aggressive enough in pursuing the war
on the Islamist movement responsible for 9/11, even he is accused by his loonier
critics of being a secret Muslim and a terr-symp (terrorist sympathizer).
Given all this, you would think right-wing nationalists would be alert to and aghast
at abundant reports that their own government has knowingly supported Islamic
extremists in Syria (and elsewhere), including al-Qaeda, the very group responsible
for 9/11; especially since that support led to the rise of ISIS (formerly al-Qaeda in
Iraq, or AQI) and that such a treasonous policy has long occurred under cryptoMuslim Barack Hussein Obama. But, oddly enough, theyve given Obama a pass on
this.
Why hasnt Fox News been blasting alerts like Obama Backs Muslim Terrorists,
Helping to Create the Islamic State for years? Wouldnt their xenophobic viewers
gobble up such red meat with relish? Couldnt the Republicans make stacks of
political hay with such a talking point?
But, no, apparently bigotry and scaremongering are only to be harnessed to support
war, and never to oppose it. The rights criticism of Obamas Syria policy has been
that he hasnt supported the al-Qaeda/ISIS-led Syrian opposition enough.
Apparently, the lesson of 9/11 is that we must embrace perpetual war, even if it
means fighting with the perpetrators of 9/11 in that war.
Washington hawks have deflected such criticism by denying that al-Qaeda and ISIS
are all that dominant in the insurgency, or that foreign support of the opposition
helped lead to the 2014 rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Such deflections
have been made increasingly untenable by mounting evidence, and especially by the
recent disclosure of an incredibly damning Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report
from August 2012.
That document contained a frank admission that:

THE SALAFIST[S], THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, AND AQI ARE THE MAJOR
FORCES DRIVING THE INSURGENCY IN SYRIA.
Investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed excellently summarized what the DIA
considered to be the goals and likely consequences of supporting such a Salafistdominated insurgency:

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

In a strikingly prescient prediction, the Pentagon document explicitly forecasts the

probable declaration of an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist
organizations in Iraq and Syria.
Nevertheless, Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting these
efforts by Syrian opposition forces fighting to control the eastern areas (Hasaka and
Der Zor), adjacent to Western Iraqi provinces (Mosul and Anbar):
there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist
Principality in eastern Syria [ . . . ] and this is exactly what the supporting powers to
the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime [ . . . ]
The secret Pentagon document thus provides extraordinary confirmation that the
US-led coalition currently fighting ISIS, had three years ago welcomed the
emergence of an extremist Salafist Principality in the region as a way to undermine
Assad, and block off the strategic expansion of Iran. [ . . . ]
The establishment of such a Salafist Principality in eastern Syria, the DIA
document asserts, is exactly what the supporting powers to the [Syrian] opposition
want. Earlier on, the document repeatedly describes those supporting powers as the
West, Gulf countries, and Turkey.
Further on, the document reveals that Pentagon analysts were acutely aware of the
dire risks of this strategy, yet ploughed ahead anyway.
...
The DIA document was too big an anti-Obama scoop for Fox News not to cover at all.
Yet they still managed to give the story a pro-interventionist spin. They did so by
focusing on Obamas alleged low estimation of the threat of ISIS and the Libyan
jihadists (especially his reference to ISIS as a Jayvee team), and how the
predictions in the report belie that low estimation. Yet, they completely glossed over
the reports statement that the predicted rise of ISIS would be a result of support for
the Syrian opposition by the west and its allies, since Salafists like al-Qaeda and
ISIS were the driving force of that opposition.
As incredible as the DIA disclosure is, its basic import has been an open secret for
years.
The general US policy of allying with the Gulf states (especially the Saudis) and
Turkey in supporting radical Sunni insurgents to counter the Shia expansion was
reported by Seymour Hersh back in 2007, shortly after that policy (termed the
Redirection by Hersh) was initiated by the Bush administration.
The Obama administrations support of the Sunni insurgency in Syria against the
Shiite-led regime of Bashar al-Assad following the 2011 Arab Spring was simply a
continuation and intensification of that general policy. The administration claimed to
be aiming their support at moderates and secular, liberal reformers in the
opposition. But officials of the highest level in the administration have repeatedly
betrayed how little they believe their own lie; especially when defending themselves
against criticism for not intervening more.
Last year, Hillary Clinton trashed her former boss Obama for not supporting the
Syrian opposition enough. But in February 2012, while she was still on the team as
The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

6
Secretary of State and being pressured by corporate media to ramp up intervention,
she sang a different tune:

We know al Qaeda [leader Ayman al-] Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in

Syria. Are we supporting al Qaeda in Syria? () If youre a military planner or if
youre a secretary of state and youre trying to figure out do you have the elements of
an opposition that is actually viable, that we dont see.
A month later, Obama himself told Jeffrey Goldberg:

When you have a professional army that is well-armed and sponsored by two large
states who have huge stakes in this, and they are fighting against a farmer, a
carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see
themselves in the midst of a civil conflictthe notion that we could have, in a clean
way that didnt commit U.S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground
there was never true.
...
If, as Obama and Clinton both admitted, the moderate opposition is not viable and
is no match for the jihadists, then their policy of toppling Assad in Syria has been, as
they implicitly admit, a policy of empowering the jihadists, even if their support for
the opposition was not as extensive as many would have liked.
Then in September 2012, Ben Swann, unlike virtually all of his journalistic
colleagues, asked Obama a very tough question about his Syria policy when given the
chance:

you mentioned al-Qaeda in your speech, going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,

certainly going after them in Yemen as well. And yet theres some concern about the
U.S. funding the Syrian opposition when there are a lot of reports that al-Qaeda is
sort of heading up that opposition, how do you justify the two?
Obama answered:

Well I share that concern, and so what weve done is to say we will provide nonlethal assistance to Syrian opposition leadership that are committed to political
transition, committed to an observance of human rights. Were not going to just dive
in and get involved with a civil war that in fact involves some elements of people who
are genuinely trying to get a better life but also involve some folks who would over
the long term do the United States harm.
This was doublespeak of Clintonesque proportions. Assistance, whether lethal or
not, is getting involved in the civil war. Helping the allies of al-Qaeda and ISIS
predictably helped al-Qaeda and ISIS themselves. Moreover, the assistance had
already been lethal at that point, if covert and indirect.
And aiding their allies not only aided al-Qaeda and ISIS strategically, but also in
terms of military power. As Justin Raimondo recently wrote:

The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clintons State
Department, wasand still isregime change in Syria. This overrode all other
considerations. We armed, trained, and vetted the Syrian rebels, even as we looked
the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra
The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

Contact Information :
Please feel free to contact us
with questions, comments,
concerns, or anything else
youd like us to know.
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Twitter @WKPAnCap

and al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldnt pass muster. And our moderates quickly
passed into the ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons wed
provided.
In spite of all its admissions concerning the risks and limitations of intervention, the
Obama administration, along with the US Congress, still pushed for increasing
support for the Syrian opposition in 2013.
In May 2013, the Senate tried to pass a law authorizing the direct arming of the
Syrian opposition, leading Rand Paul to point out: This is an important moment.
You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. Its an irony you cannot overcome.
And in the summer and fall of 2013, the administration sought to launch air strikes
on the Syrian government, leading Dennis Kucinich to ask: So what, were about to
become al-Qaedas air force now? Airstrikes would have overthrown Assad in fairly
short order, just as it did with Gaddafi in Libya. Then what? By then, had the
farmers and dentists Obama had derided become much stronger that they could
have taken over? Or would the field have been cleared for al-Qaeda and ISIS to
march to the Mediterranean? What else could they have realistically expected but the
latter? al-Qaedas air force indeed.
It was only after a public backlash against the prospect of another war in the Middle
East (and after Russias Vladimir Putin offered a face-saving exit) that the
administration relented. Although the war party did not get their airstrikes, around
that time the CIA began openly and directly sending lethal aid to the insurgency.
...
Recently, it has been revealed that Israel has also been providing direct aid to alQaeda in Syria.
Again, the DIA report is useful confirmation, but the truth about Washingtons Syria
policy has long been out there for anyone outside the DC bubble to see.
Now, thanks to ongoing US-led support for the insurgency, the Syrian government is
widely thought to be on its last legs; members of the regime are already making
arrangements to flee. As it turns out, the march of al-Qaeda and ISIS to the
Mediterranean may have merely been postponed a couple years. Pity the apostates
and infidels that will be in their path. And wont you feel so much safer once these
Islamist terrorists have Assads seaports and military hardware?
The Syrian regime has never attacked America; neither is any other part of the
dreaded Shia Crescent a threat to Americans. Syrian al-Qaeda (Jabhat al-Nusra)
on the other hand, is (as radio host Scott Horton frequently reminds his listeners)
sworn loyal to Ayman al-Zawahiri: the butcher of New York, responsible for 9/11.
And yet our governments bi-partisan alleged strategy for keeping us safe has been
to topple the former and ally with the latter; even when it knew that doing so would
lead to a Salafist Principality ruled by bin Ladenites.
If that doesnt explode the myth that the government serves as our security force, I
dont know what can.

[This article originally appeared unabridged on Antiwar.com June 9, 2015. It has

been shortened for this issue due to space limitations.]
The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty