Tuesday, November 18, 2014

ISIL is in Libya

ISIS Is in Libya (But Don’t Worry, Just a ‘Manageable’ Number of Them)
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ISIS Is in Libya (But Don’t Worry, Just a ‘Manageable’ Number of Them)


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CNN posed the following tough question to the United Nations’ special envoy to Libya: Is it news to him that the company has become “an operating site for extremist fighters,” the Islamic State specifically? In almost a parody of international-bureaucrat impotency, the envoy, Bernardino Leon, tells the network from the capital of the country next door . . . “yes, absolutely.”
But don’t worry, he says: “We don’t believe this [the Islamic State's strength] is a high number” and it’s still something the Libyan government and/or the international community “can manage.” How an international community that has done little for the country since backing Islamic-extremist rebels’ overthrow of the government in 2011 or a government that doesn’t control most of the country is supposed to do that “managing” isn’t quite clear.
CNN’s anchor does a nice job of pushing Leon about what the U.N. thinks might actually work — he repeatedly alludes to the political process, but free Libya’s politics have been dominated by unacceptable militant and Islamic elements.
Libya has been a haven for Islamic terrorists for years, and as the Islamic State grows in prominence, some number of the groups that are overrunning Libya will probably look to the group in Syria and Iraq for guidance. We don’t know how much that connection per se matters, but it’s certainly a bad sign of what we should have known all along, and of a near-intractable problem for the country’s governance.
 end quote from:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/392912/isis-libya-dont-worry-just-manageable-number-them-patrick-brennan

Saying ISIL is only a manageable number in Libya is sort of like saying Ebola in West Africa is manageable today. Neither of these statements are actually true except in a diplomatic sense of trying to calm the fears of the world. However, factually that is all just bullshit.

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