On Sunday, the world watched in horror as a migrant ship from Libya carrying 950 people sank in the Mediterranean, with photographs of floating bodies making their way across the wires.
According to The New York Times:
Warmer spring weather has unleashed a torrent of smuggler boats, mostly from Libya, bearing migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, often fleeing war and poverty for a foothold in Europe.
Reports state that the smugglers locked migrants in the hold.
Predictably, the Times offers little context for the migrant wave or even an explanation of who the migrants are, instead settling for an anti-European narrative about the shortcomings of their immigration system. The Associated Press blamed the situation on “resurgent right-wing political parties” that “have made a rallying cry out of a rising tide of illegal migration.”
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy suggested that the big problem was human traffickers, “the slave drivers of the 21st century.” French President Francois Hollande stated that Europe needed “more boats, more aerial surveillance and a much tougher fight against traffickers.” Pope Francis agreed, stating that Europe should act “decisively and quickly to stop these tragedies from recurring.”
The Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, was more on point: “The amount of people we’ve seen coming, and how it has been organized in the past few months, is unprecedented. We’ve just seen 700 people die. If we don’t get our act together on Libya, we’ll see more.”
And that is the point. The reports of the sunken migrant ship came on the heels of a story just days before that 15 Muslims had thrown 12 Christians overboard on a migrant voyage from Libya. The story of the doomed migrant ship hit the front pages the same day that ISIS released a video showing terrorists beheading Christians on the coast of Libya.
The problem of migration from Libya springs from the chaos that has filled that country in the wake of the US-led Western invasion of the country – a policy championed first and foremost by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton pushed regime change in Libya, and pushed it hard. In February 2011, an uprising against then-dictator Muammar Qaddafi broke out; President Obama quickly pushed for sanctions, and the United Nations voted for a no-fly zone above the country. In March, ABC News reported that Obama had signed a presidential finding to send covert aid to the Libyan rebels. In September 2011, Obama called for Qaddafi’s forces to surrender. In October 2011, Hillary visited Tripoli and pledged millions to the Libyan opposition, gushing, “I am proud to stand here on the soil of a free Libya.” Two days later, Qaddafi was sodomized with a knife and then killed; Hillary was caught on camera crowing and laughing, “We came, we saw, he died!”
The Libyan opposition, as it turns out, was honeycombed with terrorists, who promptly threw the country into total chaos. In February 2011, about the time the United States began pushing for Qaddafi’s ouster, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb stated, “We declare our support for the legitimate demands of the Libyan revolution.” Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakin al-Hasidi told the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore that his solders were “patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” and that “members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader.” Admiral James Stavridis, NATO supreme commander for Europe, said, “We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah.” Rebel leader Abdel Hakim Belhadj became commander of security in Tripoli; he was closely associated with al-Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
Hillary knew about the relationship between terrorist groups and the Libyan opposition and had no plan for what came next – an amazing fact given her own 2008 critique of President Bush’s Iraq invasion along the same lines. According to The Washington Times:
U.S. intelligence did not support the story that Mrs. Clinton used to sell the war in Libya, mainly that there was an imminent danger of a genocide to be carried out by the Gadhafi regime. The intelligence community, in fact, had come to the opposite conclusion: that Gadhafi would not risk world outrage by killing civilians en masse even as he tried to crush the rebellion in his country… the Pentagon and a key Democrat so distrusted Mrs. Clinton’s decision-making on Libya that they opened their own secret diplomatic conversations with the Gadhafi regime, going around the State Department.
Obama and Hillary, of course, never bothered to get Congressional authorization for offensive military action in Libya. Then, after terrorists took over the country, they refused security requests from Ambassador Chris Stevens for the American annex in Benghazi, ending in the murder of four Americans, including the ambassador, by the terrorists we had helped take over the country.
After Qaddafi’s ouster, the country has turned into a haven for terrorists, from Al Qaeda to ISIS. Instead of facing up to Western responsibility for the chaos in Libya, however, the Obama administration has instead joined the chorus of Western leaders critiquing European immigration policy. Last Friday, as Prime Minister Renzi said that the problem in Libya was not “a clash of religions” but instead a “problem of human dignity,” President Obama stood by and said nothing.
Which is precisely what you would expect. Every aspect of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, as helped along by Hillary Clinton, has ended with innocent bodies in its wake. Those floating in the Mediterranean today are no exception.
Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.