Juan Cole: Qaddafi was a CIA Asset (Bush sent "detainees" to Libya for "questioning".)

[pampango]

http://www.juancole.com/2011/09/qaddafi-was-a-cia-asset.html

Human Rights Watch found documents in Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi that it passed on to the Wall Street Journal, which is analyzing them. The WSJ reported today that the documents show that Qaddafi developed so warm a relationship with George W. Bush that Bush sent people he had kidnapped (“rendition”) to Libya to be “questioned” by Libya’s goons, and almost certainly to be tortured. The formal paperwork asked Libya to observe human rights, but Bush’s office also sent over a list of specific questions it wanted the Libyan interrogators to ask. Qaddafi also gave permission to the CIA from 2004 to establish a formal presence in the country.

I have been going blue in the face pointing out that Muammar Qaddafi is not a progressive person, and that in fact his regime was in its last decades a helpful partner to the international status quo powers. Now it turns out that Qaddafi was hand in glove with Bush regarding “interrogation” of the prisoners sent him from Washington.

Alexander Cockburn’s outfit has been trying to smear me by suggesting that I had some sort of relationship with the CIA, when all I ever did was give talks in Washington at think tanks to which analysts came to listen; when you speak to the public you speak to all kinds of people. I never was a direct consultant and never had a contract or employment with the agency itself. I spoke to a wide range of USG personnel in those talks in Washington in the Bush years, including the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and even local police officers, and the intelligence analysts were just part of the audience.

In fact, we now know that the Bush administration was upset that I was given a hearing in Washington and was influential with the analysts, and asked the CIA to spy on me and attempt to destroy my reputation. So how delicious is it that those who supported Qaddafi, or opposed practical steps to keep him from slaughtering the protest movement (such as A. Cockburn and his hatchet man John Walsh), were de facto allies of the CIA themselves– and not just allies of the analysts, who try to understand the intelligence, but allies of the guys doing “rendition,” i.e. kidnapping suspects off the street and having them “interrogated.”

[MH1]

1. Cockburn has been undermining liberal progress for years

glad to see someone is calling him on some of his shit.

[tabatha]

2. Ditto

Cockburn sometimes writes the biggest load of s h i t. He is an arrogant piece of work. He lies.

[joshcryer]

7. His climate change denialism pretty much summed that up for me.

[BlueMTexpat]

3. Juan Cole knows what he is talking about

and Cockburn (& Walsh), at least in this instance, are simply wrong.

The Qaddafi of these latter years is not the same as the Qaddafi who initially took over. They still imagine him as the same person.

The mere fact that his regime was legitimized under Bush II (i.e., US-Libya relations were restored) should have given quite a few people, including Cockburn and Walsh, pause. Had it occurred many years earlier, there may have been some justification, but definitely not in recent years. In recent years especially, Qaddafi's behavior as well as that of many in his family have added whole new dimensions to the word "crazy."

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. That's what happens..

...when your categories and presuppositions laid down in young adulthood -- in this case Vietnam, and the anti-colonialist struggles -- sit there unchanged and unchallenged for decades. Eventually you have to make events fit your system.

Watch this over the years on the American left. Everything will be Iraq all over again, forever. The fact that the run-up to the second Iraq war was the internet Left's Spitfire summer -- we few, we happy few, we band of brothers -- will just entrench that tendency.

[joshcryer]

6. The CIA was spying on Juan Cole and Juan Cole posited that they were...

...http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/17/juan-cole-cia-george-bush">attending his speeches on the Middle East. This got turned into, by far left authoritarians, "Juan Cole was a CIA consultant." It is the worst of the worst kind of spin. Juan Cole isn't stupid, he knew that think tanks for the CIA were watching him and Glenn Carle confirmed it when he blew the whistle on Bush's completely illegal operation.

[EFerrari]

16. Cockburn and Walsh's critique does not depend on an assessment of

Qaddafi but on the Grand Canyon sized chasm between what France and NATO are doing vs. what they claim to be doing.

[geek tragedy]

4. Cockburn is not a progressive, just an asshole. nt

[Prometheus Bound]

8. Juan Cole is reaching village-idiot status.

Headlining US-Libya cooperation on Al-qaeda "Qaddafi was a CIA Asset" is no different than the following headline: "Bush was a Libyan-Intelligence Asset."

[joshcryer]

9. I fail to see the problem with "Bush was a Libyan-Intelligence Asset"

As that is true. Bush was aiding the regime.

[Prometheus Bound]

10. A spy working in his or her own country and controlled by the enemy.

That was the first definition I googled.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/asset

Now isn't this getting silly?

[joshcryer]

11. A useful or valuable quality, person, or thing; an advantage or resource

Juan Cole did not call Gaddafi a spy.

[Prometheus Bound]

12. An intelligence asset is a spy. Your confusing it with industrial/commercial asset.

But you know that.

[joshcryer]

13. Uh, I used your own definition, which doesn't mention intelligence or industry..

Juan Cole did not call Gaddafi a spy and no one sensible can read it that way.

[Prometheus Bound]

14. A CIA asset is a spy. You know it and I know it.

Pretending it he is speaking of a commercial asset in this context is silly.

[joshcryer]

15. No, it isn't. A CIA asset is someone the CIA can use.

Saddam was a CIA asset, for example. But he was no spy.

[Prometheus Bound]

18. Look, you're confusing individuals and national policy.

The US and Libya worked together against an alleged common enemy -- "Al-queda". The Western propaganda press today is making a big deal of this in the headlines, but it has been well known for years.

If the US and Canada work together against a common enemy, it doesn't make President Obama an asset of Canada intelligence, nor does it make PM Harper an asset of the CIA. It's just two countries working together.

I can't believe we are having this conversation.

[joshcryer]

19. That assumes the relationship was reciprocal.

When the US and Canada work together against a common enemy, for example, there is intelligence sharing. With Gaddafi all indications are that it was one way at least with regards to the US (MI6's use of wire tapping to arrest UK Libyans that the regime felt were terrorists is another discussion). We don't see any evidence that, for example, Gaddafi was being given intelligence on US citizens. Bush's asset to Gaddafi was lifting the sanctions, and indeed, we wouldn't call Bush a spy because Gaddafi saw him as an asset.

I can't believe that you think Juan Cole was calling Gaddafi a "spy."

[Prometheus Bound]

21. It was.

I understood it was reciprocal in the sense that the US and Libyan governments were working together to control "Al-queda" in the eastern part of Libya, helping both the Libyan government gain better control in the Benghazi area and the US the same in Iraq.

If Juan Cole did not intend to imply Gaddafy was a spy then he should be more precise with his language. He's fairly well educated, so I doubt it was lack of knowledge of how the word 'asset' is used in intelligence. I assume he intended to mislead his readers.

[inna]

22. not sure about "village-idiot", definitely a despicable sell-out, though. nt

[SpiralHawk]

17. Republicon Family Cesspool Values

...as usual...

[Major Hogwash]

20. Christ, he had to read about it in Murdoch's Wall Street Journal?

I think it was generally assumed for the last decade or so that Bush and Khadaffi were buddies.
Hell, Bush took Libya off of the "most evil countries" list.

Quid pro quo?
Hell, yeah, as Bush would say.