Hasbara Buster
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West aims to destabilize all of Africa: Jahi Issa
Interview with Jahi Issa
Press TV has interviewed Jahi Issa, former professor of African Studies at Delaware State University from Philadelphia, to discuss the situation in Africa, particularly Libya.
What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Your take on the same question [posed to previous guest speaker, Richard Weitz]. In your perspective, why are we seeing what appears to be a growing amount of instability?
Issa: This is really about a war that was waged against Libya in 2011 that wasn’t well thought out by NATO. Of course, NATO was led by the United States, my country, but it wasn’t thought out.
Gaddafi was old. Was he a threat to the United States in 2001, 2002, 2003? Yes, maybe he was. He was trying during that period to build a nuclear arsenal that could have possibly threatened the region. But was he a threat in 2011 at his old age? No, he was not a threat. In fact, he was working with the United States. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went to Libya to meet with him. He was working with the United States CIA. He was not a threat. What we have is a failed state that was caused primarily by NATO. This is the problem. This is the central reason of all the chaos in Libya right now. It’s a failed state.
Europe is now having a major problem because they’re going to have to suffer with this failed state because it’s going to impact the entire North Africa region. This is what I said yesterday.
Now we have United States marines - it was first reported that there were 500, now the spokesperson have verifiably said that it’s 150 who have been flown to Italy just in case the consulate in Libya comes under attack again like it was last year, and we lost an ambassador.
Libya is a failed state and the primary cause is because of a war against Gaddafi in the country of Libya that wasn’t well thought of and probably should have never happened. Gaddafi at that time was an old man. He was no threat.
Press TV: We’re getting reports out of Libya now that General Khalifa Haftar – we’re getting reports that it could be a possible coup that actually he is attempting. Your take on that, sir.
Issa: It wouldn’t be difficult because there’s no central government in Libya. There’s no central government. It’s ran by hundreds of militias. Some of the militias are controlled by former Gaddafi loyalists. Some are controlled by the terrorists who were sent in to destroy the country. So it wouldn’t be difficult to do a coup d'état. I’m almost certain if I had a group of 300 well-trained men, I can go in and do a coup d'état.
The real issue is that the United States and NATO was not really interested in Libya until after the Benghazi incident in which a United States ambassador was murdered, right? This hadn’t happened in 33 years. He was murdered because the entire war on Libya was unnecessary.
He was murdered also because there were contractor security agents protecting the US embassy. And now according to a former lieutenant general under the Bush administration, we’re now coming to find out possibly that even the ambassador may have been working on a covert war to ship arms via Turkey to Libya and then into Syria. Then he was killed along with several of his deputies, because the United States was not prepared for this.
NATO was not prepared for the aftermath of this. It was a wrong war.
Europe is now looking at this and they’re going to have to clean this up.
Press TV: In general, when we’re looking at this situation, with the Libyan national army as the leader now, Haftar...this is a man who had fallen out with Gaddafi and then happened to move very close to Langley, Virginia. Is that coincidental, in your perspective, sir? That just happens to be the base, of course, of CIA headquarters. There are reports that Haftar actually is a CIA asset.
Issa: Someone has to clean this up, right? Whether it’s Haftar or someone else, it doesn’t matter. The issue is, once NATO invaded Libya and killed Gaddafi, they knew at that time that there would have to be thousands upon thousands of troops there to bring the country under control. But that was not their interest. It was payback, right?
They can call for a no-fly zone, but who has the military know-how and equipment to do it?
Just recently, the Russians sent in a plane full of ammunition for the central government of Libya. As soon as the airplane arrived, it was hijacked by militias.
Also, the oil tankers in Libya are constantly being hijacked. At one time Libya produced nearly two million barrels of oil a day. Now it’s down to 200,000 barrels of oil a day.
Just saying there is a no-fly zone over Libya without the authority, know-how and equipment to prevent it is meaningless.
Interview with Jahi Issa
Press TV has interviewed Jahi Issa, former professor of African Studies at Delaware State University from Philadelphia, to discuss the situation in Africa, particularly Libya.
What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Your take on the same question [posed to previous guest speaker, Richard Weitz]. In your perspective, why are we seeing what appears to be a growing amount of instability?
Issa: This is really about a war that was waged against Libya in 2011 that wasn’t well thought out by NATO. Of course, NATO was led by the United States, my country, but it wasn’t thought out.
Gaddafi was old. Was he a threat to the United States in 2001, 2002, 2003? Yes, maybe he was. He was trying during that period to build a nuclear arsenal that could have possibly threatened the region. But was he a threat in 2011 at his old age? No, he was not a threat. In fact, he was working with the United States. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went to Libya to meet with him. He was working with the United States CIA. He was not a threat. What we have is a failed state that was caused primarily by NATO. This is the problem. This is the central reason of all the chaos in Libya right now. It’s a failed state.
Europe is now having a major problem because they’re going to have to suffer with this failed state because it’s going to impact the entire North Africa region. This is what I said yesterday.
Now we have United States marines - it was first reported that there were 500, now the spokesperson have verifiably said that it’s 150 who have been flown to Italy just in case the consulate in Libya comes under attack again like it was last year, and we lost an ambassador.
Libya is a failed state and the primary cause is because of a war against Gaddafi in the country of Libya that wasn’t well thought of and probably should have never happened. Gaddafi at that time was an old man. He was no threat.
Press TV: We’re getting reports out of Libya now that General Khalifa Haftar – we’re getting reports that it could be a possible coup that actually he is attempting. Your take on that, sir.
Issa: It wouldn’t be difficult because there’s no central government in Libya. There’s no central government. It’s ran by hundreds of militias. Some of the militias are controlled by former Gaddafi loyalists. Some are controlled by the terrorists who were sent in to destroy the country. So it wouldn’t be difficult to do a coup d'état. I’m almost certain if I had a group of 300 well-trained men, I can go in and do a coup d'état.
The real issue is that the United States and NATO was not really interested in Libya until after the Benghazi incident in which a United States ambassador was murdered, right? This hadn’t happened in 33 years. He was murdered because the entire war on Libya was unnecessary.
He was murdered also because there were contractor security agents protecting the US embassy. And now according to a former lieutenant general under the Bush administration, we’re now coming to find out possibly that even the ambassador may have been working on a covert war to ship arms via Turkey to Libya and then into Syria. Then he was killed along with several of his deputies, because the United States was not prepared for this.
NATO was not prepared for the aftermath of this. It was a wrong war.
Europe is now looking at this and they’re going to have to clean this up.
Press TV: In general, when we’re looking at this situation, with the Libyan national army as the leader now, Haftar...this is a man who had fallen out with Gaddafi and then happened to move very close to Langley, Virginia. Is that coincidental, in your perspective, sir? That just happens to be the base, of course, of CIA headquarters. There are reports that Haftar actually is a CIA asset.
Issa: Someone has to clean this up, right? Whether it’s Haftar or someone else, it doesn’t matter. The issue is, once NATO invaded Libya and killed Gaddafi, they knew at that time that there would have to be thousands upon thousands of troops there to bring the country under control. But that was not their interest. It was payback, right?
They can call for a no-fly zone, but who has the military know-how and equipment to do it?
Just recently, the Russians sent in a plane full of ammunition for the central government of Libya. As soon as the airplane arrived, it was hijacked by militias.
Also, the oil tankers in Libya are constantly being hijacked. At one time Libya produced nearly two million barrels of oil a day. Now it’s down to 200,000 barrels of oil a day.
Just saying there is a no-fly zone over Libya without the authority, know-how and equipment to prevent it is meaningless.
We’re looking at a failed state that’s going to have major repercussions, that’s going to cause problems with the other nations that surround – just recently the central government spent millions of dollars that they really didn’t have to bring back two of Gaddafi’s sons from Algeria to Libya to be prosecuted, when that money should have probably been spent on rebuilding that nation.
So we have a failed state. I don’t know, I think we have another Somalia, another failed state on the Mediterranean. It’s going to be this way for a while, unfortunately.
Press TV: [In reply to previous guest speaker’s comments] Good point that you just made, sir. You said that if they could take those factors away then obviously you would have more stable countries. But we see for example that the same Takfiri militants that allegedly the West is against in Libya, they support in other countries like Syria, like Iraq and other places.
My question, turning to Philadelphia, does the West really want these states to be stable, sir?
Issa: I would say no because if they did, once they toppled Gaddafi by destroying the infrastructure, particularly that of the central government in Tripoli, they would have put in boots. They would have put in boots on the ground like they did in other countries – but no.
They destroyed the country. They brought in many terrorists that Gaddafi was complaining of, and now they’re trying to put in another terrorist who’s claiming that he is going to do a coup d'état.
There is no way they can control the situation unless they put in thousands and thousands of troops, but that means that possibly NATO forces would be killed.
There’s an election in the United States coming up and we don’t want US citizens potentially killed in a failed state that we destroyed.
Also, the leakage of guns, as my colleague in DC just stated, these guns were brought in mostly by NATO. NATO made a decision obviously, a conscious decision to not confiscate these arms once they had toppled Gaddafi. We have to blame this on NATO.
It looks like many European countries are beginning to blame this on NATO because they are the ones that have to deal with this overflow of refugees who are coming from Libya and risking their lives on the high seas to get to Italy and other countries.
I’m not sure what we should do as a regard to this because I’m not a part of any government agency within NATO. It looks to me and it looks to the rest of the world that this was an intentional decision by NATO to leave it as a failed state.
Press TV: With the situation you’re calling, Libya a ‘failed state’, can that be turned around? What needs to be done, in your perspective?
Issa: What would need to be done is exactly what NATO did and the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan. They put in thousands and thousands and thousands of troops. Many of those troops are being brought back to their perspective countries.
But if they did not have that intention in the beginning, then it was not necessary to go in and destroy that state. If they’re not willing to put thousands of troops on the ground to help stabilize that region, then I think the world needs to reconsider the position of NATO when they decide to do this again, because they will.
It seems to me there’s an intention by the West to destabilize all of Africa. I think this is an issue that maybe the African Union needs to take up.
PressTV - West aims to destabilize all of Africa: Jahi Issa
So we have a failed state. I don’t know, I think we have another Somalia, another failed state on the Mediterranean. It’s going to be this way for a while, unfortunately.
Press TV: [In reply to previous guest speaker’s comments] Good point that you just made, sir. You said that if they could take those factors away then obviously you would have more stable countries. But we see for example that the same Takfiri militants that allegedly the West is against in Libya, they support in other countries like Syria, like Iraq and other places.
My question, turning to Philadelphia, does the West really want these states to be stable, sir?
Issa: I would say no because if they did, once they toppled Gaddafi by destroying the infrastructure, particularly that of the central government in Tripoli, they would have put in boots. They would have put in boots on the ground like they did in other countries – but no.
They destroyed the country. They brought in many terrorists that Gaddafi was complaining of, and now they’re trying to put in another terrorist who’s claiming that he is going to do a coup d'état.
There is no way they can control the situation unless they put in thousands and thousands of troops, but that means that possibly NATO forces would be killed.
There’s an election in the United States coming up and we don’t want US citizens potentially killed in a failed state that we destroyed.
Also, the leakage of guns, as my colleague in DC just stated, these guns were brought in mostly by NATO. NATO made a decision obviously, a conscious decision to not confiscate these arms once they had toppled Gaddafi. We have to blame this on NATO.
It looks like many European countries are beginning to blame this on NATO because they are the ones that have to deal with this overflow of refugees who are coming from Libya and risking their lives on the high seas to get to Italy and other countries.
I’m not sure what we should do as a regard to this because I’m not a part of any government agency within NATO. It looks to me and it looks to the rest of the world that this was an intentional decision by NATO to leave it as a failed state.
Press TV: With the situation you’re calling, Libya a ‘failed state’, can that be turned around? What needs to be done, in your perspective?
Issa: What would need to be done is exactly what NATO did and the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan. They put in thousands and thousands and thousands of troops. Many of those troops are being brought back to their perspective countries.
But if they did not have that intention in the beginning, then it was not necessary to go in and destroy that state. If they’re not willing to put thousands of troops on the ground to help stabilize that region, then I think the world needs to reconsider the position of NATO when they decide to do this again, because they will.
It seems to me there’s an intention by the West to destabilize all of Africa. I think this is an issue that maybe the African Union needs to take up.
PressTV - West aims to destabilize all of Africa: Jahi Issa
