Will Hillary hold Libya up as one of her great foreign policy successes?

POSTED ON MAY 18, 2016 BY JOHN HINDERAKER 

LIBYA, FIVE YEARS LATER

Hillary Clinton’s emails reveal that she intended the overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi to be the crown jewel of her tenure as Secretary of State. It was to be her principal credential when she made her inevitable run for the presidency. But Clinton and Barack Obama made the inexplicable decision to overthrow Libya’s government without having a plan for what would succeed it, and Libya turned into a disaster.

The scope of the fiasco is revealed by a report issued today by Human Rights Watch:

A top human rights group on Wednesday exposed the largely underreported atrocities being committed by Islamic State’s (ISIS) affiliate in Libya, in the port city of Sirte that has been under their control.

Those abuses include beheading dozens of residents accused of being “spies” and “sorcerers,” crucifying many others and flogging men for the “crimes” of smoking or listening to music, according to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report as cited by Associated Press. …

Libya has been in chaos for the past several years, with rival factions vying for control ever since the NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 as part of the “Arab Spring.” ISIS has been gaining a hold in the North African state, even as its control in Syria and Iraq slowly dwindles. …

“While the world’s attention is focused on atrocities in Syria and Iraq, ISIS is also getting away with murder in Libya,” said Letta Tayler, a senior terrorism and counter-terror researcher at the New York-based human rights organization.

Crucifixions and beheadings: the legacy of Hillary Clinton’s failed foreign policy.