09/21/12 – Mel Frykberg – The Scott Horton Show

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Okay, now, our next guest is Mel Freikberg.
She, well, let's see, I know at least used to work for Enterprise Service, but at least lately I've been reading her at McClatchy Newspapers.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Mel?
I'm doing fine, thank you, and I'm actually still working for IPS as well.
Oh, okay, great.
I'm glad to hear that.
So, yes, you have been doing really groundbreaking work, if only because no one else will even show up to do this beat anymore.
You've been writing from Libya about the rising violence there for weeks now.
Can you please give us sort of an overview, I guess, of who's who?
How many different major tribes with militias fighting each other are there?
Is there anything like a government being created?
Is the country splitting apart or coming together, or what is the deal?
I've just been in Libya for three months, and there's hundreds of different militias, and basically they control the country.
Large squares of Libya are under the control of these different militias, which have different ideologies and varying loyalties, and although democratic elections were held and a new government is in the process of being formed by the General National Congress, the government is actually very weak, and the security forces, the nation's security forces are very weak as well.
Most of the militias are not part of the security forces, and they're actually better armed and able to mobilize more quickly than the security forces.
So these militias have been able to carry out their own forms of justice, etc., and the national government, the government that's in the process of being formed, is unable to control them, but new evidence is coming to light that there are members within the government who are actually supporting the militias, and the ones that are problematic at the moment especially are the Islamist militias, such as the ones that carried out the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and there's more information coming to light about how the Ministry of the Interior is cooperating with the Supreme Security Committee, which is the amalgamation of security forces.
Members of the Supreme Security Committee were apparently involved in the desecration of Sufi mosques and the destruction of several of their mosques and blowing up some of their graves, and the Minister of the Interior came under a lot of criticism from other members of the government because his men did nothing to stop these guys from destroying the mosques.
In fact, some of the SSC members actually protected the Salafist gunmen as they carried out the attacks on the mosques, and it is alleged also that some members of the SSC were involved in the desecration of the mosques, and I was actually a witness because the destruction of one major Sufi mosque in Tripoli took place over three days.
Even though there was a government outcry against what was happening, two days later they were still continuing to demolish the mosques and nothing was being done about it.
There's quite some explosive information coming out now that I'm busy working on about how the militias are involved, how members of the government are involved with the militias.
Wow, so at this point I wonder whether security forces is just sort of a euphemism for the militia that America picked.
I mean, is there anything, are they even really, is there a government at this point?
The way you describe it, the security forces are just another militia.
Well, the supreme security forces are an amalgamation of militias underneath them, and then separate to that is the nascent police force and the nascent military.
And the problem is that the majority of these militias are not joining the police force or the military.
So there are hundreds of these militias with hundreds of thousands of men, well-armed men, who are outside of the weak police force and the weak army.
And that is the problem, is that they're unable to bring these men into the one national police force and one national army.
And as I said, these militias are divided by different ideologies and loyalties, and many of them are refusing to join the police because they have their own agenda.
Just as the Ansar al-Sharia Brigade carried out their attack on the U.S. Consulate.
All right, now on the attack on the mosque, of course there's been the big debate as to whether this was revenge.
Well, obviously the thing happened on September 11th, and then there was the drone strike that killed a Libyan al-Qaeda guy in Pakistan.
And then others say, no, it was just a riot that broke out and turned into terrorism and these kinds of things.
Do you have an official opinion about what's going on there?
We have one of our McClechey colleagues who interviewed one of the security guards in Benghazi, and according to this security guard, there was no protest whatsoever beforehand.
These guys arrived and they were well-armed, heavily armed, and they carried out this attack.
But this whole thing by the protest, that there was a protest gone away, has been refuted by some members of the Libyan government, who accuse, again, the Interior Ministry of lying about what actually happened, because this is what is happening.
Some members of the Libyan government, who have Salafist sympathy, who are in the Interior Ministry, who control many of these militias, they were saying, oh, it was just a protest that got out of hand.
But other members of the Libyan government, who are not in touch with the Islamists and the Salafists, are saying that this is nonsense and that this attack was well-planned beforehand.
I mean, you don't just find several hundred Salafist guys suddenly arriving on one spot and carrying out an attack that appears to be well-planned beforehand.
And many members of, you know, Libyan government members are saying this.
The only members of the Libyan government who are claiming that it is a protest that got out of hand are those from the Interior Ministry who are sympathetic with the Ansar al-Sharia Brigade and all have Salafist sympathies.
Furthermore, the safe house for the Americans from the consulate, these people that carried out the attack knew where the safe house was, because it was a two-pronged attack.
The first attack took place at the consulate, and the next attack happened at the safe house about an hour or so later.
So they knew this so-called secret address of the safe house.
Well, you know, I think it was CBS reported that the security forces had pointed the way to, you know, where you want to go.
I don't know how far away the safe house was, but it never was clear, at least in that reporting, whether they had a gun to their head at the time and their hands up and they said, OK, OK, just don't kill me, go that way, or whether they were in on it all along and that really they were helping the attackers carry out their plan.
What do you think of that?
Well, I don't think the security guards would have had that secret information.
I'm presuming that they wouldn't have had that information.
I'm thinking that the guys who carried out the attacks knew the information beforehand.
What I'm investigating now is that one of the members of the Libyan government from the Interior Ministry actually called some of the security people who were at the consulate to tell them to step down because there was going to be an attack happening.
This hasn't been confirmed yet, but it's coming.
We're in the process of looking into the details of it, because the White House has been very coy about giving the full details of what happened, and it's not just because everything is unclear.
I mean, you know, some members of the Libyan government are saying, too, that they warned the Americans that something could happen.
I mean, there's other rumors that Chris Stevens had said that he knew he was on an al-Qaeda hit list.
There's all sorts of rumors swirling around, but it just seems from what our colleague in Benghazi said after interviewing one of the security guards in hospital that there was no protest beforehand, and you don't find, you know, several hundred al-Qaeda sympathizers with heavy arms in one spot sort of just hanging around and then suddenly all of a sudden going and attacking the embassy.
There's a lot more to it than that, and I think Americans will probably only know the full story after the election.
Now, your guy in Libya, is that John Landay?
No, this is a Libyan that's in Benghazi.
John Landay is in the U.S. at the moment.
Oh, I see.
So this Ansar al-Sharia, they've denied this, right?
We don't have local, you know, al-Qaeda-ish types or al-Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb or whatever, whoever these people are.
They're not saying, yeah, we did it, and what are you going to do about it, right?
Are they?
Some of them are saying that they are denying it, but also there is another group that broke away from Ansar al-Sharia, and they're called the February 17th Militia, and they are the ones who allegedly were, the member of the Ministry of the Interior called them to tell them to step down from the U.S. consulate.
This is what we're investigating at the moment.
It hasn't been confirmed, but they, this member of the Libyan government who's sympathetic to al-Qaeda, he called, allegedly called these members of the February 17th Brigade who actually broke away from Ansar al-Sharia because of, you know, some differences of opinion, whatever, and told them to step down.
There was going to be an attack happening.
And something further that's come to light is that when the U.S. faced the path and hired, they signed a contract with a security company called Queen Martin who actually provided the Libyan security guards outside the U.S. consulate.
But the documentation doesn't list the name of the British security company.
It just says foreign company, and then instead of giving the address in Britain, it gives the address of somewhere in the U.S.
So that, the company that was hired to provide the security guards outside the U.S. consulate, that was not disclosed by the U.S. State Department, and the address given for them was false as well.
And we're trying to find out what that is about.
You know, I've been emailing Queen Martin's security firm in the U.K. asking them why their name was not given on the documentation that they signed with the U.S. State Department which authorized them to provide Libyan security guards to the consulate.
There's a lot of fishy stuff going on, to put it mildly.
Well, and you know, it was strange too, the way the administration came out with their official story that it was all about the video, and it had nothing to do with al-Qaeda terrorism.
And then now they're changing their story, but they're not citing any of the reasons to believe that maybe it was one of these groups or splinter groups or this or the other thing like you're talking about.
They're just saying, well, you know, it was an attack, and so that's the kind of thing that a terrorist would do.
And it's very strange.
Well, you know, perhaps because at the beginning when things first happened, there was a lot of confusion about what was happening.
There were different accounts coming out as well.
So obviously to get to the bottom of everything that happened is going to take time.
But I also think if the rumors are true that they knew it, that they were given a warning beforehand and they never upgraded the security.
The security at the embassy was practically nonexistent.
So they would obviously be quite keen to play down the fact that they hadn't provided sufficient security and hadn't listened to the warning sufficiently.
So obviously they're hoping that it would just be a protest that went out of control.
But with all the other information that is coming to light and people saying, no, this is not what happened, witnesses, journalists investigating, they have now had to concede that it wasn't just a protest gone awry.
And as more information comes out, perhaps, and as they find out more, they'll be forced to admit to other stuff too, perhaps.
But as I say, I don't think Americans will know the full story until after the election.
It is a sensitive time, I gather, for American politics at the moment.
Well, hey, the middle of November, that's optimistic if you ask me for finding out the truth about any of this stuff.
All right.
Now, at one part, your phone went dim on us for just a second when you were saying the something 17 brigade, the split off of the Ansar al-Sharia.
And I was hoping you could repeat that part of the show for me.
I'm not, I'm not actually certain of this because this is just new information that we're investigating at the moment.
But according to an American official, it's from the White, from the State Department or whatever, but it hasn't been confirmed, February 17 brigade broke away from Ansar al-Sharia.
And according to what we're investigating now, a member of the Libyan government in the interior ministry, which is responsible for the security forces, called some February 17 security brigade members who were guarding the U.S. consulate on the night of the attack and told them to step down.
This is according to some U.S. intelligence that intercepted some calls or whatever.
But it appears, if this is correct, that a member of the Libyan government who's sympathetic to al-Qaeda called the security guards outside the U.S. consulate from the February 17 brigade, a breakaway group from Ansar al-Sharia, and told them to step down because there was going to be an attack.
In other words, it was all planned, they knew about it, etc.
And then, of course, you had the second phase of the attack where these attackers knew where the U.S. safe house was.
And then went and killed three other Americans, often perceived as being asphyxiated in the consulate.
So maybe that's why all the changing stories and that kind of thing.
It all comes back to how much they could have, should have known, or could have, should have done beforehand to protect the people.
They had that much information.
Yeah.
As I say, none of this is confirmed at this stage.
It's just stuff that's coming out slowly.
I've been in Cairo for a couple of weeks.
Oh, for a couple of weeks.
Okay, good.
So tell us about what's going on there.
Is this all just about the movie?
No.
In Egypt, I think a lot of it is young guys who are very frustrated with the situation in Egypt.
They don't have employment.
They cannot go overseas to get better jobs.
A lot of them are also bored.
They're not employed.
There's also football supporters called the Ali Football Club, and they have issues with the police.
They often have fights with the police where the police beat them up and arrest them.
And so whenever there's a chance to have a confrontation with the police, they're in there to come and fight with the police.
So that's one element of it.
Another element of it is that people really are frustrated and bored.
And, of course, then there is the element of people who are offended at the video.
So it's not just a haircut for any people being offended at the video.
There's other social elements of what is happening in Egypt, contributing to the unrest here as well.
You know, it always was amazing to me when the Arab Spring came out a year and a half ago, how all about themselves it seemed to be and how little attention was paid to the American role in the dictatorships that people were rising up against in successful and failed uprisings across the Middle East.
Right?
There was this notable lack of burning American flags, even though Uncle Sam was behind every tortured dictator in the region.
It seems like now after a year and a half, all the Arabs remembered at once.
They're like, oh, yeah.
Now we know.
Now we're reminded of how we got into this mess and why we have Mubarak's and King Fahd's and King Abdullah's all around.
Well, I think if somebody is going to help you get rid of somebody that you want to get rid of, you're not going to necessarily look at their credentials.
It's only when things start to backfire, as they seem to be doing in the Arab Spring, that people will get more questioning.
Yeah.
Well, and everywhere that they have a choice, they pick people who America has, it seems, less and less influence over.
That was what Pepe Escobar was talking about on the show yesterday.
There's so many conflicts waiting to play themselves out in the Middle East that have nothing to do with us that the American government won't be able to really influence any of it because it's all directed in ways that we don't even understand.
It's completely beyond us.
I just think it's a real mistake getting involved in these situations in the Middle East.
I think it's been said by many people before, you cannot bomb countries into democracy.
It's just backfiring badly when you see all these Salafists and these Islamist groups filling these political vacuums.
We're basically getting one lot of thugs being replaced by another lot of thugs and a lot of people dying along the way in countries being broken up.
I hate to think what's going to happen with Syria, which is even more divided than Lebanon, although Assad was a terrible, terrible man.
Gaddafi was a terrible man, but now when you're having basic rights of women in Libya and that's being threatened.
Not long before I left Tripoli, these Salafist guys were going around to coffee shops in Tripoli and threatening women who didn't have their hair covered.
What kind of thing didn't happen under Gaddafi?
I think there's a big difference between a majority voting a government in mature democracy, because there's a lot more to democracy than just having the right to vote.
Well, I don't know if this is really right, and obviously I have my own American point of view and interest in this, but it seems to me like first they need independence.
If it's at least up to them, then they have a chance to choose the right thing.
You know what I mean?
The right thing that's best for themselves.
Maybe they'll have to suffer under a different flavor of tyranny for a while until they figure out better than that, but if all their choices are being made for them in North America, then how are they ever supposed to make any progress toward real human rights?
I think another problem too is that when countries are basically destroyed, the infrastructure, the security forces, many people are injured and dead, it's not very easy to just go ahead with democracy and that's what you have in Libya now.
The country is very much in a state of disrepair.
The reconstruction that was meant to take place is not happening for obvious reasons.
Many Libyans are dead and many others are injured and not receiving adequate medical care.
They were able to vote freely, but I just think it's so much more than needs to be.
The correct steps and support has to be given to these countries to transform from dictatorships to democratic countries, and just bombing and then giving people the vote is not sufficient.
Right.
Yeah, what's too bad about that is when people say democracy in the West, they have all these other things built into it.
Free speech and fair trials and all these things that they just assume, rather than just plain majority rule, which is the way it can be interpreted and applied and can certainly be a recipe for disaster, especially, you know, I always think of what happened in Iraq when everybody, even Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, everybody's just celebrating the big purple-fingered election.
Look how purple their fingers are.
Isn't it beautiful to see these women voting in an election?
And then all it meant was the lines were now clear and the civil war was to begin in earnest.
You know, oh man, that kind of thing can happen.
One of the February 17 brigades were responsible for, one of the major brigades for, in inverted commas, liberating Tripoli last year, in inverted commas, and they are the ones with the very strong Salafist leaning, who are now turning against the people that helped them to so-called liberate Tripoli.
But I can't believe that these Western leaders who continue to do this, and especially the US, are not aware of this.
They're aware of this, but there's obviously still something in it for them, like, I don't know, the oil or whatever.
You know, the real gold's not there.
Of course.
In fact, that was one of the things I was just reading.
It may have been a piece by you, actually, but it certainly said that, you know, what do you mean, American administration, that you had no idea that anything was going wrong in Libya?
It's a picture of victory over there, like in all your statements at your convention.
McClatchy has been reporting, and Mel Friedberg particularly, have been reporting for weeks and weeks and weeks, months, about rising and continuing violence in Libya.
But I guess maybe they really don't pay attention to the things that they don't want to know like that.
Isn't that in the President's morning briefing or something, that, you know, Mr. President, Libya's still burning?
I don't think that after they put all these resources into helping Libya, the nation of Libya, they're going to commit on all those, you know, there's all those reconstruction projects and all that oil underneath the ground after all the money and effort they put in.
I don't think they'll give up that easily.
That's what I feel.
Right.
Yeah, there's one good reason that they ought to at least keep paying attention to the colonies that they conquer is, you know, at least they've got a lot of stealing to do, and so it can't be completely oblivious to what's happening.
You know, when some, you know, Republicans are saying, well, cut off aid to them, cut off aid, and then the Democrats are saying, no, no, no, that's not the right way to go.
We want to help Libya, establish Libya.
That's all that goes through my mind.
They're not giving up on all that reconstruction oil after all what they put in.
Right.
Yep.
That's what they meant to say.
All right.
Well, listen, it's been great to talk to you again.
I really appreciate your great journalism for McClatchy Newspapers, McClatchyDC.com, and of course, interpressserviceipsnews.net.
Thank you, Mel.
Thanks for having me.
Mel Freikberg, everybody.
We'll be right back.
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