This was first posted on October 24, 2015. I said that Obama was viewed very positively by Libyans. A 2012 Gallup poll proved me right- 90% of Libyan respondents viewed the US positively. The early statement of Susan Rice as the attack being a response to a video has also proven to be pretty close, even though the Obama administration was really back peddling on this. An attack on the embassy had been in the planning stages (nothing spontaneous) but the video help recruit Libyan so they could attack the embassy. It was not as others claimed, including the Libyan government, that radical groups outside of Libya had attacked the embassy. It was a fanatical group within Libya.
Not many folks in Miami have been to Libya. I have been there twice, once in 2011 just before the civil war, and again in 2013, after the war was over. I was a petroleum engineer consultant to oil companies run by Libya, so I interacted with Libyans everyday. I was there when the civil war first erupted in February 2011 and came back in 2013, after the war was over By mid 2013, peaceful conditions had been established
In 2013, I worked in Tripoli, Libya. Frequently, I would walk to Martyrs’ square for shopping or a meal. There, in the Plaza, would be plywood replicas of coffins, each with photo of a Libyan who died in the 2011 civil war. An end of a civil war is both joyous and terribly sad. Streets leading up to Plaza were filled with the new flag of Libya. Books critical of Gaddafi…
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