{"id":215763,"date":"2016-01-12T23:55:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T23:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/what-hillary-knew-about-libya\/"},"modified":"2016-01-12T23:55:24","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T23:55:24","slug":"what-hillary-knew-about-libya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/what-hillary-knew-about-libya\/","title":{"rendered":"What Hillary Knew about Libya"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"364.21251969458\">\n<p><strong>Exclusive: <\/strong>In Official Washington\u2019s propaganda world, the U.S. government and its \u201callies\u201d are always standing for what\u2019s right and good and the \u201cenemies\u201d are the epitome of evil doing the vilest things. But some\u00a0emails to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton depicted a far different reality, writes Robert Parry.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-16933\"\/>By Robert Parry<\/p>\n<p>To justify U.S. \u201cregime changes,\u201d the U.S. government has routinely spread rumors and made other dubious claims which \u2014 even when later doubted or debunked \u2014 are left in place indefinitely as corrosive propaganda, eating away at the image of various \u201cenemies\u201d and deforming public opinion.<\/p>\n<p>Even though this discredited propaganda can have a long half-life \u2014 continuing to contaminate the public\u2019s ability to perceive reality for years \u2014 President Barack Obama and his administration have shown no inclination to undertake a kind of HAZMAT clean-up of the polluted information environment that American citizens have been forced to live in.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6933\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" readability=\"37\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/clinton-benghazi.jpg?82332e\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6933\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6933\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?82332e\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/clinton-benghazi-300x206.jpg\" alt=\"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before Congress on Jan. 23, 2013, about the fatal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. 2012. (Photo from C-SPAN coverage)\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/clinton-benghazi-300x206.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/clinton-benghazi.jpg 433w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6933\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/clinton-benghazi-300x206.jpg\" alt=\"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before Congress on Jan. 23, 2013, about the fatal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. 2012. (Photo from C-SPAN coverage)\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/clinton-benghazi-300x206.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/clinton-benghazi.jpg 433w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before Congress on Jan. 23, 2013, about the fatal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. 2012. (Photo from C-SPAN coverage)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>A recent case in point was the emergence \u2014 in the State Department\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve release of more than 3,000 emails to and from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton \u2014 of evidence that two key propaganda themes used to advance violent \u201cregime change\u201d in Libya in 2011 may have originated with rebel-inspired rumors passed on by Clinton\u2019s private adviser Sidney Blumenthal.<\/p>\n<p>A March 27, 2011 <a href=\"https:\/\/foia.state.gov\/searchapp\/DOCUMENTS\/HRCEmail_DecWebClearedMeta\/31-C1\/DOC_0C05782390\/C05782390.pdf\"><u>email<\/u><\/a> from Blumenthal reminded Clinton that \u201cI communicated more than a week ago on this story \u2013 [Libyan leader Muammar] Qaddafi placing bodies to create PR stunts about supposed civilian casualties as a result of Allied bombing \u2013 though underlining it was a rumor. But now, as you know, [Defense Secretary] Robert Gates gives credence to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blumenthal\u2019s email, which was slugged \u201cRumor: Q[addafi]\u2019s rape policy,\u201d then plunged ahead into his new rumor: \u201cSources now say, again rumor (that is, this information comes from the rebel side and is unconfirmed independently by Western&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2016\/01\/12\/what-hillary-knew-about-libya\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: In Official Washington\u2019s propaganda world, the U.S. government and its \u201callies\u201d are always standing for what\u2019s right and good and the \u201cenemies\u201d are the epitome of evil doing the vilest things. But some\u00a0emails to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton depicted a far different reality, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry To justify U.S. \u201cregime [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-215763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}