Norway Officials Admit They Knew Nothing About Libya But Joined Regime Change Efforts Anyway

Originally appeared at ZeroHedge

A new official report produced by the Norwegian government illustrates the continuing absurdity of NATO expansion and foreign adventurism in places very far away from the “North Atlantic” explicit in the name North Atlantic Treaty Organization places like Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine or Syria.

Top Norwegian officials have now admitted they “had very limited knowledge” of events unfolding in Libya during 2010 and 2011, prior to NATO’s military intervention on behalf of anti-Gaddafi rebels a war that resulted in regime change and a failed state ruled by competing governments and extremist militias to this day. Norway enthusiastically joined the US, UK, and French led bombing of the country initiated in March 2011 even knowing full well its military knew next to nothing of what was unfolding on the ground.

But what did decision-makers have to go on? Consider this absurd admission from the official report“In such situations, decision-makers often rely on information from media and other countries,” the report reads.

Norway Officials Admit They Knew Nothing About Libya But Joined Regime Change Efforts Anyway

Battle for Sirte, Libya after it was bombed by NATO jets. Via EPA

The commission that produced the report was chaired by former Foreign Minister Jan Petersen, and ultimately concluded that politicians in Oslo dragged the nation into the US-led bombing campaign with no regard for what could come next.

The commission report states that there were “no written sources” that so much as attempted to assess the nature of the conflict Norway was about to join. The officials failed to “assess the type of conflict Norway was taking part in” it finds.

NATO’s name for the operation was the US code name ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn,’ and Norway flew 596 strike missions during the first five months of the NATO intervention, dropping 588 bombs on Libyan targets, according to the report. Norway had provided six F-16 fighter jets and its pilots were reported to have conducted 10 percent of all coalition strikes against pro-Gaddafi forces.

Norway Officials Admit They Knew Nothing About Libya But Joined Regime Change Efforts Anyway

Norway’s former Center Party leader Liv Signe Navarsete said of the final report: “When you look at what happened next, with Libya becoming a hotspot of terrorism, this is not a decision to be proud of.”

The war had been sold to the European public on “humanitarian” grounds and included sensational atrocity stories, many which were later proven false, painting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as an irrational homicidal maniac.

One notable story explicitly promoted by the State Department as well as US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice was the Viagra-fueled mass rape story, which claimed that Gaddafi had supposedly supplied his troops with Viagra in order to unleash sexual terrorism on the civilian population. Amnesty International and other human rights investigators later the proved the story completely false.

Norway Officials Admit They Knew Nothing About Libya But Joined Regime Change Efforts Anyway

Some Norwegian politicians now claim the country was hoodwinked into another US-led regime change operation similar to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003. However, considering European leaders had the glaringly obvious example of Iraq and the lies it was built on so recent in history, this appears yet more excuse making designed to evade public responsibility.

Libya has long been forgotten in Western mainstream media, but has come back into headlines as a small civil war has lately erupted within areas under control of the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. Since Gaddafi’s overthrow the country has been fought over by three (and at times up to four) competing governments while the streets are ruled by Islamist militias, including in some areas ISIS terrorists.

According to a CNN report last year, open air slave markets have since come into existence as Libya remains largely lawless and as a once stable national infrastructure and economy has crumbled.

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Merijn

This is what you participated in Norway:

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e3330fd56573e32d4efa297cbe0664ab595d3bc0d1f36f28f724ebe432ca9904.png

https://youtu.be/dy1dsO-jKd0

https://www.google.nl/amp/s/www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-emails-reveal-nato-killed-gaddafi-to-stop-libyan-creation-of-gold-backed-currency/5594742/amp

You are Accomplishes in War Crimes & Crimes against Humanity….good luck with your Nobel Peace Prize Norway…. You can Stick it in a Place Where the Sun Does Not Shine….

as

Thanks for posting these. Really thanks.

Merijn

My pleasure….Gadaffi didn’t deserve it to be Murdered by the West…

FlorianGeyer

Thank you for your informational post Merijn.

chris chuba

Shocking, Norway is one of our vassal states. Now let’s talk about GWB’s glorious 2003 coalition against Iraq, or Obama’s 40 nation coalition against ISIS. This is how we roll in the U.S.

We coerce, bribe, and threaten our vassals and then pound our chest and say, ‘see, what we are doing is right because look at all of the countries who are joining us’. This is a page out of our Information War playbook.

as

You worded it best.

Merijn

And all the Governments still buying the U.S. Lies & Bullshit after All those Years…isn’t that Great? And when the Truth comes out they all say: Wir Haben Es Nicht Gewußt….

Promitheas Apollonious

BUYING? governments dont buy lies, my friend. They are active participants in selling them. When you sell a lie to the people, YOU, are fully aware of the truth.

Merijn

That is a better way of saying it…yes…When they move their Lips…Only Lies Come Out…

Bobby Twoshoes

They’re not buying, they’re bought.

as

No friggin surprise there. I mean even UK in it’s Iraq invasion know nothing. Hell even the US know nothing. It’s well documented that the grunts sent over there didn’t even know what kind of ‘WMD’ they’re looking for.

lene johansen

OH no – they know all about it – they are just evil satanic blood thirsty people

Sadde

Do you know why the Norwegians smile after every lightning in the sky?

No?

They believe they are being photographed.

as

Do the lightbulb change jokes one.

Sadde

LOL, I read this once in an old abandoned book at the hospital a long time ago at night shift …

as

That’s an interesting book lol. Thanks for the share.

Concrete Mike

What we did to the people of libya was an atrocity.

This was liberal intervensionnism at its worst. Thanks washington, thanks sarkozy. You have showed the world who is truly evil.

To european governments…wtf were you thinking??

Ricky Miller

They were thinking generally that it’s great to be part of the club and what do we have to go do, again? Oh, ok let’s go. For Sarkozy, he was thinking that if Qadaffi is dead than I won’t have to repay him the money I owe him. Because 1) I don’t have it and 2) it looks suspicious. Because it was an illegal foreign infusion of cash into a French election campaign. Problem solved. State murder for which Sarkozy has spent exactly one night in jail. Isn’t NATO awesome?

Yolo

Indeed, politicians are bought and paid for. Overpaid jobs at EU and NATO are waiting. And the population is brainwashed by massmedia or powerless to change anything.

Sadde

Do you know how to sink a Norwegian submarine?
No?
You swim down and knock on …

Do you know how to lower it once more?
No?
You swim down and knock on. Then the Norwegian opens and says:
– You are not going to fool me twice.

Sadde

Two Norwegian pilots discuss the possibilities of flying to the sun.
– It will be too hot.
– No not at all. We fly at night.

Sadde

Police to the Norwegian:
– Why did you drive around the roundabout so many laps?
– My blinkers got stuck.

– Have you heard about the Norwegian, who stood staring at the sun for a whole day?
– No, why did he do that?
– Well, he wanted to have brown eyes.

Jim Bim

Dumb US stooge, just like the rest of EU.

Brother Ma

Not dumb just coopted with money or blackmail and /or scared

lene johansen

NO DUMB

Smaug

I don’t know why South Front republishes these articles, since anyone that lives in NATO can tell you that the author either has zero knowledge of the subject he’s reporting or, more likely, he’s fudging things from propaganda purposes.

lene johansen

EXACTLY

lene johansen

Norway new all about what it was doing – stupid article. BUT in JUNE 2011 Norway declared that it would’nt participate and would stop bombing in LIBYA. – IN JULY 22 2011 Norway axperienced the terrible terrorist attack, where nearly 80 young norwegians socialdemocrats were killed. ZIOJEW JOB