Libya

In 2003 Moammar Gaddafi was toasted by the West for repudiating terrorism and ending his missile and nuclear programs. When the Arab Spring broke out in 2011 civil unrest appeared in Libya and Gaddafi used force to quell riots in his country. US political figures led by Hillary Clinton declared Gaddafi would massacre his people. Stories flooded the press around the world fearing the a genocide was about to take place. Many dissidents living in the West promoted stories about the terrible things happening in Libya and the press went with these stories. The result was that Obama, who campaigned with a promise of not attacking a Muslim country went along and took out Gaddafi. Hillary Clinton and her two associates Samanth Power and Susan Rice decided that something must be done to protect the Libyan people. They used the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) policy that the UN set up after the massacre in Rwanda. Instead of a thorough investigation of the situation they accepted the news reports and convinced Obama to attack Libya. This is conviction and punishment without a trial. What is happening is that states are creating ripe conditions where killing, evil or inconvenient adversaries becomes a likely and predictable outcome. Later reports came out saying the the conditions in Libya were exaggerated. Obama later admitted this was his biggest mistake not taking into account what would happen to Libya after Gaddafi.