Nancy A. Youssef, Daily Beast: Hillary’s Libya Post-War Plan Was ‘Play It by Ear,’ Gates Says
She still defends the invasion as ‘smart power at its best.’ But war backers like Clinton had no plan for securing the country, says ex-Pentagon chief Bob Gates.
When Hillary Clinton appears before Congress’s special committee on Benghazi Thursday, she’ll likely be asked all the wrong questions.
Clinton will be peppered with queries about why she kept a private email server, what caused the 2012 attacks on the U.S. special consulate in Benghazi, and how come U.S. forces didn’t respond more quickly to the strikes. But the really important issues—the questions longstanding followers of the U.S. and NATO intervention want answered—are: Why did Hillary Clinton push for strikes that contributed to the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi? And why didn’t the Obama administration bother to plan for the all-too-predictable chaos that came next?
WNU Editor: There was no post-war plan on what to do with Afghanistan after the Taliban was defeated .... so we decided to stay and try nation building. There was no post-war plan on what to do with Iraq after Saddam Hussein was overthrown .... so we decided to stay and try nation building. There was no post-war plan on what to do with Libya after Gadaffi was overthrown, .... so we decided to not stay and to not try nation building. It seems we have a problem on handling nations after the completion of a war.
4 comments:
The EU and UN had a plan for post-Talib Afghanistan, based on the Loya Jurga, and a Government based on King Shah, the tribal elders, but the U.S. insisted the warlords be in charge,
Gen. Garner had a plan, based on early elections, but the Bush Administration went for de-Baathification, delayed elections and a College Republican devised government system based on the writings of Ann Rand.
So by the time of Lybia, the U.S. was out of the only two ideas it has/had.
The Loya Jurga was the way to go. But yes ... the warlords became the plan ... and they are still the plan. De-Baathification was something that I never understood .... after-all .... you needed someone to run the place. Firing everyone only meant chaos and disorder.
WNU Editor,
Many neoliberals, Neocon's and Libertairians believe that the "natural state" of man is free markets, minimal governance and voluntary shared common cause.
By turning Iraq into a Pathet Lao Year Zero State, a libertarian paradise would "naturally" arise.
There's no plan for post-Assad Syria, either, beyond some vague notion of preserving the institutions of the government and the military. Without the Russian intervention we would inevitably see ISIS and Al Nusra fighting it out in Damascus, much like the rival gangs in Libya.
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