The Libyan Afterparty Comes Back to Libya

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

4/29/13

 

The Mali War was blowback from the Libya War; now we have blowback from the Mali War… in Libya. The Guardian has details on increasing violence against Western targets in Tripoli, including an attack on the French embassy last week, likely in retaliation for France’s decision to extend its mission against the Tuareg nationalists and the jihadists in northern Mali:

 

(Snip)

 

Meanwhile in northern Mali, the al-Qaeda-linked jihadists are no longer shooting dogs, banning alcohol or openly carrying arms in city streets. But citizens are still fearful, and the UN-backed African military force in the region is having a hard time keeping the peace:

 

(Snip)

 

This leaves us wondering exactly how all those clever humanitarians in the White House run the numbers these days. Do they calculate that our Libyan excursion saved more lives than have been lost in the subsequent chaos in not one but now several northern African countries? We certainly hope that whatever accounting they use is very clever, because from our back-of-the-envelope arithmetic, there has been zero benefit to the national interest from this poorly judged, poorly prepared, poorly handled war.