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Dennis Kucinich: Interventionism Led to Broader Security Failure in Libya - Reason 24/7 : Reason.com

Dennis Kucinich: Interventionism Led to Broader Security Failure in Libya

October 10, 2012

Departing Congressman Dennis Kucinich said at today's hearing on security failures in Benghazi that rather than engaging in partisanship Congress ought to look at its role in failing to curb American interventionism as what led to the terrorist attack in Benghazi on 9/11, saying extremists exist and are more powerful in Libya because the U.S. "spurred a civil war" there, "absent constitutional authority, might I add."

Kucinich blamed "decades of intervention" on the rise of extremists in the region and asked why no lessons from Iraq were drawn on Libya.

"Interventions do not make us safer," Kucinich said, "they are themselves a threat to America," before asking how much more Al-Qaeda there is in Libya now than before the U.S. intervention (the only answer he got was that they have a bigger presence in Libya than the U.S. does, from Lt. Col. Andrew Wood). He also asked how many surface-to-air missiles were still missing since the U.S. intervention. Between 10 and 20,000, according to one of the witnesses.

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Some of americas greatest failures: That americans perceive that they are better than everyone else and must intervene whenever possible. Add to that - americans don't play war as they would play chess - they cannot see beyond two moves ahead - therefore they don't see exactly where things will end up.

It happened in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq (both times, but more specifically the more recent one), Afganistan, now Libya (yet again as pointed out in this example), and soon to be Iran. And that's just a small sampling of examples; it actually started before america was actually named.

What's also interesting. Most of the rest of the world can clearly see exactly what is going on, and also exactly where it will end for america. Even private organizations like Jane's have also done a much better job than the entire government of the united states

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The following recent article from Tom Engelhardt is well worth a read for a good discussion of the issue of Libya and its context within US foreign policy:

Overwrought Empire

Some of the Libya passages very much support what Kucinich says:

Take Libya, as an example. It briefly seemed to count as a rare American military success story: a decisive intervention in support of a rebellion against a brutal dictator — so brutal, in fact, that the CIA previously shipped “terrorist suspects,” Islamic rebels fighting against the Gaddafi regime, there for torture. No U.S. casualties resulted, while American and NATO air strikes were decisive in bringing a set of ill-armed, ill-organized rebels to power.

In the world of unintended consequences, however, the fall of Gaddafi sent Tuareg mercenaries from his militias, armed with high-end weaponry, across the border into Mali. There, when the dust settled, the whole northern part of the country had come unhinged and fallen under the sway of Islamic extremists and al-Qaeda wannabes as other parts of North Africa threatened to destabilize. At the same time, of course, the first American casualties of the intervention occurred when Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in an attack on the Benghazi consulate and a local “safe house.”