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Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Scumbag Woodstock

Remember how the anti-war left said that we had al Qaeda jihadis in Iraq because we invaded Iraq to destroy a bloody dictatorship and then stayed to provoke jihadis to enter Iraq in response to our presence?

Yeah. Well Syria has proved to be the case study in how bloodshed skyrockets in a sectarian conflict even when we refuse to intervene against the bloody dictatorship and how jihadis have flocked to Syria despite the complete absence of American troops to "provoke" jihadis by our presence.

Libya has emerged as the case study in attacking a bizarre and potentially bloody dictatorship yet refusing to put troops on the ground after to help the authorities stabilize the country. After nearly 3 years of not being in Libya, how's that going jihadi-wise?

In the nearly 20 months since the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks, al Qaeda operatives and allied terrorists have flocked to Libya, making the fragile North African country a hub for those seeking to wage jihad from north Africa, current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials tell The Daily Beast. ...

One U.S. military contractor working on counter-terrorism in Africa summed up the situation in Libya today as simply, “Scumbag Woodstock.” The country has attracted that star-studded roster of notorious terrorists and fanatics seeking to wage war on the West.

Huh.

I'd like to add that Libya is horribly divided despite being almost uniformly Sunni, with no Shia-Sunni divide as in Syria and Iraq.

As for Iraq itself, we largely pacified the place by the time we unwisely left completely in 2011. But in our absence, sectarian strife is rising and al Qaeda is back controlling territory.

So, you know. Smart diplomacy. And al Qaeda on the run.