Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News "Unintended Consequences of Military Intervention"

...this is a wonderful reminder that military attacks, military interventions, lead to awful consequences. So, clearly, what we see — and it goes, really, back to the intervention in Libya. The military intervention in Libya, ousting Gaddafi, essentially unleashed massive caches of weapons, coming both from the Libyan side, but also, you know, from the Western side that was flooding Libya with weapons. Those weapons made their way to Mali and created an opportunity for ongoing conflicts in the north to really escalate. So, I think we see these unintended consequences of military intervention. And we have to underscore that, you know, often what we’re doing is breeding more enemies, breeding more extremists at every turn....

...the U.S. has been involved in Mali in training the military and equipping, arming the military of Mali. I think we have to really examine particularly U.S. taxpayer dollars. Where are they going? And what are the results? You know, it is a U.S.-trained army captain, Sanogo, who actually launched the coup in Mali and has launched now a series of coups and counter-coups since last March. But, you know, the U.S. has played a very heavy hand in terms of support for the military already. It has not brought the results intended.

the level of intelligence in Washington has gone down precipitously

I think what we have is a case that since the current policies are diametrically opposed to yours, you have concluded their intelligence is low.

The discussion in the original post is itself misguided, and informed more by political viewpoint than factual accuracy. While I generally agree that military intervention always has unintended consequences, almost always bad, there are some naive assumptions that inform the piece from the beginning. In the introduction Mr. Gonzales states, " Islamist militants opposed to the French air strikes in neighboring Mali had seized the gas facility near the Libyan border on Wednesday." As with many such pronouncements, the speaker uncritically accepts the post hoc justifications for an action by the perpetrators, when they are clearly belied by the circumstances. This is a criminal gang, pure and simple, using a figleaf of ideology to excuse their criminal enterprise. It's a money-making endeavor.

Almost all military intervention is almost always economically motivated. Ideology is always the "story" used to justify military intervention to the plebe. I see no difference between one perpetrator or the other.
I also don't think you'll find any piece of journalism that is not politically biased.

Almost all military intervention is almost always economically motivated.

Ideology is always the "story" used to justify military intervention

But not always.
That might be stretching the truth a little. Let's just say almost always.