spooked by Libya

"U.S. inattention to Libya breeds chaos," reads the headline over David Ignatius' latest column. He says that President Obama wants to increase U.S. support to the fledgling government including training several thousand Libyan troops, but that little has happened. Much of the blame he puts on "Congressional Republicans" for what he calls a "Libya phobia." He says top GOP lawmakers strongly opposed letting Libyans come to the U.S. for education and training.

My sense is that the whole government mostly would like Libya to go away. The State Department doesn't want another security problem like what led to the killing of the U.S. ambassador. Other agencies want to stay out until security is guaranteed. And congressional Republicans are following a version of the Giuliani method, where every sentence has a noun, a verb, and Benghazi.

It's a shame we haven't learned to manage and cope with threats, and not be paralyzed by them.