Read on Twitter
So let's talk Libya and the Neera Tanden email, which every Twitter leftists has memorized as their gotcha. Like all things on Twitter, especially events that happened when most of the commentators were children, things have been taken majorly out of context. So a thread:
First, people misunderstand what the Libya intervention actually was. They think it was some Iraq war, US go it alone type thing. When in reality, what happened was this: In 2011, the Libyan people began to rise up against their dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. Civil war broke out.
He responded by bombing the shit out of his own people. The world was outraged, and there was a widespread call for foreign help, including from within Libya. The intervention, which consisted of air missions and a no fly zone, was UN authorized and involved 19 countries.
Without the ability to kill his own people, he ended up losing the civil war, and he was killed by his own people. That led to a destabilized state, which is why most look back at the intervention now and say it likely wasn't worth it. But FP decisions aren't always easy.
The alternative was to let him continue to massacre his own people. The intervention was widely supported by Libyans at the time. Two polls found in the aftermath of the intervention, 708-80% of Libyans supported it. So where exactly does Neera Tanden fit in with this?
If you believe the Twitter, she personally initiated the Libyan war to steal all their oil. But that's far from reality. She wasn't involved in the lead up to the war at all. What everyone is referring to is a single email, send 8 months after the war initiated, as it was ending,
Neera asked a question to a colleague that because we intervened in Libya on behalf of Libyans with their support, would it be appropriate to pay for the operation with some payment from them (ie oil), rather than cut domestic spending programs for the poor due to deficits.
Doing so is not a good idea, and her colleague responded back with some reasons why doing so wouldn't be a good idea. And that's where it ended. A single bad question in an email. The motivation (not cutting programs for the poor) was right, even if the prescription was wrong.
But this was not some wide held policy belief of hers. We know that, because these were from Russian hacked Wikileaks emails, and if they had any evidence she actually believed in invading countries for oil, they would've released it. So that's it. So despite whats shared here
She didn't push for any invasion of Libya for oil. The UN sanctioned air missions that had wide spread support from the Libyan people had already happened long before this single decade old question was even asked. So that's the situation. Do what you want with it.
