On Fri, 30 Oct 2015 12:42:55 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I seem to recall discussions during the hearing of the overthrow of
Gaddafi. I guess I've forgotten what "the plan" was to fill the power
vacuum in Iraq after the Bush/Cheney war.

*That* was the biggest error made by Bush and his administration. They
didn't anticipate a power vacuum. They planned and called for free
elections allowing the people of Iraq to democratically choose their
leadership like the rest of the civilized, free world.

That is the flaw in our thinking. We tend to assume these 3d world
countries are "civilized" and just waiting for a Jeffersonian
democracy to be offered to them.
They are ruled by dictators because that is the only form of
government that can control them. Without that single point of
control, they quickly dissolve into a warring rabble of feuding tribes
and cults with 1000 year old conflicts.

If the west would just leave them alone to kill each other, they would
leave us alone. You notice, we don't see a lot of terrorism here
coming from central Africa. That is because we are not spending a lot
of time there meddling in their civil wars. They are more interested
in "death to that guy down the road" than "death to America".