Intellectual disarmament

Here's an exceedingly odd article in Foreign Policy about the accelerating collapse of Libya, because Republicans.  What I apparently didn't understand before is that the purpose of a Congressional investigative committee is not to look into malfeasance by United States officials but to solve Libya's internal problems.  The author sputters with outrage that Republicans in Congress have obsessed about the President's "bungled communications" about Benghazi rather than about how to transform Libya into a paradise without committing either treasure or blood.  That turns out to be the proper task of the opposition party rather than, say, the White House or the State Department.  Here are the helpful ideas of the State Department, by the way:

"Libya has many challenges, and we're aware of that," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday.  "We believe they cannot be overcome if its leaders don't settle differences through dialogue and work together." 

Last week, in London, Secretary of State John Kerry pledged to do "all we can to help the Libyans" solve their political problems. "We need to try to accelerate the effort to bring about stability and security and the governance that is necessary to provide the time and the space for Libyan authorities to be able to confront the threat from extremism and the challenges that their country faces of just providing governance to their people. . . ." 

But it seems the problem wasn't the flabby emptiness of these sentiments; it was Congress's inexplicable refusal to provide "resources":

With the hours upon hours of hearings dedicated to Benghazi, very little of that time focused on how Congress could help provide the resources the administration might need to improve the situation in Libya.  The fact that this isn't likely to change bodes poorly for the country's future.

The article mentions the administration's alert readiness to evacuate the Libyan embassy as soon as things go from desperate to nightmarish this time.  (Not gonna make that mistake twice!)  Imagine the morale in that embassy.  "Yes, this cesspool of a country's blowing up, and I can't imagine what professional sins I must have committed to have been assigned here, but I take comfort in knowing that Washington has my back."