he moved to suburban Virginia, where he established a life but maintained ties to anti-Gadhafi groups..."

"A 2001 book, Manipulations africaines, published by Le Monde diplomatique, traces the CIA connection even further back, to 1987, reporting that Hifter, then a colonel in Gaddafi’s army, was captured fighting in Chad in a Libyan-backed rebellion against the US-backed government of Hissène Habré. He defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his own militia, which operated in Chad until Habré was overthrown by a French-supported rival, Idriss Déby, in 1990.

According to this book, “the Haftar force, created and financed by the CIA in Chad, vanished into thin air with the help of the CIA shortly after thegovernment was overthrown by Idriss Déby.” The book also cites a Congressional Research Service report of December 19, 1996 that the US government was providing financial and military aid to the LNSF and that a number of LNSF members were relocated to the United States."

All met with varying degrees of state violence, austerity measures and with the US government refusing direct involvement.

In Libya, a civil war.

As was similar in Korea, Vietnam, briefly in Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan.*

Followed by direct involvement by the US, under the auspices of the UN and/or NATO.

Something there? Something to it? Something about civil wars which make intervention more likely? Does war debilitate or divide populations in a way which is not present in regions experiencing mass or popular movements?

What does this say about