The CIA is stretched thin and the unruly and violent post-war Libya could present more problems for this US response

The US is in the process of sending more spies, investigators, Marines, and drones to Libya in response to this week’s attack on the consulate building, but this response is complicated by a chaotic security situation in post-war Libya.

“The CIA has fewer people available to send,” reports the Associated Press, “stretched thin from tracking conflicts across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.” The intelligence teams sent to Libya during the war have now been sent to the Turkish-Syrian border to aid the proxy war there.

Part of the problem is that the US-backed government NATO helped bring to power with their air war against the Gadhafi regime is not in control of the country and barely even recognized by most of the arms militias that span the country.

The Obama administration’s decision to send more forces and drones to Libya came in response to an attack on the US consulate building that killed the American ambassador, two US Marines and another American. An al-Qaeda affiliate is expected to have been behind the onslaught, and it may have even included infiltrators within the Libyan government security forces.

None of this bodes well for the future of American military involvement in the unruly and violent Libya, which it seems can only get messier, nor does it reflect well on the US-led NATO mission to impose regime change in the country, which did not bring a new democratic government as promised.