the political intent behind training Libyans was surely admirable.
I disagree. The intent was primarily to be seen as doing something, and secondly to avoid boots on the ground. A moment's reflection or inquiry would have told the politico's that this was doomed from the start. Training small numbers of African officer candidates is hard enough, even when they've been cherry-picked. There is a wealth of experience in the British military in training overseas candidates, of which I did a small bit, and I suspect every single one of us said this was a really dumb idea from the start in the current PC environment. So,of course, they weren't asked.