Last week an Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone was shot down near Benghazi, Libya. This prompted an investigation by U.S. Africa Command.

In a statement provided to Military Times, U.S. AFRICOM spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Pietrack said that the “aircraft was operating in support of U.S. Ambassador and Special Envoy to Libya Richard Norland’s diplomatic engagements” when it crashed.

I can't even imagine what sort of "diplomatic engagements" one could make with a reaper drone. That requires a definition of "diplomacy" that doesn't exist in my dictionary.
Between March and October of 2011, NATO bombed Libya around 26,000 times.

During the 7-month period from March to October 2011, the NATO air raids over Libya resulted in between 90,000 to 120,000 casualties. The airstrikes were carried out mainly by American, British, French and Italian planes. The bombings turned much of Libya’s cities into rubble and displaced over 2 million people, in a country whose population was a modest 6.2 million.
The Italian Foreign Affairs Minister, Franco Frattini, acknowledged in June 2011 that NATO was “endangering its credibility” by targeting civilians, intentionally or not.

Less than 5% of the population was undernourished near the end of Gaddafi’s reign. Libya boasted the highest life expectancy on the African continent and the lowest infant mortality rate.
Today Libya is known for it's open-air slave markets, where anyone can buy a slave for $400 (although there are reports of slaves being sold for just $200. Yah, for the free market!).
Despite all of this suffering and death that we've inflicted upon the people there, the Pentagon has never found it necessary to stop dropping bombs. In 2018 a drone strike killed 11 civilians in Libya, who were just a tiny fraction of the 1,300 innocent civilians that we killed that year in the Middle East.
The following year another U.S. reaper drone was shot down in Libya.

Another place that we never left was Afghanistan.

While Biden has considerably scaled back the various anti-terror wars, he plainly still believes that America has the right to kill anyone it deems a threat, anywhere, at any time, regardless of whether capture or extradition might be feasible. Authoritarian states all around the world have taken notice...
The Americans proved that they never left Afghanistan, and they could still do whatever they want at the push of a button, leaving Afghans with no recourse.

Supposedly we no longer have boots on the ground in Afghanistan, but is that even true? We have no way of knowing, and even if it was true, does it matter?
Interestingly, I found an article from 2021 titled Why the US will never leave Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is one of the richest mining regions in the world, holding untapped mineral wealth and rare Earth elements estimated at roughly $3 trillion. Rare Earths are essential to lithium batteries and computer chips that power disruptive technologies, including everything from laptops and mobile devices to GPS systems, precision-guided weapons, drones, satellites, stealth aircraft, and hypersonic weapons....
Given these realities, while it is likely President Biden may carry out his promise to withdraw America’s remaining military forces in Afghanistan, the U.S. is not going to leave or abandon Afghanistan and concede that vital space to China. The U.S. will not tolerate Afghanistan, and its rare Earth mineral wealth, falling under China’s control. Biden’s challenge will now be to convince a war-fatigued American people that the U.S. will likely never leave Afghanistan.

Ah yes. Imperialism via pillaging of resources.
Just as interesting, I spotted this article from earlier this year.

The New York Times highlighted on 22 August 2011, two months before Gaddafi’s death, that “the scramble to secure access to Libya’s oil wealth is already on”, and Gaddafi “proved to be a problematic partner for the international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with”.

I believe that Smedley Butler would recognize this gunboat diplomacy. Although, for once, it looks like the British and French were leading this effort, rather than the CIA.

On 24 February 2011 a British frigate ‘HMS Cumberland’ sailed into Benghazi in northern Libya, and British Special Air Service (SAS) commandos disembarked from the ship. London further dispatched MI6 agents to Libya, and there were US Navy SEALs and French special forces operating in Libya, usually through disguises in Arab dress.

The NATO intelligence services and elite forces collaborated with the anti-Gaddafi militants; granting them large-scale assistance with the planning of military operations, targeting of bombings, and gathering of intelligence on Gaddafi forces sometimes with the use of drones. With the attack 5 months old, on 20 August 2011 a NATO warship dropped anchor on the Libyan coastline. The vessel was laden down with heavy weaponry and it contained elite personnel from America’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the French Land Special Forces Brigade (BFST), and Britain’s SAS.
Also on board, this NATO ship were former Jihadists

Brown University recently released a Costs of War Project report. It does NOT include Libya in this summary, but it does include Pakistan.