Jay,

If you ever make up your damn fool mind...please let us know.

So what do the French do now?  They recognized the PTNC as the government of free Libya, and they will probably be hunted down.  The French are almost obligated to act to defend them.

Hopefully, the rebels will show their true strength in defending Benghazi, and will turn the tide.

Jay,

As the financial guru book states "hope is not a strategy. The "rebels" in Benghazi are obviously full of vinegar owing to Sarkozy's recognition - and yes, I'm sure they now believe the French won't let Bengazi fall. If that is true, then their strategy is both clever and has succeeded.

Like you said, Ras Lanuf and Brega are meaningless - the logistics of the move to Benghazi from Brega will be beyond any immediate lunge - so the key is France. But why with Sarkoz do it?

Well, maybe they've struck some deal to snarf the oil and gas exports out from under the Italians and at cheaper prices. If true, it would be worth a French no-fly zone with a bunch of legionnaires in mufti to stiffen the defense of the new "frontier" somewhere west of Benghazi.

As the French make us Americans look like doofus' when it comes to exploiting former colonials - they are really good at this - I wouldn't find this surprising at all.

Tim

lol@doofi. 

love this thread.

The brega situation is interesting.  Two days ago we were being told that the government had just sailed through and taken it.  But it looks like these amateurs are hanging on by their fingertips.

I think a big part of our problem in figuring out what is happening stems from the laziness of the press and media.  They get a press release from Gaddafi's people, edit it slightly and then release as if it is a) their own work and b) reliable news.

There's also the fact that young hotheads wearing bandanas and firing AK47s into the air makes good footage while the patient preparation for a showdown in Benghazi would be  pushing our pitiful attention spans - so they don't show it or even talk about it.

And lastly, if anyone is still awake, it is much easier to say that one side is winning or losing than it is to report a complicated and fluidly developing situation where the balance of advantage is (yawn!) complicated....

I still think that Gaddafi is finished.  I'm becoming ambivalent about the need for help from outside though.

Yes, of course, and the only opinions we should listen to...are those from some bus driver who lives somewhere in Great Britain.

Yikes! What a world we live in.

BigC,

Thank you for the link to the "Brega situation" above.  It helped me to find this article, which answers some questions about just who the hell the LPNTC is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12698562

It looks like there is some competent and respected leadership afterall.

I am doing the best I can not to be emotional about the situation in Libya.  I still think that intervention is a terrible idea.  Owly has been posting about the no-fly zone, but I truly believe that this would have limited impact.  It is not like the loyalists are using their fighter jets to destroy columns of rebel armor, take out rebel command and control centers, or cripple communications towers relied upon by the rebels to coordinate their forces.  500 pound bombs employed against infantry are only effective if you happened to catch them all in one place, such as a mess hall, or sleeping in barracks, perhaps.  The Libyan jets have a pyschological impact, and not much more.  Instituting a no-fly zone will have no impact on the actual fighting, will taint the Arab grass roots nature of the revolt, might convince the fence-straddlers in Libya to side with the government over the foreigners, and might obligate more action when it has no impact.  Once you start that ball rolling, it is hard to get the genie back in the bottle.

Owly,

The tragedy of this business is we are not seeing the 'fall of the Berlin Wall 1989 moment' but rather the Prague Spring or worse still the Hungarian revolution of 1956. If Gaddafi wins it will snuff out the lamp of Liberty across the Middle East and some of us will not live to see it relit. 

I still have hope.  I remember when the Yugoslav war was raging.  The Serbs had control of half of Croatia and all of Bosnia basically, and everything seemed hopeless.  I remember a Croatian leader stating rather casually that his forces could drive the Serbs out of Croatia in 3 days or less.  He seemed crazy, but a month or so later the Croats suddenly rose up and smashed the Serbs.  They drove them completely out of the country in a single afternoon.

It is disheartening to see "the rebels" getting driven out of town after town, but I have to believe that somewhere out there in the Libyan desert there are camps training the actual force that will fight Gadaffi with organization, determination, and tactic.

I was hoping that these rebels that are in Brega and Ras Lanuf would be semi-disciplined fighters that could stall the loyalist advance in the effort to give the forces in Benghazi more time to coalesce into an actual army.  It is going to take training to teach people how to fight armor with nothing more than RPGs.  If such combat is in an urban setting I would always give the advantage to squads of RPG weilding infantry over tanks.  When fighting erupts in the streets of Benghazi, it is going to be between loyalist troops of questionable moraleand loyalty on one side and a force of rebels who understand that they are probably fighting for their very lives.  They know that their choice is to either stand on their feet and take a bullet in the chest while aiming a RPG at a tank, or surrender and take a bullet to the back of the head while on their knees.

I don't think that Gadaffi is doing anything more than driving the rebellion underground at the moment.  Libyan defiance of Gadaffi has been unleashed, and it can never be fully contained as long as this remains a Libyan affair.  If the West gets involved in this, I do believe that there will be a sizable contingent of Libyans that would rather rally around Gadaffi than tolerate foreign meddling.  That might be only 10% of Libyans, but that might be enough to change the balance of power on the ground as more people join the loyalist cause.

As I have repeatedly said here, this is going to take a while.  It is going to get worse before it gets better, but we have to be strong and stay out of it.  (I would like to see an embargo on Libyan oil, however.)

Tim,

Thanks for the reply.

Like you said, Ras Lanuf and Brega are meaningless - the logistics of the move to Benghazi from Brega will be beyond any immediate lunge

I am often careless when expressing my ideas.  I didn't mean to imply that Ras Lanuf and Brega were not significant economic and therefore military objectives.  I was trying to say that their fall to loyalists was not necessarily a sign of the immediate inevitability of a Gadaffi victory.

From what I have been reading lately, those "rebels" "defending" Ras Lanuf and Brega were actually tribal irregulars (estimated by Haaretz to be between 500 and 1,000 in strength) that raced ahead of the "Benghazi army" despite their efforts to reign them in.  It is hardly surprising that they were routed if that is indeed the case.

I think that Gadaffi will probably launch an assault on Benghazi immediately.  He needs to reclaim any territory that is currently allowing forces to organize against him before they are strong enough to present an actual military challenge to his rule.  I am not sure what his force strength is, and whether or not he has the resources to hold Ras Lanuf and Brega while simultaneously launching an attack on Benghazi.

From what I understand, the "loyalists" are actually paramilitary brigades commanded by his sons.  The actual Libyan army has been ignored since being routed by Chad in the 1980s.  I referenced this earlier as "The Toyota War", which makes for interesting reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War

I also earlier said that I thought Gadaffi would need to result to the level of brutality shown by Syria's Hafez Assad in Hama to put down this revolt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre

But didn't believe he would do it because it would invite foreign intervention.  Looks like I was wrong about that.  In town after town, Gadaffi has shown the willingness to break the resistence by initially shelling the commercial and residential districts simply to prove to the rebels that he was ferociously ruthless, and that they were outgunned.

With all of that in mind, I am anxious over the seige of Benghazi.  This is either going to be a turning point in the war as we see what the "Free Libyan" forces are capable of, or it will die with a whimper lest the rebels wish to see Benghazi resemble the destruction of 1945 Berlin.

I have to admit that I am having some quasi-racist thoughts concerning Arab dysfunctionality.  I have been reading about all the coups, uprisings and revolts that Gadaffi has weathered over the years, and I can't figure out why the resistence is not more coordinated in their campaign against him.  There have been coups launched by Warfallah officers, uprisings by Islamists, and intermittent revolts by easterners.  Gadaffi is hated by his own military for abandoning them after the Chadian war.  He is chagrined by his own UN ambassador.  Libyan tribal leaders have denounced him.  Yet still he marches toward Benghazi as if he were unopposed.  WTF?  Perhaps uprisings are just part of the culture in Libya, and this is far from the seminal event that we in the West are perceiving it as.

This makes me wonder what will happen when Gadaffi actually does fall.  This inability to work together for common cause is going to haunt Libya in a power vaccuum, or in any attempt to build and maintain a democracy, as alluded to in the clincher paragraph of this excellent article:

A quick overthrow of Qaddafi might not guarantee stability either. The carve-up of spoils has yet to begin. In the past, the strongman dominated; but with a more consensual politics each faction will demand its share. Oil workers will likely form unions, the army will want its reward for switching sides, and the tribes seek royalties for using their land for drilling and piping oil. They all want a greater proportion of the wealth that Qaddafi hitherto kept for himself and his allies. If any of the constituencies is dissatisfied, a central authority is likely to be too weak to prevent them from resorting to force to further their claims. Thanks, after all, to their looted caches of weapons.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/apr/07/battle-libya/?pagination=false

The problem with the West imposing a "no-fly zone" over Libya -- and the problem of Libya's revolution itself -- was highlighted in Monday's bizarre request by the rebel leadership for Western powers to assassinate Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. That demand, which rebel leaders in Benghazi said their representatives had made when meeting on Monday with France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, not only reflects a poor grasp of the inclinations of Western governments; it's a tacit admission that the rebels are incapable of defeating Gaddafi, even if foreign air forces kept the regime's MiGs and Sukhois grounded.

"We are telling the west we want a no-fly zone, we want tactical strikes against those tanks and rockets that are being used against us and we want a strike against Gaddafi's compound," said Mustafa Gheriani, a spokesman for the rebel Transitional National Council in Benghazi on Monday. And that list of requests underscores one of the greatest reservations held by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other Western leaders about imposing a no-fly zone: That preventing Gaddafi's air forces from taking to the skies won't fundamentally alter the outcome of what has become a civil war, but would commit Western militaries to escalate their involvement when the no-fly zone failed to stop Gaddafi, and give them ownership of the result.

Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/03/14/unable-to-defeat-gaddafi-libyan-rebels-turn-to-the-west/#ixzz1GkapjqKU

One of the most remarkable aspects of the rebellion is the utter lack of military leadership demonstrated by the roughly half a dozen senior officers who defected from Gaddafi — as well as the almost complete absence of the 12,000 troops in the east who laid down their arms at the beginning of the uprising. The most visible rebel fighters were volunteers, citizen guerrillas who took their own weapons, many raided from police and army depots, into battle and had to learn to man heavy weaponry on the job. If anything, the military officers seem to have devoted themselves more to political maneuvering than prudently preparing for the defense of the uprising. "This is basically how all revolutions turn out — revolutions never belong to the people that fight them, they belong to the people who manage to exploit the situation towards their own interest — and Libya is no different in that regard," says McGregor.

General Abdel Fattah Younes, Gaddafi's former Interior Minister turned rebel army chief of staff, insists that the rebels' falling back from Ras Lanuf and Brega is a strategy. "War is a matter of advance and tactical withdrawal," he said. "What we are trying to do is lure [Gaddafi] into an area where we can even the fight." Others are skeptical. Says McGregor: "I am not sure how a headlong tactical retreat to a town [Benghazi] that's about to be surrounded, has no defenses, has lost its ammunition dump and is about to have its power cut off is going to save the revolution."

If or when Benghazi is under immediate threat, the West is going to face stark options. "This is going to be very embarrassing for the Western countries who have demanded Gaddafi step down or have said they are 100% behind the rebellion," says McGregor. "What do they do when the rebellion starts to be crushed — are you going to watch or are you going to intervene militarily? Those are the basic choices you are going to be left with if Gaddafi's forces reach Benghazi, and that will be a decisive battle and that will be a decisive time for the foreign policy of Western countries — they will have to make a rather quick decision." France, so far the only country to recognize the rebels' National Transition Council as Libya's legitimate government, will be particularly on the spot. "Does [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy take the political hit or send in the Special Forces?" asks McGregor. Or will everyone just watch as the most dramatic revolt in the Middle East's Arab awakening is brutally crushed?

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2058832,00.html#ixzz1GkffB1Xp

Compared to the complete disaster in the east of Libya, the defense of Misrata (only 130 miles east of Tripoli) has become heroic.  Misrata is still holding out, whereas most towns in the east collapse in hours.  Hopefully, this will be the "Battle of Britain" moment for Libya which will inspire the rest of the country to defy the notion of certain defeat and fight for their themselves:

If rebels in Misrata can withstand the renewed offensive by the armed forces, the city could become a vivid counterpoint to the kind of chaos that Col. Gadhafi has threatened will arise in the country should he be forcibly removed from power. Since rebels took control of the city nearly a month ago, the city has provided the kind of successful self-rule experiment that many Libyans appear to crave...

The city's military council, which is run by officers who defected from Gadhafi's army in the early days of the uprising, has organized neighborhood militias as well as civil defense forces that have kept the city's key installations safe from attack.

The town's militia repulsed an advancing column on tanks which invaded the city on March 6, fighting a four-hour battle that ended with the retreat of the government forces. The militia has also repelled multiple attacks by Col. Gadhafi's special forces against the city's radio antenna, according to two city fighters.

Jay,

I suspect Col. Mallomar will eventually crush the rebels.  At least in the short term.  However, no one lives forever.  And he's old.  More shriveled up than a dried out dog turd on the Texas prairie in July.  Even if he manages to hold power, I doubt he will be able to pass it to his son.

Whichever side wins, Italy better get ready for a shitload of refugees.

An interesting article on Gadaffi's antics in Africa, which is also illuminating in how he is able to recruit mercenaries to defend him (if that report is indeed accurate):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/africa/16mali.html?src=recg

A possible answer to the question, "Why are the French so damn stupid?"

...Juppe’s clarion call was the latest entry in an unusual and unclear diplomatic initiative by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government. Even as Gaddafi’s military closed in on rebel forces retreating to their last major redoubt in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, the French campaign continued at the United Nations with a proposed council resolution for military action by outside powers...    

...But in all the forums, it was met with tepid U.S. and Russian responses and opposition from Germany, in effect sinking the idea. Unsaid but clear in the mind of specialists was that almost any kind of military intervention would be possible only with extensive cooperation from the United States, the only power able to field sufficient aircraft carriers, intelligence, command and control equipment and warplanes on short notice.

The aggressive French campaign, critics here [in Paris] said, in part reflected Sarkozy’s embarrassment over his government’s slow response to the earlier revolts in Tunisia and Egypt. The dictators in both nations — Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis and Hosni Mubarak in Cairo — were close allies; Paris endorsed their overthrow by popular uprisings only when it became clear they could no long hold out.

In Libya’s case, however, France has been in the lead in demanding that Gaddafi step down. It became the first country to recognize the rebel leadership as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people and remains the only one to have done so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/france-pleads-for-military-intervention-as-gaddafi-forces-attack-libyan-rebels/2011/03/16/ABSX3we_story.html

The French are notorious for perfecting the tactics to win the previous conflict, instead of thinking forward.  Here again they fall into the same old routine.  The premature French recognition may have unconsciously convinced many Benghazi rebels that help was on the way, and that may have reduced their sense of urgency about their own vital need to prepare for Gadaffi's counterattack.

So the French need American help to salvage their diplomatic and geo-political prestige?  Hahahahahaha.  Yeah, right, Pierre.  Go f**k yourselves.  Admire the hypocrisy in this quote:

“This is urgent,” [French Foreign Minister] Juppe declared on his blog, adding: “We have often seen in our contemporary history that the weakness of democracies leaves the field open to dictatorships. It is not too late to defy this rule.”

If you had had that attitude over Iraq, then you might find yourself with a friend in America these days.  The French have bungled again, but the Americans got it right (in my opinion, again).

I started this thread because I was concerned that America would ignore Egypt and Tunisia and focus on a hopeless situation (in terms of American involvement) in Libya.  To my pleasant surprise, America has maintained a distance on Libya but has been engaging Egypt.  Clinton was in Cairo a couple of days ago:

The Associated Press adds that "surrounded by a heavy contingent of U.S. and Egyptian security guards, Clinton smiled, waved and shook hands with the Egyptian citizens who thronged her during her unscheduled 15-minute stroll through the [Tahrir] square."

"Clinton's two-day visit to Egypt," the AP notes, "is aimed at encouraging the Egyptian people and their transitional leaders to hold true to the ideals of democratic reforms that propelled the revolution."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/03/16/134588663/secretary-clinton-visiting-cairos-tahrir-square-is-exciting-and-very-moving

Owly,

I just said:

this is the broadest based rebellion to Gadaffi ever.  I don't believe that the rebels are down to their last gasp.  Even if Gadaffi obliterates organized military opposition in  Benghazi and Misrata, he still has a hostile populace that has recently come into possession of large amounts of weaponry.  He is going to have to occupy his own country, with extended supply lines vulnerable to attack along a vast desert highway, in an attempt to disarm and punish entire populations.  That is not going to be easy.  (Jay)

BigC just posted this above, which is exactly what I am talking about:

And here's exactly the same thing again with a different town.  BBC News and Sky News both reported the fall of Ajdibiya yesterday but here they are  reporting an ongoing battle.

And the end of last week, the loyalists did clear Ras Lanuf, but then the battle continued.  Yesterday, the loyalists did clear Ajdibiya, but they are fighting again today.  Think of what we were facing in Iraq a few years ago.  Just because we could clear a town of insurgents, did not mean we were going to hold it.  As soon as we left, the "civilians" would reach under a bale of hay and pull out an AK-47, and that was all it took for the town to fall back into enemy hands.  Gadaffi has the same thing to deal with.  He has a dislocated insurgency with "cells" of fighters roaming about wreaking havoc, or, about to.

I recently mentioned that this is going to get worse before it gets better.  We need to start thinking about what we really want in Libya.  Just as many people insisted that Iraq "was a relatively peaceful place with a weak, isolated leader who was relatively harmless" before America invaded and turned the state into a bloodbath of anarchy, we should consider the Libyan future.  Are the Libyans better off under the relative stability of Gadaffi?

In the Lebanese Civil War, the factions were the Christians, the Sunnis, the Shi'ites, the PLO, and the Druze.  The indiscriminate fratricide was mind-blowing, and went on for 15 years.  If Gadaffi falls, there really isn't an alternative.  The Warfallah tribe is the largest in Libya--with something like a million out of a total Libyan population of 7 million, and they have remained on the sidelines so far.  That is the only large group in the nation that could possibly muster the power to influence events or enforce a peace, but that is many years of civil war away.

Libya is not like Tunisia or Egypt, with highly institutionalized militaries capable of stepping in and taking civil society under their wings during the (hopeful) transistion to democracy.  All we are thinking about today is getting rid of Gadaffi, but what happens then?  Will we be looking back to the "good ole days of Moammar" 18 months from now?