Libyan rebels retreating after Gadhafi onslaught...."Sarkozy, where are you?"

[Baclava]

Tuesday, 03.29.11

RAS LANOUF, Libya -- Libyan government tanks and rockets pounded rebel forces into a panicked full retreat Tuesday after an hourslong, back-and-forth battle that highlighted the superior might of Moammar Gadhafi's forces, even hobbled by international airstrikes.

No such strikes were launched during the fighting in Bin Jawwad, where rebels attempting to march on Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte ended up turning around and fleeing east under overcast skies. Some fleeing rebels shouted, "Sarkozy, where are you?" - a reference to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the strongest supporters of international airstrikes.

World leaders in London, meanwhile, debated how far they should go to force an end to Gadhafi's 41-year autocratic rule. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the world must speak with a single voice to ensure that the North African country "belongs not to a dictator, but to its people."

Rockets and tank fire sent Libya's rebels in a panicked scramble away from the front lines. The opposition was able to bring up truck-mounted rocket launchers of their own and return fire, but they went into full retreat after government shelling resumed.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/29/2139181/libyan-rebels-shelled-outside.html#

----------------

It seems Sarkozy may be busy working out new oil deals with the Arab League - he'll get back to you.

[dipsydoodle]

1. "belongs not to a dictator, but to its people"

About time she read up on US interference in Latin American over the past 60 years.

What a hypocrite.

[Baclava]

8. Besides that...WE've washed our hands of it all now, isn't that what I heard?

It's up the Libyans now...and the NATO commander is in charge, right?

Any civil war bloodbath won't be on OUR hands anymore - yippee

[strategery blunder]

2. This is when the rebel commanders must train their own fighters

The airstrikes are intended to protect civilians. There aren't a whole lot of civilians to protect in the open desert.

Once Ajdabiyah was freed, the rebels seemed to have advanced so quickly that commanders couldn't keep up with or organize them. That was pretty much a consequence of Gaddafi blowing his wad on Benghazi--when that failed, he had nothing left in the east to resist. He's had to deploy forces from the west to fortify Sirte, and those forces are now harrassing the rebels in the open desert on the way to Sirte.

I recognize that any delay gives Gaddafi more time to slaughter; however, if the rebel fighters do NOT want "boots on the ground" (a sentiment with which I can definitely empathize), they need to stop and consolidate their position long enough for the army officers who defected to their cause to train them in open mobile warfare tactics. They cannot rely upon a supportive local populace as they pass through desert where there is no populace to support them.

[Baclava]

3. The problem is the "rebels" just learned how to load their AK's last week.

According to all the reports I've seen/heard they are a militia of civilians, picking up weapons as they go. They are NOT a fighting force by any stretch of the imagination, and any armed resistance by govt. forces they encounter will have them out-gunned and out-manned in any urban door-to-door fighting.

Unless we start blowing up towns and villages in govt. control I don't see them winning any one-on-one military battles as they move into 'enemy territory'.

that's just my view

[Catherina]

5. I think the same. The West had to methodically pave their way to the oil fields with bombs

because enough people aren't rising up to support them. There's no way they're going to take Tripoli or other towns that failed to rise & greet this uprising unless Western Forces get on the ground. Quagmire.

[The Magistrate]

7. Enough People Are There, Ma'am, The Lack Is Training And Organization

That takes some time even the most basic training could be barely crammed into six weeks.

[Hugabear]

28. So what do you propose we do about that?

If the rebels need time to train and organize, are we supposed to just keep providing them with protection until they get their shit together? How long will that take? A few months? A year? During that time, do we just keep pounding Libyan forces from the air? Or since that isn't adequate, should we deploy ground troops to protect them?

[dkf]

33. But the rebels will still have to kill civilians taking up arms for Gaddafi.

That can't possibly be what we are there for can it?

And if taking up arms means you are part of the military, then isn't Gaddafi within his right to use his military against rebels with arms?

[The Magistrate]

34. The Legal Distinction, Ma'am, Is Between Combatant And Non-Combatant

Persons who join irregular units on the sde of the government are combatants.

At this point, Gaddahfi has no rights anyone is bound to respect....

[dkf]

35. And the rebels are combatants or civilians?

They must be combatants too.

[The Magistrate]

37. Do You Imagine, Ma'am, These Are Searching Questions?

The resolution, in its crafted wisdom, says civilians. A person with a mind to do so could take this as indicating the rebels are civilians, as they are not members of a state's armed forces, and then turn around and state with the straightest of faces that persons recruited into any armed capacity by the government cease immediately to be civilians, as they are then part of a state's armed forces, whether regular or otherwise. It would not trouble me to make such arguments in sequence, if commissioned to it, or otherwise interested in a particular outcome.

That is probably not the line employed in conducting military action by the U.S. and NATO, however. Gaddahfi has made statements threatening serious reprisals against the populace of 'dis-loyal' areas, and established by past behavior these threats are credible. Therefore pretty much any military formation loyal to him can be considered a threat to civilians, and particularly so if it is drawn up near a populated area.

The intention is to do sufficient damage to forces loyal to Gaddahfi that they either desert his cause, or are rendered impotent against the rebel irregulars, but doing this requires under present mores a pretext of the sort provided in the language of S,C,R, 1973.

Of absolutely no concern is whether this is fair or honest. These things have nothing to do with trials of will and power.

[thewiseguy]

11. Your signature contains a link to an anti semitic website

Then you are worried about Libyan women wearing Burka? LOL

Here is the first story from the trusted news source in your signature:

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Look at this: when Zionists desperately insert Hizbullah into a story in Western public eye
"Intelligence on the rebel forces battling Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has shown "flickers" of al Qaeda or Hezbollah presence, but there is still no detailed picture of the emerging Libyan opposition, NATO's top operations commander said on Tuesday."

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/

You are not fooling anybody here.

[joshcryer]

15. Couldn't believe when BBC ran one of his tweets.

That guy is a total nutcase to beat the band.

[strategery blunder]

6. I am well aware of that problem

The solution (at least the one that allows the Libyans the most self-determination when all is done) is for the rebel commanders to rein in their fighters and say "Hey, wait a minute, open desert warfare is not like urban warfare--hold up so we can teach you how to deal with that shit."

The rebel fighters need a bit of boot camp. Badly. For obvious reasons, I'd rather the officers who defected do the training instead of Western "military advisers."

The downside, as I mentioned earlier, is that stopping to train gives Gaddafi more time to butcher the parts of Libya that he still controls. But short of the rebels inviting MORE Western involvement, a course of action that I would question, it must be done.

(Edit because I thought I replied to the wrong post, when in fact I did not.) :P

[Baclava]

9. It's OK

:P

Just one thing. NO US troops on the ground advising anything.

We know how that 'advisors' game turned out in the 'Nam.

[The Magistrate]

10. It Will Be Contract Employees, Sir

Six weeks is about the minimum in which anything worth doing in the needed line can be done.

[Baclava]

12. 6 weeks to send in civilian contractor advisors to train the rebels?

Wouldn't it be faster and cheaper just to recruit some of them Al-Qaeda fellas to the coalition?

They probably have their own AK's and RPG's and know how to run an operation like this - I say welcome aboard!
(OK - we'll keep them away from the shoulder fired Stingers - just to be safe)

War makes strange bedfellows. We have us a Ground War to win, and the rebels need all the help they can get.

You know how Americans have them short attention spans - they want this deal over with in 'days, not weeks'.

Let's get crackin'

[The Magistrate]

14. Not To Get The Contract Boyos In, Sir, To Get The Recruits Into Even Minimal Shape

There is a lot more to the business than just holding a gun and trying to look fierce.

[Baclava]

21. 'Vietnamization' of the Libyans? Oh no - we tried that before too.

Perhaps the Korean model would work better - a 'ceasefire', a line in the sand DMZ, an 'East-West Libya' stand-off.

That should give them a few years to train a decent force...


nah - bombs away!

Keep blowing the hell out of Tripoli till we get lucky and nail Moe, it's the only way to be sure.

[The Magistrate]

22. Try And Keep Current, Sir

The model is Croatia, circa '95, but a hurry-up job by comparison, and under an air umbrella, hopefully without the complete Balkan trimmings.

It will not be pretty, but what is?

[Baclava]

23. Croatia was a bloodbath with slaughtering done by so many sides so many times I forgot who was who

That's not something I would want to see again.

[The Magistrate]

25. If You Knew The Players, It was Pretty Easy To Keep Track Of, Sir

That is an interesting little corner of the world: someone said they manufacture so much history there the local matket cannot absorb it, and they are forced to export the excess....

[Fool Count]

27. You can train the rebels until cows come home,

and you can give them all the arms in the world, they will still turn their backs and run away at the first sound of gunfire.
That's because they are simply not prepared to die for their cause. They are just a bunch of mostly middle class Libyan
men - lawyers, shopkeepers, students, teachers - who may have many valid reasons to be angry with Qaddafi and to want
him gone, but most of them have a relatively comfortable middle-class life they left behind and want to go back to after
this whole thing plays itself out. For them gunplay is nice and fun and makes them look manly as long as their precious
lives are in no real danger. They want Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama to fight their war for them. As long as Libyan army
remains loyal to Qaddafi, there will be no regime change in Libya without full-on NATO occupation of the country. Those
who think otherwise are deluding themselves.

[The Magistrate]

30. While You, On The Other Hand, Sir, Are A Steel-Eyed Soul Born For War....

[strategery blunder]

36. Well, it's not like Gaddafi is well known for mercy.

I am willing to give the rebels credit for enough intelligence to know that their lives are forfeit at this point. They can die in battle, or they can die after the battle when Gaddafi's thugs execute them. If they lose, running might extend their lives by a week, but will not save them. They've already thrown themselves in that situation, knowing the risks, and knowing from the start that NATO involvement was NOT certain. It took NATO something like four weeks before it finally intervened under the auspices of the UN, and even then only because Gaddafi made clear he would not care to make any distinction between the rebel fighters and civilians, as required by international law. Under those conditions, survival is a bonus, anything but guaranteed.

The problem is that the rebel fighters don't know what the fuck they are doing from a military standpoint. The officers who defected really do need to corral them in and train them in elementary tactics.

But Magistrate made this point far more concisely than I ever could...

[sad sally]

29. Those weapons you see mounted on the Toyota pickups don't

look exactly like the kind somebody had hidden in their closet, and some of the shooters seem like they know what they're doing. It's the guys bouncing along behind that don't look very well trained.

[The Magistrate]

31. Defecting Units, Ma'am, Passed Out Some Of Their Gear At The Start

There are doubtless some veterans, and serving soldiers in mufti, among the bands, but this remains raw militia as a body.

[sad sally]

32. I don't agree with you, but I salute your politeness

As an old lady, it's nice to be called ma'am.

[Catherina]

4. It won't be pretty when they realize how they've been played Rec'd n/t

[joshcryer]

16. They weren't played. And they'll earn their democracy.

Bank on it.

[Distant Observer]

13. OH the rebels just have sticks and stones! But, isn't that some multiple rocket launchers on those

fleeing trucks?

Isn't that pickup filled with guys armed with RPGs.

Must be mistaken. The rebels aren'kill the pro-Gaddafi fighters before they can advance.

[joshcryer]

17. They're untrained civilians for the most part.

They could have an entire years worth of grads and fail to use them effectively.

[Distant Observer]

18. Not any more true than for the pro-Gaddafi supporters -- Libya's military was decentralized to

the various provinces. It was a characteristic of Gaddafi's Libya that militant groups were allowed to operate with little constraint.

The East had its own brigades that quickly joined their fellow Cyrenaicans once they rose up in armed struggle.

For some reason they don't seem as motivated to risk their lives as the pro-Gaddafi forces being obliterated by Western air strikes.

[joshcryer]

20. Gaddafi has trained mercenaries and a trained military, there's no comparison.

There is absolutely no reason to run from freaking arty when you have the numbers (watch the videos, they have hundreds of vehicles, each with people, at least 500-1000 at the front lines, and all of them retreated because of a few rocket hits).

[Distant Observer]

24. And where did you get this from. Any source outside of the recent "opposition" propaganda

campaign??

[bluestate10]

26. The best trained, best equipped units in Libya are controlled by Qaddafi or his

family. The army was purposely kept weak. Even the soldiers that support the rebels are no match for Qaddafi units. The west need keep destroying Qaddafi armor and troops.

[F Bastiat]

19. and the objective is...?

[Starry Messenger]

38. k&r