Inept Libyan Rebels a Big Disappointment

All people in favor of human liberation have to be disappointed by the pathetic military qualities of the Libyan rebels. Unfortunately they have proven to be nothing more than a totally unorganized rabble with AK-47s and a few heavier weapons. Their idea of combat is to race forward, firing their weapons into the air (wasting ammo, which they are short of to begin with- they also like to fire off ammo into the sky whenever their spirits are high on whatever piece of good news they've heard that moment) and then run for their lives the second Qaddafi's forces start shelling them. Typical Arabs, they veer between two emotional states: preposterously hyperbolic bluster, bombast, and braggadocio, and bitterly whining and blaming their problems on the West, NATO, the UN, the "international community" for not rescuing them. They take big (how many times have they already said they were going to take Tripoli "in a few days"?) then blame outsiders for their failures. They think that if someone gave them more weapons, they could magically win battles. As if it takes no training to operate a tank, fire an artillery piece and actually hit a target, ditto a mortar, a rocket launcher, a machine gun, whatever. A telling vignette occurred in the first couple of weeks, when a deserting army officer tried to organize them by having them line up. (The very first basic baby-step of military training- learning to line up at attention and march.) Immediately a loud argument broke out because these fools just wanted to run off and fire their guns.

A month in to this spontaneous rebellion, no lessons have been learned, no organization has occurred, no command structure has been created. It's just bands of guns in cars and pickups racing hither and yon, running for their lives as soon as they meed resistance, yelling "run!" like the Knights in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's a sad joke.

The so-called Committee or Council or whatever the hell name it has doesn't have any authority over anyone- it just tries to fool outsiders that it somehow constitutes a government and asks for weapons and aid. It's a grabbag of various Libyans, some of dubious background, including Qaddafi regime apparatchiks.

Here's a suggestion: let their fellow Arabs, the Egyptians, which could roll over Qaddafi in a week or less, help them out. The military junta in Egypt, left intact after the so-called "revolution" that only ousted Mubarak and his small clique, refuses to aid their Arab brothers. (Some Libyans are Berbers, just to be accurate.) Air power cannot win the war for the rebels, unless Qaddafi is specifically targeted. For some reason "the West" is gunshy about doing this. Guess they don't want to be seen killing a member of the Club of Rulers, even one who has been told to step down. The whining rebels blame their impotence on not enough air power, instead of their own incompetence. At least we hear less of the bullshit bluster about how Tripoli is going to fall tomorrow.