Libyan Rebels Retreat Further

[TomClash]

Source: NYT

OUTSIDE BREGA, Libya — The momentum of ground combat appeared to tilt in favor of forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Wednesday, as rebels seeking to oust him embarked on a large-scale withdrawal from the coastal oil town of Brega — the latest in a string of apparent setbacks.

Rebel forces also said Colonel Qaddafi’s troops had pushed them out of another oil town, Ras Lanuf, further west.

On the approaches to Brega, hundreds of cars and small trucks heading east clogged the highway as rebel forces pulled back toward Ajdabiya, recaptured from loyalist troops only days ago. Some rebels said Colonel Qaddafi’s forces, pushing eastward from Ras Lanuf, were within 10 miles of Brega. The retreating force seemed rudderless, a sea of vehicles and fighters armed with rudimentary weapons that have proved no match for Colonel Qaddafi’s better trained and better armed forces.

As rebels clustered at a gas station and small mosque between Brega and Ajdabiya, a single artillery shell or rocket exploded several hundred yards away, causing the rebels, who were chanting “God is great” and waving assault rifles, to jump into their vehicles and speed eastward.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/world/africa/31libya.html?hp

---

Now what?

[xchrom]

1. looks like ground troops. ours or nato's. nt

[Ozymanithrax]

2. Perhaps a well armed militia doesn't mean shit

in the face of a trained military.

[BOG PERSON]

3. what a bunch of weenies

from aljazeera:

The main body of opposition fighters is still composed mostly of young and untrained men who are not used to carrying weapons or fighting in a war and do not take simple precautions to protect themselves, like digging defences in the ground, our correspondent said.

"The plan seems to be for most of these youngsters to drive along the road and see how far they could get," he said.

"Another weakness of this mainly volunteer army ... they really haven't protected their flanks. Basic military rules if you were dealing with a regular army are not being followed."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/03/201132994454514581.html

[David__77]

4. There is a consistent theme from interviewed rebels...

They seem to think that they will not actually have to fight and potentially die in seizing power. There is always this hyped talk of "liberating the country" in a day. The reality is that the only way to do so is through prolonged revolutionary armed struggle, which would be a bloody affair. That is why the Western elites are so focused on hoping for some kind of "bloodless coup." But why would such a coup occur, only to open the gates to this crew? I doubt it.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Get an address for them

and mail 'em a book about the Cuban Revolution.

[greiner3]

10. Both sides in the US;

Civil War thought the struggle would be over before the first summer.

Half a million deaths later... And this was mostly without civilian casualties.

[NightWatcher]

5. I guess we'll have to send in the pros

[bowens43]

6. Obama will be trying to justify 'boots on the ground' very soon.

His bonehead decision is going to come back and bite us all in the ass......

You would think that after seeing the mess his predecessor left him he would know better then to repeat bushes mistakes.

[timo]

16. i said the exact same thing

over and over and my posts kept getting deleted!!!! I think someone didnt wanna hear the TRUTH!!

[TheLastMohican]

17. Mine too!

This is not the "change" that everybody was expecting.

He should have said about more wars in the Middle East in his inaugural speech to be done with this issue.

[No Elephants]

8. Ruh Roh.

[Gnommie]

9. Misleading title... the situation has since changed... allies will be arming rebels

News on the matter:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371056/Libya-David-Cameron-ready-arm-rebels-air-strikes-continue-Gaddafi-goes.html#comments

My opinion... Cameron and his crew make more and more desperate pleas to Gadaffi's followers to abandon him but I suspect long after the RAF has burnt out its engines he will still be there. I don't honestly know who is worse a tyrant or a hypocrite for only just a few short years ago he was being applauded by a British Prime Minister as a world leader.Suddenly he's Billy no mates and his country fair game for all. As an aside I can't help laughing at the images on TV at all the rebels firing their guns in the air and telling us what they are going to do to Gadaffi when they get hold of him. Then when a car backfires they are scurrying back eastwards. Is anyone in charge of that rag bag army?

George
http://www.gnommie.com

[The_Casual_Observer]

11. They already have arms & don't know what to do with them.

[dipsydoodle]

13. Yes but these will be prosthetics

So may of even less use to them.

[daleo]

15. They will need western trainers along with western arms

And advisers of course. All of the above will be soldiers. The soldier/trainers will fight. Then more soldiers will be landed to help the soldier/trainers.

Etc.

We saw this in Viet Nam.

[Baclava]

12. Giving them bigger popguns they don't know how to use won't help. Let Egypt send in their tanks

Egypt has 1000 M1 Abrams tanks we sold them, Why not have their Arab neighbors step up? They are right next door and could drive to Tripoli in a couple of days.

"Built by Egypt under license during 4 phases (Phase I, 550 Vehicles, Phase II, 200 Vehicles, Phase III, 125 Vehicles, and Phase IV, 125 vehicles). All vehicles were produced at M1A1 standard and later upgraded many times and in 2010 to M1A2"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_equipment_of_the_Egyptian_Army#Armored_fighting_vehicles

{edit}

Hell, for that matter - let them use those F-16's we sold them too.

"The Armed Forces of Egypt are the largest on the African continent, The Egyptian Air Force has 216 F-16s making it the 4th largest operator of the F-16 in the World. It has about 579 combat aircraft and 149 armed helicopters as it continues to fly extensively upgraded MiG-21s, F-7 Skybolts, F-4 Phantoms, Dassault Mirage Vs, and the C-130 Hercules among other planes."

[PurityOfEssence]

14. So, are they stopping to exterminate civilians as intervention supporters say they undeniably will?

This could be an interesting test for the taken-on-faith contention that Qaddafi's forces are hell-bent on killing civilians rather than defeating an insurgency. Sure, there's historical precedent for an embattled government to divert needed military resources to civilian killing: the Nazis held up military transport to the Eastern Front in 1944 in order to transport victims to the Death Camps, but that was the act of truly evil people engaging in actual genocide.

Qaddafi has threatened and blustered to scare civilians, but that isn't proof of the door-to-door psychotic slaughter that people claim is indisputably his aim.

Admiral William "Bull" Halsey said on December 8th, 1941, that "Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell." Leaders say intimidating things at times of strife.

Make no mistake: I think Qaddafi's a tyrant with blood on his hands, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's on the civilian killing spree that so many claim as FACT.