Regarding the rebels, did anybody watch CNN last night?

[thewiseguy]

There was a reporter on the ground in Benghazi who had been there for about a month. They asked him about the rebels and he said that their numbers are not even close to 1000. He said the rebels comprise people from all sects of society, engineers, university students, medical students, old, young, and yes there were a handful of Al Qaeda amongst them.

He did however try to emphasize that the number of Al Qaeda affiliated fighters were very small, close to a dozen. He also said that they are not the ones running this show and it would be huge injustice to paint these rebels as Al Qaeda or radical Islamic fighters.

According to him and another CNN reporter in a different city, these rebels are not trained to fight. They are very unorganized and desert the battlefield as soon as they are attacked. This is perhaps why President Obama put the CIA folks on the ground in Libya. But I feel for our officers trying to talk to these guys and train them.

The reporters on the ground were pretty frustrated last night with the lack of training and discipline on the rebels part.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. "CIA folks"

Jesus

[northoftheborder]

2. However, it is amazing that the small number of rebels....

...have been as successful as they have been.

[thewiseguy]

4. Well not as of the past 48 hours or so.

They gave up a bunch of land back to Ghaddafi.

[Arctic Dave]

3. Why should the reporter give rat's patoot about the rebels training?

Are they reporting or doing PR?

[bahrbearian]

8. Maybe they aren't there to report, thus they are frustrated.

[LuckyLib]

5. The rebels as an organization are Keystone Kops. It's a mess and not likely to get any better.

[IcyPeas]

6. The weapons they do have, they don't know how to use....

One kid didn't know how to load his gun even. Also missiles being shot in the wrong direction. Pretty scary.

[gratuitous]

7. "Not even close to 1,000 of them"; some Al Qaeda

What's the old adage? "When you shoot at a king, you must kill him." A small, disorganized band, no matter how earnest, is going to run into big trouble staging an armed revolt against an entrenched dictator. I realize how near and dear to the hearts of Americans the people of Libya have historically been, but this revolt seems to be a poorly thought out move. How much are we willing to invest to make it succeed? Can it succeed?

[NightWatcher]

9. this is Bay of Pigs all over again

The "rebel leaders" are two guys who have either spent the past 20 years in Virginia and are connected to CIA backed groups or another oil guy who used to be in his army. No one really knows who the rank and file are. I keep seeing stories that it's starry eyed kids who shoot all their rounds into the air anytime they get nervous.

This was thrown together in great haste and is being executed sloppily with little prep.

But there's oil damnit, we must move.