Doctor Cleveland's picture

    "Only 1,000 Soldiers"

    One of the frequent talking points about the Libyan rebels is that they only have about a thousand trained soldiers in their ranks. As the meme went around, it sometimes turned into only 1000 soldiers, period, which is clearly not true. And the "1000 men" meme has been used to shore up certain anti-intervention talking points, even though it undermines others.

    The most obvious use of the "only 1000 soldiers" point was to imply that intervention was hopeless, because there was no way the rebels could win. That argument doesn't look as good this morning, after the rebels have taken Ajdabiya and pushed onward, but things might swing against the rebels again in a few days or weeks.

    On the other hand, the "only 1000 soldiers" talking point doesn't go entirely well with the argument that the rebels are just another bunch of bastards for Qaddafi's own security forces. In fact, I'm sure that plenty of people in the emerging rebel leadership are bastards, of one kind or another. I don't expect that Libya is about to produce any leaders that I would vote for myself. But on the other hand, it's also pretty clear that the rebels aren't just a breakaway faction from the Libyan army and police. If this were a bunch of Qaddafi's generals going out on their own, they would have a lot more of their old troops with them, or they wouldn't do it at all. If only 1000 veterans are in this mix, that fits with a genuine ground-up popular revolt. (That doesn't mean that the revolutionaries are completely right and noble. But it might mean they represent a big chunk of Libyan society.)

    That said, I don't doubt that a lot of those 1000 trained people got their training in the Libyan army or other parts of the regime. That's where the training happens. If the rebels didn't have anybody who'd ever worn one of Qaddafi's uniforms, they wouldn't have anyone trained at all, or anyone who could train the others. We may not be happy with those guys when the dust clears, but there's no way any of this could happen without some people who've worked for Qaddafi at some point.

    In one way (and only this one), the Libyan army resembles the Continental Army circa 1776. Almost none of the American Revolutionary soldiers had much military training, and it was years before Washington could build up a small nucleus of trained soldiers. The rest knew how to fire their weapons, but that was mostly it. They had trouble moving as a group on the battlefield without breaking up (which is an easy way to get killed); they didn't have the tactical skills or the discipline that the British had. Washington's artillery commander was a guy who had owned a bookshop before the Revolution and read all the military science books he could find. (He did okay in the end; they named Fort Knox after him.)  And the few people with military training or experience that the rebels had were people who had put in time fighting for one King George or another ... guys like Washington, who'd been a militia colonel in the Seven Years' War, or Horatio Gates, who had been a major in the British Army and who some people originally considered the Americans' best potential general. (He didn't live up to the hype. Don't try putting your gold in Fort Gates.) That's your basic profile of a revolutionary army: a bunch of recruits who need to be shown where their elbow is, and a few people who have military experience but used to work for the regime.

    I'm not saying that the Libyan rebels are the American rebels, or that we should view them as morally equivalent to the Continental Army. All I'm saying is that they look pretty much the way you expect an emerging revolutionary army to look.

     

    Comments

    Now that is the most interesting comparison I've read on the web about what is happening in Libya. I truly enjoyed the read,  I believe the comparison is appropriate. 


    They're probably jihadis who got their "training" in Iraq.

    So, on the bright side, probably very able soldiers. On the less bright side, they likely love killing Americans a bit too much. I don't know how well that bodes for their eventual government.

     


    what's happening in northern Africa and the middle east reminds in large part of what happened in Europe in the 15th to 18th centuries, where religious interests used politcial interests to further their agenda and political interests ussd religious interests to futher their agenda.  Of course this unfolded over centuries, while what we are witnessing is happening in real time over the web and the 24 hour news system.  One has to wonder what effect on the mind of a jihadist who achieves victory with the help of the U.S.  One moment there is the French Indian wars and then the French help us take on the British to achieve independence.  A French Protestant finds common ground with a German Protestant, while an English Protestant and Catholic see the nation and country as bigger than their particular take on God.


    The colonies were thousands of miles away by sea from England, and the number of British soldiers could land was fairly small.

    Besides "only 1000 trained soldiers" you have "with pathetic supply of weapons". I.e. short-range weapons tha can't even come close to hitting the government opposition, so not even worth fighting in desert warfare.

    Regarding "the rebels have taken Ajdabiya", let's get real:

    Gaddafi's better-armed forces halted an early rebel advance near the major oil export terminal of Ras Lanuf and pushed them back to their stronghold of Benghazi until western powers struck Gaddafi's positions from the sea and air.

    Air strikes on Ajdabiya on Friday afternoon seem to have been decisive. ...In Washington, a US military spokeswoman said the coalition fired 16 Tomahawk cruise missiles and flew 153 air sorties in the past 24 hours, attacking Gaddafi's artillery, mechanised forces and command and control infrastructure.

    You might as well say Kosovar Albanians pushed the Serbs out of Kosovo, rather than an allied air invasion.Or that the Northern Alliance kicked out the Taliban rather than the newly organized October 2001 US support.

    So we have NATO fighting on the side of rebels, which should keep them holding the East if not the West. And as long as NATO is willing to bomb more and more civilian centers, they might even use this rag-tag team of rebels to take out Qaddafi.

    But this begs 2 questions:

    1) Why not use this Tomahawk-inspired regime change in any land we can muster a few rebels (like we helped do in Haiti last time around except we trained the rebels well enough we didn't have to provide air cover)

    2) Is the firing of cruise missiles the only way the US can be effective? The citizens of Egypt threw out their entrenched government using Tweets and street protests. To quote Isaac Asimov, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". Though I'd re-phrase it to say it's usually the first resort instead.

    Anyway, the Jasmine revolution seems over, gunboat diplomacy has returned. The "grownups" are back in charge.

     


    If you want to extend the American revolution analogy to how well armed the rebels were, Desider, that will work well. In 1776, the American troops around Boston only had enough gunpowder to give every soldier three shots, period. That's pretty badly armed, I think.

    And of course, even after years, they only managed to get rid of the British through military assistance by a superpower: the French Navy sealed the deal, even if the Americans did the fighting on the ground. Were the French motivated by their own imperial interests? Absolutely. They weren't even pretending to have a humanitarian agenda.

    I would never say that the rebels took Ajdabiya unassisted by the air strikes. They were obviously key.The question is whether the rebels can win this even with foreign air support. The jury is out. Taking Ajdabiya keeps it out, for now; if they couldn't take this city even with the air strikes, it's hard to see any route to success.

    I think the key difference between the Libya air strikes and straight-up gunboat diplomacy is that the Libya strikes are a response to an emerging crisis where stability has already vanished and civilian lives are at stake.

    It's very different from deliberately destabilizing a regime, however evil that might regime might be, in a country where things are stable and there's no wide-spread violence. Just getting rid of a dictator isn't a good reason. But Libya isn't just about getting rid of the dictator; the country melted down on its own and the dictator started killing thousands of civilians and threatening to kill thousands more. The UN Security Council resolution is aimed to prevent a massacre (and the action is only legitimate as far as it prevents such massacres). Saddam Hussein on the other hand, wasn't actively killing large groups of people in 2003. There was no more reason to attack in 2003 than there had been in 2000, or likely would have been in 2009. There was no widescale violence in Iraq until we brought it.

    In Libya, on the other hand, there was crazy bloodshed before we got involved. The best case that can be made for the Libya strikes is that they're an attempt to stop atrocities already in progress.


    I have to say I'm really getting tired of people asserting your first question, which basically amounts to a foreign policy based on the idea that the U.S. should never carry out an action in place on the globe that they will not immediately carry out everyelse that meets that criteria.  At best it shows a juvenille understanding of how the common good is served through actions in the particular are not derived from the pure angelic motives.  At worst it just using rhetoric to undermine a political entity.


    I have to say, I'm rather tired of people on the left anointing cowboy diplomacy as acceptable now that it's supposedly "our" cowboy.

    Our aid is made more effective through predictable policies. If you need monetary assistance, you need to know what to do to get it, not a voodoo laundry list of things that may or may not work. If you need external help to get a democracy started, best to know what the basic steps are for international recognition, so your rescuers don't start shelling you instead. (Happened to Gusmão in East Timor, no?)

    This juvenile reaction that just because we want to encourage predictability and consistency means we expect the world to be full of cookie-cutter situations - yes, that gets my goat.

    The US has pitched from one international screwup to another over the last decade, due in large from having no morals and consistent principles to work from. 

    The guy preaching "do it for humanitarian reasons" just a few months ago was defending Israelis boarding an unarmed humanitarian vessel in the Mediterranean bound for Gaza and shooting unarmed protesters and crew pointblank in the head, etc., including a Turkish-American killed whose death he ignored.

    Just a couple of weeks ago, Mr. "Humanitarian Concerns" was unperturbed that an accused military inmate was being stripped naked every night, and left in solitary for 23 hours a day. 

    So color my unpersuaded that the US efforts are for positive reasons, or as effective as they would be if they had some real humanitarian goals and steps behind them.


    At the same time you want a world that remains stable enough so the working family doesn't have to pay 7 dollars a gallon for gas. 

    Maybe the US efforts are not for "positive reasons."  There may be those arguing for the current course of action who have malvolent intentions.  Yet in the here and now, in the decisions that need to be made, as we work toward a more humantarian approach, some actions are required.

    Your ilk want purity now or nothing.  That is impossible.  And allows you and your ilk to bitch because the current world and geo-political world requires something less than impossible.  Now if there is there a legitimate screw-up (ie invading Iraq) lets here it, but this carping on less than noble intentions is pathetic.


    Now, I told you to leave your ilks at home, Des.  They always misbehave in public; ya shouldda sold em ta Quinn when ya had the chance.  You said they were pure ilk, Q said they were cross-breeds, and would likely love his ferrets to pieces.  Now whattya got?  Just some little embarrassments crapping all over this blog. 

    Told ya; sheesh.  Listen to me next time, will ya?


    I told you before. Badgers is wut you want.


    Nuh-unh; you told me shrooms is what I want.  Them badgers is too militant fer stardust.

     



    Hunter Haiku?  Yep; I can tell you're no Ilk, buddy.  Stay away from me.  G' night.  ;oP


    But, but...I draw your attention to the correctly used apostrophe designating the plural possessive "pussies'"


    I must say, that's a pretty dumb response, mixing in $7/gallon gas for the working family and "a more humanitarian approach", but "some actions are required".

    Why don't you mention "I go to church on Sunday" and "get plenty of rest", "be kind to children", etc.?

    I think we can keep it at $4/gallon with or without invading Libya. 

    I think we can start our humanitarian actions in a number of simpler ways than lobbing cruise missiles, say increasing our foreign aid budget for countries suffering disaster or education programs or what-all.

    My ilk thinks "noble intentions" are a dime a dozen in this ginned-up crazy world, and perhaps the leader of the free world shoule elicit some "practical intentions" here and there since his noble ones seem to be lacking in execution. (such as closing Gitmo, which nobly turned into keeping it open including the "noble" option of indefinite detention and rewriting military tribunal rules to be even more stacked against the accused).

    In other words, your "ilk" has blinders on and goes screaming ga-ga every time noble leader says "humanitarian" as if it were John Lennon singing "peace".


    Talking humanitarian aid, a Bloomberg article nearly two weeks ago caught my eye. Hillary Clinton visited Tunisia and Egypt, met their new leaders, and hailed their revolutions. She met the new Egyptian PM, Essa Sharaf, even as protestors outside chanted, "We want jobs."

    Clinton said that the U.S. wanted to help create jobs, spur small business in Egypt and “encourage foreign direct investment that will help these businesses grow.”

    The aid she announced included $2 billion from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to encourage private sector investments in the Middle East and North Africa.

    The U.S. Export-Import Bank has also approved $80 million in insurance cover to support letters of credit issued by Egyptian financial institutions.

    OPIC, according to its website, "helps U.S. businesses gain footholds in emerging markets." The State Department is being wilfully deaf and blind to the fact that Gamal Mubarak's disastrous "privatization" drive was one of the sparks for Tahrir Square.

    Carry on.


    I loved the BBC description of this guy from the new Libyan Goverment, who's in charge of foreign affairs apparently:

    Ali Issawi - foreign affairs

    ... Born in Benghazi in 1966, Mr Issawi has a PhD in privatisation from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania. In 2005, he became director general of the Ownership Expansion Programme, a Libyan government fund encouraging privatisation, and founded the Centre for Export Development in 2006.

    The next year he became Libya's minister of economy, trade and investment. He was the youngest person to have occupied the post.

    Following a cabinet reshuffle in March 2009, Mr Issawi was left without a post. A leaked US diplomatic cable said the French embassy in Tripoli believed the move was "related to accusations of corruption".


    Someone too corrupt even for the Gaddafi clan? Great. Despite Africa's third-highest GDP per capita (after Seychelles and Gabon, also oil-rich), Libya had 30% unemployment. I somehow doubt a neoliberal cold shower will help much.


    It appears significant that in the increasing number of rebel controlled cities, where western reporters are free to move, that:

    (1) there are no reports of summary executions of captured Qadaddfi soldiers or supporters by the rebels.

    (2) there are no streams of civilian refugees fleeing towards Qadaffi controlled Tripoli. In fact, there are none moving away from the rebels at all except his mercenaries, the movement is behind the rebels, back into towns and cities people had fled.

    (3) Qadaffi propaganda that he will 'arm citizens' indicates his regular troops & hired mercenaries may be abandoning him.

    These facts are very significant. We have no boots on the ground, and yet rebel controlled areas of Libya seem more united and secure than most parts of Iraq or Afghanistan after 10 and 8 years of occupation. Obviously, there will be disputes if Qadaffi exits completely, about who runs the country and how to govern it. Obama is aiming to let the Europeans work that all out, the Mediterranean is their pond.

    Recall, during the long 7 years of the Revolutionary War in the US thousands of 'loyalists' left for Britain, and many others had their property confiscated or destroyed by the colonial rebels.  Demands from those in the Continental Army for summary execution of captured British mercenaries or regular troops (in reprisal for British execution of American rebels - especially in the early battles around NYC) were stopped only by the policies of General Washington not to emulate the actions of the English tyrant.


    Well. There we go now. A bit of history, to help us understand the Libyan situation. 

    Next time though, let's aim for something a little more recent. Say... post-war. Great War.


    Hold on, I'm still trying to figure out where Concord *REALLY* is. I thought it was in France, and then they say what, New Hampshire?


    "He said to his friend, "If the Ilkish march
    By land or sea from the town to-night,
    Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
    Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
    One if by land, and two if by sea;
    And I on the opposite shore will be,
    Ready to ride and spread the alarm
    Through every Middlesex village and farm,
    For the country folk to be up and to arm."


    On cool summer's nights

    You can still hear the Ilken-folk

    Murmuring up in the hills

    Through the breeze

    Sharing a pipe and a draught

    Around a fire

    To talk about powers of yore

    And the end times

    That will appear

    But there aren't so many

    Ilken folk as before

    (Some say they all got et)


    Seems to me, somebuddy got ilked, and now, they're irked. 


    Beautiful...

    "Far over the misty mountains cold

    To dungeons deep and caverns old

    We must away ere break of day

    To seek the pale enchanted ilks.

    The pines were roaring on the height,

    The winds were moaning in the night.

    The fire was red, it flaming spread;

    The ilks like torches blazed with light..."


    Three Rings for the Ilken-kings under the sky,
    Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
    Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
    One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne


    We shall all dream of the Ilken-kings on the morrow...   ;o)


    Youse guys are making me tear up. Stop. Ok. I got two for youse.

     

    The 1st, from JRR Tilkien:

    From the ashes an Ilk shall be woken,

     An Ilk from the shadows shall spring;

    Renewed shall be Ilk that was broken,

    The Ilken again shall be King."

     

    And finally, from - who else? - TS Ilkiot:

    Those who have crossed

    With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

    Remember us—if at all—not as lost

    Violent souls, but only

    As the Ilk men

    The Ilk men


    My favorite is, "The Cremation of Sam's McIlk"


    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make an ilk's blood run cold...


    Ooooh, my heart grows more tender with each verse....

    And from Ikl.Ilk. cummings:

    "(i who have died am alive again today,
    and this is the ilk's birthday;this is the birth
    day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
    great happening ilkimitably earth)
    "


    Is he is the same guy who wrote,

    who are you,little i

    (five or six years old)
    peering from some high

    window;at the ilk

    of november sunset

    (and feeling:that if day
    has to become night

    this is a beautiful way)


    Yeeees!  and:

    Here is little ilkie's head

    Whose brains are made of gingerbread

    When judgement day comes

    God will find six crumbs

    That the ferrets wouldn't eat.


    My ilkshake brings all the boys to the yard,
    And their like
    It's better than yours,
    Damn right it's better than yours,
    I can teach you,
    But I have to charge

    I know you want it,
    The thing that makes me,
    What the guys go crazy for.
    They lose their minds,
    The way I wind,
    I think its time


    LOL!  We see how you roll, dear!  And I was ilkenonymous all morning too, until dagblog said i was Spam (oh, Cafe memories...) 

    I rebooted, killed my cookies...and now i am simply 'ilkeliscious'.


    Damit. Exposed. And here I was trying to be anonymous...


    See? I been trying to tell you all that Obey ain't quite right.


    LOL. That is so much better than the original. Sexier too!


    Your ilkshake also ,made me think of this, ya nasty Pug:

     

     


    Calling Mr. Obeyous Ilkshake.


    Yaaas, you called?

     


    Aw, shucks; I just wanted to make sure you saw the Bass-o-mataic.  And ask where you're traveling, or if MI-5 makes you keep it a secret and all. 

    And ask if you know much about Modern Monetary Theory.  Big wars online over it, and when I read it is Greek to me, even when I read the counter-arguments.  Maybe especially when I read the counter-arguments.


    MI5?! You mean Mossad. (dammit, exposed again)

    On monetary theory - it's all wildly overrated in the absence of congress willing to deficit spend. Economists bitch about it because it's the one easy yet irrelevant thing to bitch about.

    On my travels - just hopping around yourup for work. Nuttin exciting...


    Quit exposing yourself, Pug!

    It's exciting to a provincial like me, dear.  ;o)  Thanks; I won't try to grok MMT.

    Sorry; I thought you were the other ilk of Spook...  (the Bass-o-matic Brit kind, not the 'I know thirty-two ways to kill you without a weapon' kind. 

    Watch out for Obey's ilk, anyway, y'all!


    Here I was trying to Ilk out a modest sum,

    When you come along and stick me with a conundrum:

    To be a linguist is both blessing and curse

    While someone does bad, I have to do worse

    Like when I drink coffee with my Turkish friend İlkay

    I ask her in Latin: Ot-gay Ilk-may?

    Where you think it queer, I think it Byzantine

    To deliver in vulgate to an espresso machine

    Where Turkish stood tall, the lingua franca of silk,

    It's now just pudding talk where Billy got bilked

    You might hash it over if you've plenty of time

    But I'm ilking to get myself out of this rhyme.

    (Simpler a Limerilk than a spare bit of prose

    As Pinocchio says, "from your head to your nose",

    I'd rather flee from a tongue twister's path

    And ride an old ditty from here to Kilkenny.

    If you're still hanging on after this much shite

    I'd say I'm filking amazed, but I'm much too polite)


    To bring us back on topic, today Rumsfeld proclaimed:

    Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “The prestige of the United States is at stake” now in Libya. He said the calculus changed once military operations commenced.

    “Let there be no question: We're now involved in Libya,” Rumsfeld told "This Week" host Jake Tapper from Florida. “And if Qadhafi stays on, he will feel he has fought the mother of all battles against the United States. And it will be damaging to us, just as our demeanor in Somalia was damaging, the situation in Lebanon was damaging, and that will embolden others of his ilk.”

    Speaking as one ilkman to whom Donnie likely refers (and yes, we always ring twice), we are always emboldened. To paraphrase that ilkish wit on bathroom walls of yore:

    "In days of old

    When Ilks were bold

    And condiments weren't invented

    We poured our Scotch

    Into our crotch

    And lap dogs with relish were contented."

    Of course Rumsfeld despite being a lap dog par excellence might demur - he always prided himself on how long he could stand, so that his presidential knee caps came with a certain down side - back pains.

    PS - what the hell was our "demeanor" in Somalia? Is this guy looped or what?

    This box for rent. Please call 1-555-ilk-ads. Special discounts for homeless or union teachers.


    So. The Republicans are now positioning so that if Gaddafi doesn't bite the dust, then "we" have lost the war. 

    Donno why you and your ilk were so worried earlier, Des. This is working out ever so well so far. 


    BTW, I'd like to rent that ad-box of yours. $5.00 to run it for a week:

    " Wanted: Ilkman of Human Kindness "

    If you could take down any messages from any applicants, that'd be great too. Make it $5.75.

    P.S. Why is it "applicant" instead of "applican?" 

    P.P.S. Life. So many mysteries.


    Re: Rumsfeld and our ilk:

    There once was a fuckwad called Rummy

    Who drowned people not on their tummy                  (okay, close enough, no?)

    If I could when he's dead

    I'd spit on his head

    Dispatch him to hell

    And not wish him well

    As all ilks would do in my stead

     


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