You know I was watching some footage of the "rebel" fighters and that article by WILF sprang to mind, you remember, "The Toyota Horde". Toyota's don't seem to be doing the "rebels" much good(yes,I know WILF's argument was framed in a different context). Maybe we could supply them with Land Rovers? (Would that fall into the "arming" the "rebels" box or transporting the "rebels" box?)
It would not be very politically correct to supply them with vehicles that we ourselves no longer use in the sandbox because they 'make like the sand' too easily. No, we MUST supply them with MRAPs. And body armour.Originally Posted by Tukhachevskii
You know I was watching some footage of the "rebel" fighters and that article by WILF sprang to mind, you remember, "The Toyota Horde". Toyota's don't seem to be doing the "rebels" much good
Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. (Christopher Columbus)
All great truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
(Arthur Schopenhauer)
ONWARD
How about giving them vintage Land Rovers? With vintage Lucas electrical systems?It would not be very politically correct to supply them with vehicles that we ourselves no longer use in the sandbox because they 'make like the sand' too easily. No, we MUST supply them with MRAPs. And body armour.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
Huh???
Did you buy that MG I traded in for the Stag, the one that never fully charged the battery (if it charged it at all) -- or the Stag I traded for a plain vanilla Ford that did not need to have the timing set twice a week on a Lucas distributor...How about giving them vintage Land Rovers? With vintage Lucas electrical systems?
That sounds like my Mitsubishi. If anyone wants a good deal I've got a car for you.
(From those great guys who brought us Pearl Harbor.)
Gotta wonder if this:
... has something to do with this:The units with the highest degree of organization are former Libyan army battalions that were stationed in eastern Libya, also known as Cyrenaica. These units, including those led by former Interior Minister Abdul Fattah Younis al-Abidi, defected en masse in mid-February, retaining their organizational structure. Bizarrely, these units are largely absent from the current fighting. It is unclear why.
"The CIA team is there to train them how to shoot, how to fight, how to have military discipline," NPR's Deborah Amos reported from Cairo. "They are joining a team of former Libyan military officers who are now training about 30,000 young Libyans in the rebel stronghold to also improve discipline, improve communications and make it into a more coherent fighting force."
Arrogance or what?
Having watched Rear Admiral Russel Harding's press conference today I must admit to being totally gobsmacked.
Appalling arrogance of the little man to stand there and ignore the fact that the US led force before and the NATO forces now have failed totally and absolutely to protect the people Misrata and get testy refusing to offer an apology or even a regret over a strike on rebel tanks (apparently) out in the middle of nowhere.
An interesting fact to come out of the briefing was that "the alliance's jets had carried out 318 sorties and struck 23 targets across Libya in the past 48 hours".
23 strikes in 48 hours? Little wonder Gaddafi's forces are becoming more bold in their actions. It would be interesting which nations are carrying out the strikes and which are just going through the motions and flying high over Libya under instructions not not to get below 30,000 feet under any circumstances.
This NATO exercise is turning into a pathetic joke made all the worse by the US standing back and making the point that without their active involvement NATO is impotent.
Where is Wikileaks when you need them. There is no chance that NATO will tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Tired of being treated like a mushroom.
The Two Faces of Libya's Rebels
An intriguing FP article on the Libyan rebels, such as this, regarding the Toyota TV elements:Better still:These fighters are a ragtag bunch of men of all ages and degrees of military training riding pickup trucks around the eastern coastal desert.... What you may not have realized.... is that the vast majority of these fighters have never actually arrived at the front and are not contributing to the rebels' effective fighting strength.The real fighters are:The units with the highest degree of organization are former Libyan army battalions that were stationed in eastern Libya, also known as Cyrenaica. These units, including those led by former Interior Minister Abdul Fattah Younis al-Abidi, defected en masse in mid-February, retaining their organizational structure. Bizarrely, these units are largely absent from the current fighting. It is unclear why.Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...ebels?page=0,0The most prevalent form of unit organization is ad hoc: a few brothers or friends sharing gas money, a few rifles, a rebel flag, and a pickup truck. Occasionally, whole villages or subsections of tribes have joined the rebels as a semicoherent unit.
There is more detail within, including the Islamists (LIFG).
davidbfpo
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