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August 7, 2011
The Rebels Advance On Brega

Only in June did the rebels not advance on Brega. I wonder why. And when will they arrive?

Posted by b on August 7, 2011 at 13:25 UTC | Permalink
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Look, b., the press releases of the rebels have no relation to reality, the technique goes back to Potemkin, really.
they do remind me of the project work I used to be involved in, somebody is paying them for results and wants to see regular reports of progress.
same applies to Nato I guess.
Nato did attack Brega in June and the rebels did attack in June according to Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brega%E2%80%93Ajdabiya_road
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_71994.htm
in real life I guess the rebels try not to get killed and Nato tries not to spend too much fuel.
plus I guess Gaddafi’s forces also try not to get killed.
Obama needs to keep Libya out of his reelection campaign, so there is a chance the nonsense might end.
http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/world/2011/08/04/hundreds-mourned-in-libya/#slide=3

Posted by: somebody | Aug 7 2011 14:03 utc | 1

Exactly, another reminder that news reports often have more in common with Hollywood than reality.
But what puzzles me is why anyone cares about Brega. I mean, the whole adventure is for humanitarian reasons, right? Oil has absolutely nothing to do with it!

Posted by: JohnH | Aug 7 2011 14:50 utc | 2

This is the guy that could be the real new boss should Gaddhafi have to go:
Mohammed Busidra: Libya’s post-Gadhafi kingmaker

“We have to prepare our country politically now, to prevent any political vacuum from occurring when the criminal Gadhafi is gone,” Mr. Busidra said in the first interview he has given since early March. “And I can assure you, when we Islamists establish a party, which will be on a national basis, I think we will win comfortably.”
This assessment is shared, sometimes with alarm, by many of his opponents.

Posted by: b | Aug 7 2011 15:19 utc | 3

Hmm – I did not read this in any mainstream paper. From an NGO guy in Benghazi:
Benghazi Blues
Assassinations, Islamist rumblings, and murky tribal politics are taking the luster off life in the rebel capital.

We awoke on July 31 to an extremely tense atmosphere within the Tibesti. Hotel staff furtively passed around printouts taken from an opposition website. A few calls later, we learned that the U.S. envoy’s office and the U.N. compound were both under lockdown. The Internet seemed to be failing, and there were few Westerners in evidence.
Benghazi was gripped by a pervasive feeling that order could break down at any minute …
…
If we had any doubts that we had made the right call to leave, they were dispelled once we saw the assembled passengers: hardened aid workers, many of whom were with us on our inbound flight, insisting they’d be in Benghazi “indefinitely.”

Posted by: b | Aug 7 2011 17:02 utc | 4

“indefinitely” sounds about right.

Posted by: annie | Aug 7 2011 17:22 utc | 5

Brega sounds like the legendary pot of gold at the end of the rainbow … moving away from its pursuers at the same speed as they shamble, trot or dash toward it.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 7 2011 17:31 utc | 6

i guess the most important thing is to stir up trouble in xinjiang province of china… a maasive propaganda campaign vilifying china’s mistreatement of israeli american-inspired muslim protestors in xinjiang …
that way, we may be able to influence the new libyan government, and maybe they’ll banish china from libyan oil fields forever.
good deal.
the only hitch is, muslims are supposed to be evil personified, yet here we are, supporting muslims in xinjiang.
nevermind… consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

Posted by: groundresonance | Aug 7 2011 17:52 utc | 7

Ouch … if those rebels keep advancing like this they will soon be back in Benghazi. Maybe the problem is that the people of Brega just don’t really support the rebels?

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Aug 7 2011 17:57 utc | 8

As China insists the US stop printing Dollars, plus hints at an independent currency of reference, I guess the support of Xinjiang and Libyan rebels will have to stop.
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

Posted by: somebody | Aug 7 2011 19:16 utc | 9

the rebels took a wrong turn and have ended up in madagascar by mistake

Posted by: Bahram | Aug 7 2011 21:13 utc | 10

theres this scene in Monty Python and the Holy grail, where Lancelot charges again and again at castle anthrax…

Posted by: brian | Aug 8 2011 3:50 utc | 11

‘And I can assure you, when we Islamists establish a party, which will be on a national basis, I think we will win comfortably.”’
islamic democracy?
what do the women of Libya think about this? they need only look to post saddam Iraq…or to Afghanistan..

Posted by: brian | Aug 8 2011 3:52 utc | 12

Very amusing.

Posted by: Xihuitl | Aug 8 2011 8:21 utc | 13

maybe the rebels are just taking victory laps around Brega

Posted by: Bahram | Aug 8 2011 8:39 utc | 14

Aloha, b… Dr. Hillhouse is back in the saddle…!
Bin Laden Turned in by Informant — Courier Was Cover Story…

Posted by: CTuttle | Aug 8 2011 8:46 utc | 15

Just found out via post at emptywheel that you have returned to posting. Thanks. Much needed!

Posted by: coral | Aug 8 2011 12:14 utc | 16

The Arab Spring sparked a Civil War in Lybia.
The ‘rebels’ guessed they could get Western, NATO support. Despite the fact that Kadhafi was pretty much a recently rehabilitated darling of the West.
They got that right! A genuine, home-grown, sincere!, color revolution. How could they (nato etc.) resist?
Smooch up to the external powers, then what? Become middle management and skim off the top?
What is their political or social agenda?
Reuters says they are now controlling some oil fields. They have weapons and night goggles…
For oil to be extracted, held, treated, shipped, transported, not to mention refined, sold at a proper price, delivered, extraordinary stability, consensus, hard work in a Taylorist scheme, with everyone properly paid, is required.
Scientists, engineers must be available, workers come and go and must be housed/fed and compensated, transport has to be free and easy, spare parts have to arrive on time, there must be no aggro along long routes, banking etc. has to be sorted, everything has to be super smooth, and even then – money can be lost. Oil prices are volatile, despite OPECs price fixing.
Lybia produced less that 1% (off the cuff) of world oil – not negligible by any means as every drip drop counts.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 8 2011 16:05 utc | 17

china had something like 36,000 oil workers in libya before the “Arab Spring sparked a Civil War in Lybia“.
what if the “arab spring” was not so much the cause of the libyan civil war? …what if the civil war was sparked by israeli americans, like the color revolutions in ukraine, georgia, kyrgyzstan and lord knows how many other places?
(by the way, yulia tymoshenko, the aging but still photogenic gas warrior princess of ukraine, who lead the “rose revolution” in ukraine, has been arrested for contempt of court for her failure to appear in a gas manipulation trial)
“What is their political or social agenda?”
depends on who you’re talking about, doesnt it?
if you’re talking about the israeli american manipulators, the agenda is to deprive china of a source of oil.
if you’re talking about the libyan “revolutionaries”, it’s likely their main motive was to milk the israeli american empoire for all it’s worth.

Posted by: groundresonance | Aug 8 2011 16:29 utc | 18

the revolution in ukraine was the “orange revolution”… sorry for the mistake… how could i forget, after that wall-to-wall coverage of such a heroic event, sponsored by boris berezovsky and american neocons?

Posted by: groundresonance | Aug 8 2011 16:45 utc | 19

i got to say the hasbara is getting the shit kicked out of it.
but… bewoe the gloatings

Posted by: groundresonance | Aug 8 2011 16:47 utc | 20

fake CNN video of front line in Libya

Posted by: b | Aug 8 2011 17:13 utc | 21

there never was an arab spring..it was always a media managed event. The egyotians and tunisians are still agitating or real change…but its never going to come…The country where there was eral change and its been maintained is Libya…the nasser experiment ended with his death,. thus affirming that a change of govt does not mean an improved society.

Posted by: brian | Aug 8 2011 21:45 utc | 22

The “revolution” starts eating its children.
Libyan Rebels Dissolve Cabinet Amid Discord

BENGHAZI, Libya — Rebel leaders dissolved their own cabinet on Monday, in an effort to placate the family of an assassinated rebel military leader and quiet discord in a movement already struggling to remove the country’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, from power.
A rebel spokesman said that the prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, the only member of the cabinet who kept his job, would have to present a new slate of cabinet members to the rebel legislative body, the Transitional National Council, for approval in the coming days. The cabinet was dissolved, the spokesman said, “for improper administrative procedures” that led to the arrest and subsequent killing of the military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, a former top Libyan commander who defected to the rebel side.
…
The reshuffling also seemed to represent an effort by interest groups within the rebel movement, including homegrown leaders who helped start the uprising, to assert their power by sidelining leaders who had returned from exile and held key posts.
…
In recent months, Islamists have been suspected in the killings of other former Qaddafi officials. Despite pledges by the rebels to fully investigate, the shootings of at least three former Qaddafi internal security officers several months ago remain unsolved.

Posted by: b | Aug 9 2011 3:59 utc | 23

Iraq haunts plans for post-Gaddafi Libya

WESTERN governments have helped prepare a blueprint for a post-Gaddafi Libya that would retain much of the regime’s security infrastructure to avoid an Iraq-style collapse into anarchy.
The 70-page plan, obtained by London’s The Times, charts the first months after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. The document was drawn up by the National Transition Council in Benghazi with Western help.
Officials say the blueprint draws on lessons from the disastrous regime change in Iraq in 2003 and the rebel takeover in eastern Libya in March.
The plans are highly reliant on the defection of parts of the Gaddafi security apparatus to the rebels after his overthrow. This is likely to prove not only risky, but controversial, with many rebel fighters determined to sweep away all vestiges of the regime.
The document includes proposals for a 10,000-15,000 strong “Tripoli task force”, resourced and supported by the United Arab Emirates, to take over the Libyan capital, secure key sites and arrest high-level Gaddafi supporters.
…

Sweets and flowers …

Posted by: b | Aug 9 2011 6:53 utc | 24

Notice how the western govts are not named by the media! An acknowledgement that what they are doing is a criminal act which noone wants to put their name to. This admitting that the TNC is its itself not legitimate!

Posted by: brian | Aug 9 2011 22:03 utc | 25

An open letter to Professor Juan Cole: A reply to a slander

Posted by: b | Aug 10 2011 9:08 utc | 26

Still advancing …
Libyan Opposition Fighters Report Advances in Brega – Aug 11

Posted by: b | Aug 12 2011 10:43 utc | 27

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