Operation Compass: Think today's war in Libya is a mess? In 1940's Libya, the Italian North African Campaign was a total disaster.

    Paying attention to the Libyan mess over the last few months got me thinking of a far 'better war' that once played out on that highway the Italians built between Tripoli and Benghazi back when Libya was an Italian colony in the early 20th century. Of course back in 1912, after snatching the territory from the fading Ottomans, the Italians were a bit too late to the colonial table as far as the European habit of carving up pieces of Africa for fun and profit went. But turn of the century Italians had this hard on for their own ancient history and the memory of Rome, a time when Italy was 'somebody' on the world stage and not just a bunch of recently unified city states, freshly unfragmented and beat up on by foreigners for 1500 years.

    Let's face it, modern Italians don't do imperialism very well.

   That gene went recessive on the peninsula's chromosome somewhere in the 2000 years it took to get from Caesar to Mussolini. By the time Mussolini took charge in 1921 and adopted good old Fascismo, a philosophy he based on an ancient bundle of Roman sticks which symbolized authority, it was an idea in political science whose time seemed to have come tailor made for the 20th century. Hell, today's corporate oligarchical sci fi novel that we're all living in is just the latest version with 'bread and circuses' swapped out for 'McDonalds and advertising' to keep the plebs in check. For Italians in the 1920s under Mussolini, Libya became Italy's "Fourth Shore" and the 'New America' with 110,000 Italians emigrating there and making up 12% of the population by 1939.

   That highway between Tripoli and Benghazi that we've all been watching Gadaffi's tanks burning on and which connects strategic oil towns like Brega and Ras Lanuf was built as part of Mussolini's public works program in '20s and '30s Libya. Of course this didn't go down so well with the natives, especially the nomadic Bedouin tribes who preferred camel power. So the Italians did what all the Euro colonial powers have done when faced with native opposition in Africa; they wiped out half the Bedouin population either through direct action like hanging or starvation in camps. Of course, this was a time before the term 'concentration' became fashionable when describing 'camps'. The British under Kitchener had done the same to the Boers in South Africa at the turn of the century and nobody had seemed to give a shit. Except, ironically, the Germans.

   When the shooting started in 1939, Mussolini saw his chance to expand that 'Fourth Shore' of his into British held Egypt. Egypt has always been a sweet prize for foreign powers going back to Roman times. The Caesars used Egypt as a kind of ancient Wal Mart for growing grain on the cheap which they dished out to the plebs back home to keep the mob pacified. Napoleon wanted to use it as a base of operations to steam roll through the Levant until Nelson destroyed his fleet off the coast at Aboukir Bay. When the canal was completed in the 19th century Egypt suddenly became the 'Highway to India' and vital to British interests. Even to just last February, the West was paying 2 billion a year to their pet Egyptian dictator Mubarak just to keep Suez open and not mess with Israel. That's 2000 years of strategic Egyptian history not including the 3000 years before that of Pharaohs and pyramids. It's the sort of time span that makes you feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

   And let's face it, we are.

   Mussolini wanted to launch his offensive from Libya in August 1940 under the idea that the British would be tied down defending against Operation Sealion, the German invasion of England that never happened. Right from the start the Italians royally fucked things up. Remember that missing Italian imperialist gene I mentioned earlier? Add to that the gene for being good at warfare. I mean, apart from a Venetian coalition that defeated the Ottomans at Lepanto in 1571, the Italians hadn't done anything to write home about warfare wise since Marcus Aurelius mopped up the German tribes in the second century AD.

   Mussolini sent his friend and heir apparent Italo Balbo to Libya to do the job. He was a hardcore Blackshirt and the former governor of Libya who, among other things, had built up the Italian air force from scratch in the 1920s and '30s and made transatlantic flights that gained him hero status among Italians but  didn't make the news in Anglo countries because everyone was crying over Lindbergh and his kidnapped baby. Balbo had even dined with Roosevelt and portrayed fascism as cool at a time when the New Deal was struggling to offset the Depression. Balbo was seen as the man who could pull off the attack, though he himself  had doubts about the whole enterprise. He noted that the Italian forces in Libya were heavy on infantry but lacked modern armor (the Italians fielded shitty L3/35 tanks which were basically two man machine gun carriers with paper thin armor), had obsolete artillery with shells that sometimes exploded and sometimes didn't, dodgy anti tank guns good against everything except armored plate and, worst of all, they suffered from a shortage of transport for all that infantry. Still, thanks to Balbo, the Italians had significant air power on hand (300 aircraft of various types including 4 bomber wings) and if anyone could pull off this attack, it was going to be Balbo.

The Italian L3/35 tankette. More suitable for duty as farm machinery?

   Everything about this plan was awesome up until the moment when Balbo tried to hook up with his own forces in Tobruk. This was the moment when some dumb fuck trigger happy Italian AA gunner shot down Balbo's plane while it was trying to land at the Italian airfield in Tobruk. Seriously. Balbo hadn't even arrived in theater and he was already KIA at the hands of the mighty Italian military. Scratch the whole plan right there and chalk up a kill for the Italians, right? A raving Mussolini quickly put a new guy in charge, Rodolfo Graziani, and ordered him to launch his attack against the British in Egypt immediately. Graziani had similar doubts about how an infantry heavy but largely unmechanized force such as the one the Italians were fielding could pull off this attack even if against the numerically inferior British, who fielded only 36,000 troops against a theoretical force of 250,000 Italians. The British game plan of course was to defend the canal at all costs. That sea route was as vital to the British then as it is to the US today though for different reasons. Instead of salt tax cash and tea profits, today it's oil flow and US Navy rapid access to the Persian Gulf.

   Though well supplied thanks to Royal Navy control of the Eastern Mediterranean, the British only fielded the 4th Indian Infantry Division and the understrength 7th Armored Division (the famed Desert Rats) to hold the canal and fortified the bulk of these forces at the town of Mersa Matruh; a town just west of the canal and through which any Italian canal grab must pass. The British planned to use light mobile screening forces to harass the Italian advance and seem numerically superior by dredging up sand, firing the odd bit of arty here and there and making lots of noise, hopefully causing the inexperienced Italians to panic a bit.

   The Italians began the attack in early September with an air campaign after Mussolini threatened Graziani with demotion if he didn't get the ball rolling. Anxious to show Hitler that the Italian military wasn't as shitty as everyone suspected and flush with amazement at the Wehrmacht's humiliation of the French, Mussolini needed a win. Both sides dropped some bombs with obsolete bombers protected by obsolete fighters; the Italians hoping to soften up the main choke points on the coastal route into Egypt while the British used a bunch of Blenheim bombers to mess with the Italian staging area at Tobruk.

   The Italian plan was to advance along the coast with their main infantry force and use their two Libyan divisions, good native desert fighters but mainly infantry and using camel power (kind of like the Islamic rebel Shabab in Libya right now only with camels instead of Toyota pickup trucks) as screeners. Further south, the bulk of the Italian tanks and mechanized infantry (meaning they had a bunch of dodgy Italian trucks) had been rolled into the "Maletti Group" which planned to swing around in a pincer attack from the south if the infantry in the north got bogged down by opposition. The British defensive plan was pretty similar with light screening brigades in the north messing with the Italian infantry advance and elements of the 7th armored in the south waiting to pincer around from the south if the opportunity presented itself.

   The Italian ground assault on Egypt began on the 9th of September 1940.

   Right from the start, the Italians made a complete and utter balls of it. I mean, quite apart from von Moltke's old military maxim of no plan surviving contact with the enemy, the Italians didn't even get that far. No, the night before the ground assault some dumb fuck Italian radio operator broadcast the whole plan for all the world to hear over the wireless uncoded. The British, who knew the attack was coming anyway got a heads up on where to place their harassing force and laughed their asses off. Next up, the "Maletti Group" which contained the bulk of the Italian "armor" got lost in the Libyan desert before it even reached the Egyptian border and fell behind the main force. Because of this and other fuck ups, it took another four days for the Italian invasion of Egypt to actually reach Egypt.  

   Once "in country", the Italians made slow progress. Slowed by embarrassingly small amounts of British forces, the Italians were liable to stop, unmount their artillery and shell a ridge where some guy with binoculars thought he saw some British guy acting suspiciously like an enemy soldier. Wasting ammo, moving painfully slow and always attempting overzealous 'pincer movements' with their tankettes, the Italians failed to successfully engage the British screening forces who invariably retreated laughing their asses off and dropping mines as they went.

   The Italians managed to capture a few inconsequential British airfields and advance 65 miles into Egypt before the invasion ground to a halt. Graziani cited supply problems and the fact that most of his divisions were on foot in full kit in the middle of a boiling desert. Mussolini went apeshit. There was nothing left now but to dig in and pretend that that 65 miles of barren desert was all the Italians really wanted in the first place while letting the answering machine deal with Hitler. The Italians created a bunch of fortified strong points beyond the town of Sidi Barrani and awaited reinforcements, resupply and an authority figure with a clue what to do next. None of which were forthcoming. The Italian positions proved weak. They were too dispersed to provide mutual support and do much of anything except act as big fat targets for the inevitable British counter attack.

   That attack, Operation Compass, came on the night of December 7th 1940, exactly a year before Pearl. It was led by Major General Richard O' Connor, maybe my favourite British general of the entire war. This guy was a total bad ass. Born in India, and son of a major in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, he'd seen action in World War I at Arras and Bullecourt and fought with the Italians at the River Piave in November 1917. Serving with the Italians sure gave him a certain edge when it came to knowing how the Italians fought. Or didn't fight for that matter. He come out of that war medal heavy including a DSO but then peace came and like all badass soldiers in 1918, he had to make up the inter war years doing office work and teaching at military academies while waiting for the unfinished business of the Great War to boot back up again. Assigned to Egypt as commander of the 7th Division in 1939, he was given command of the Western Desert Force in November 1940 by General Wavell and tasked with pushing the Italians out of the 65 miles of Egypt which they held on a broad but scattered front.

General Richard Nugent O' Connor KT, GCB, DSO & Bar, MC, ADC. And badass.

   The British were interested in a limited counter attack, one that probed the Italians without risking too much. Holding the canal was sacrosanct. Wavell, commander of British forces in the Middle East, gave O'Connor about 30,000 men, 275 tanks (including the newer British Matilda IIs which were probably the best British made and designed tanks of the war) and around 100 artillery pieces including some of the new at the time '25 pounders' that were to serve the British well into the 1960s. There was also a contingent of Royal Navy gunboats off the coast which were to provide valuable indirect fire on the Italian strong points once the ball got rolling.

  O'Connor began the attack with a diversionary artillery barrage at '0 five hundred' on the Nibeiwa camp where the "mechanized" Maletti Group were holed up. They'd dug in at a fortified position using their armor as basically static pillboxes. (Never a good use of armor). O'Connor's forces exploited a hole in the Maletti defense ring and came barging through at dawn with 48 Matilda IIs and totally wasted the whole division, even killing Maletti himself in the fray. The Italians were screwed and began retreating en masse into Libya. The British pursued as the retreating Italians, bunched onto the coast road from Sidi Barrani made easy targets for the RN gunboats. The "Battle of the Camps" was a total victory for the British who killed or captured 38,000 Italians in five days for the loss of 133 men.

  O'Connor wanted to continue his attack into Libya at least as far as Benghazi. Wavell however withdrew the Indian 4th Infantry Division to take part in an offensive against the Italians in Ethiopia and replaced them with a green Australian Division who were missing their tanks. O'Connor, after a brief pause for Christmas pressed on anyway. The Italians were now holed up in the port of Bardia, licking their wounds and fighting amongst themselves. The port had good natural defenses including an 18 mile anti-tank ditch and concrete pill boxes. Mussolini sent a message to the 40,000 men holed up there and let them know of his confidence that they would "defend Bardia to the last man". Obviously, the troops had other ideas because on January 3rd 1941, O'Connor's sappers blew the pillboxes and filled in a section of the anti-tank ditch allowing 23 Matildas to break into the fortress, capture the whole deal and take 8000 prisoners. Tobruk and Derna fell next and pretty soon the whole Italian colony of Libya looked like it was going down to O'Connors thirty thousand men.

   By February 1941, the Allied forces had captured 130,000 Libyan and Italian prisoners for the loss of 500 men. Probably the most badass campaign of WWII that nobody ever talks about. That's probably because it was merely the prelude to the main act which was the arrival of Rommel and the Afrika Korps; in to bail out an Italian clusterfuck and not the first time in the war. Months later, Barbarossa had to be postponed six weeks so the Germans could rescue the Italians yet again; this time from the a bunch of barefoot Greeks in the mountains after Mussolini's abortive attack on Greece.

    Still, the Axis threat to Suez wouldn't be over until Tripoli fell. O'Connor wanted to continue the attack but Churchill ordered a halt. O'Connor was given a knighthood and posted back in Cairo. By mid February, Rommel and the Afrika Korps had arrived in theater and the real war was about to begin. O'Connor himself was captured by the Germans in April and spent the next two and a half years as a POW at a castle in Italy. He escaped in true badass fashion and went on to command the VIII Corps at Normandy and Market Garden.

   What careers there were for military men in centuries past! Now there are just a bunch of shitty asymmetrical proxy wars and nothing for a real general to sink his teeth into. I suppose that's the way it has to be in a post nuclear world. It's all subtle geopolitics with quiet moves on the grand chessboard with small oil grabs here and there these days. Today, global corporations link the big countries in ways that make wars between nation states unprofitable. Far better to feed the plebs bullshit adverts on TV to make them buy stuff they don't need with money they don't have. It's far easier to keep the cash rolling in that way.

   It is certainly a safer game.

   Weimar Republics and economic crashes have a time worn habit of  just delivering new Hitlers.

   My fear today is that I remain unconvinced humanity is beyond such games.

Libya: Did Gaddafi school NATO in the power of professional infantry?

   Gaddafi is quickly turning into my favorite international 'bad guy'.

   It's not like I'm a big fan or anything but his power to piss off the western corporatocracy makes me smile. When you get cast as the lead villain in a fictional war movie called "Odyssey Dawn", it's always good if you can bring a little something extra to the role that makes you stand out. Villains are always more memorable if they wear distinctive clothing (Gadaffi dresses in flamboyant carpets and curtains from '70s porno), have odd habits and strange quirks (Gadaffi brings his tent with him when travelling abroad and pitches it in the gardens of rented multi million dollar mansions while leaving the mansion itself empty) and, as everyone knows, every decent movie villain should have a trademark look; for Gaddafi it's his monster sunglasses fashionable nowhere outside a Florida retirement home. Your authenticity as media hyped evil dude is considerably enhanced if you also happen to have a hot Ukrainian nurse that "monitors your blood pressure" on a constant basis while you shell your own cities to eliminate a  pesky 'rebel alliance', dodge incoming Tomahawks and, most painful of all to the pathological foreign corporatocracy trying to bump you off for your sweet Libyan crude, you also find time to school NATO war planners in the timeless value of professional infantry over a bunch of green part timers in pick up trucks. And pull all this off despite the 'best' air strikes foreign money can throw at you.

   Seriously, you couldn't make this shit up if you had to write your own war movie from scratch.

   Odyssey Dawn was a sketchy piece of fiction from the start. The trailers were crap and any savvy viewer could tell the ending was going to be shitty. It started half way into the story when Gaddafi was a day away from over running the final rebel stronghold of Benghazi. It was the threat of the villain's revenge play that forced the Euros to act with or without US cover and not because the Euros gave a shit about the 'humanitarian crisis' that might ensue after the war. Lets face it, war itself is a humanitarian crisis. Casualties are always fine so long as they are in Africa. Sure, some French liberal crybaby's might wail into their coffee on the Left Bank. But the call to action for Sarkozy, the French Right and his own re election campaign was really the nightmare scenario of boatloads of Muslim refugees flooding into France and adding foot soldiers to those that rioted and torched cars in Paris in 2005. This week, refugee crisis averted, the French passed a law banning women from wearing the suicide bomber suit burqa, a full body black garbage bag that stops horny Frogs eying up chaste Muslim women.

   The French were going to waste Gaddafi's armor and arty and save Benghazi with or without US approval. The fact that Libya stands on 2% of world oil reserves – and supplies 10% of the EU’s oil was another deal sweetener. Not only that, but Libyan oil is exceptionally sweet and pure. It only costs ~$1 to refine a barrel, currently trading at ~$110. The Euros need those fields back online ASAP. When I think about it, the British had the right idea from the start when they Tomahawked Gaddafi's compound on day one. That was probably the only 'easy win' scenario on the table and had to be tried despite Obama's bullshit that Gaddafi was never a target.

   You know things are screwed on NATO's end and they've run out of ideas when they shrugged their shoulders this week and signed off on a prospective peace deal the African Union tried to make for a ceasefire and talks... talks that leave Gaddafi and his sons in power. It's pretty funny that the rebels themselves are against this deal. Those bunch of idiots still think they have a say in this mess. And with the US quietly skulking out of the theater like the guy who just shat his pants and is trying to get to the exit before the smell hits, that leaves the Euros in charge. There are signs now of a rift growing within NATO with Britain and France wanting to double down on air strike intensity and others getting jittery about the whole thing. But unless they are prepared to land troops, there won't be much chance of a military victory by either side.

   Gaddafi must be laughing his ass off.

   As far as the fighting goes, you've got to respect Gadaffi's forces. After the initial retreat from Benghazi, they regrouped and wisely adjusted their tactics. Tanks were obviously major targets of NATO air power so it was best to park them in urban areas where they're harder to spot and target (due to NATO's RoE which involve not wasting civilians although you'd have to be a pretty retarded civilian to stay in your house watching TV with a T-72 parked in you backyard). Gadaffi is using his tanks in Misurata quite wisely it seems because they're proving difficult for air strikes to kill. And urban areas are not somewhere you'd usually deploy tanks but the Libyan army seems pretty shrewd and is adapting to NATO on the fly. Of course this means Misurata is a pretty ugly mess, with thousands of civilians trapped inside and no discernable front line. I see the New York Times wailing that the bad guys are using 'illegal cluster bombs' which is rich considering Gaddafi bought them somewhere and there aren't many munition manufacturers in Africa last time I checked. Footage of the fighting in Misurata seems to reveal a mini Stalingrad with opposing forces occupying random buildings and snipers having a field day.  One clever tactic by Gaddafi's forces that made me spew beer on my keyboard was their use of pick up trucks, pretty much the one thing NATO can't bomb since everyone and their mother in the rebel army uses one.  When the rebels had a similar idea to adopt the enemy's tactics they booted up a tank of their own which NATO promptly bombed killing five. They admitted to a 'targeting error' but refused to say 'sorry' which was pretty funny.

   Gaddafi must have laughed his ass off.

   Speaking of pickup trucks, I see the rebels operating two types, the ones with the DShk 12.7mm Russian machine guns or the ones with the homemade multiple rocket launchers, both weapons mounted on the truck bed. Either way, I always see them firing determinedly off camera but it pisses me off that I never get to see what they are firing at. The enemy? It's pretty risky engaging professional soldiers from the exposed position of an elevated truck bed with a loud banger like the 12.7mm. Seems to me, unless it's some kind of co ordinated attack by the rebels (which I seriously doubt) then that gunner is a sniper magnet advertising his position to every Libyan with a scoped rifle. Or it's all just posturing for the cameras.

Can't hit shit? No worries, ask the skygod to improve your aim.

   The more the world gets to watch the rebels in action, the more chimpanzee shit gets flung at the NATO pencil pushers who got involved in this zoo. It's getting embarrassing at this stage. After Gaddafi booted their asses out of the key oil town of Brega last week, there were reports of groups of rebels firing on each other in a dispute over whose fault it was that they are all a bunch of useless idiots. This whole thing was advertised as a war movie but it's quickly turning into an '80s frat house comedy.

   Gaddafi, in true evil villain style, called it when he characterized the rebels over a month ago as a bunch of malcontents and drug addicts... maybe he was really talking about their fighting style. For further hilarity, NATO and Western media were considering last week whether it would be a good idea to arm and train the rebels with some proper anti tank and anti air shoulder mounted weaponry. This is something I thought they might have done a month ago but the CIA guys that have been on the ground since before this shit started probably reported back that that was about as good an idea as placing an Afghan in the cockpit of a stealth bomber. Again, you gotta love Gadaffi's response when he got wind of this plan. He quickly floated the idea that the rebel 'army' included Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah elements which sent Western media into a shit fit. Funny thing is, it's probably true at least to the point where it's possible to be a card carrying member of an organization invented in the media. As far as Hezbollah goes, what self respecting young Arab doesn't have a serious beef with Israel?

   Gadaffi again must have laughed his ass off.

   Eastern Libya and its capital Benghazi have always been redneck country and the part sophisticates in Tripoli like to look down on while sipping their fancy coffees in upscale cafes. Benghazi is the city where the supporters of the former king that Gaddafi deposed in the '60s got to lay low while watching as Gaddafi funneled the oil wealth out from under their feet. They've been itching for a shot at revenge for decades. It's also home to the Islamists and the wilder desert tribes and proved fervent recruiting ground for volunteers for Iraq and Afghanistan to fight the Yankee imperialists. Those are the rebels best fighters and also the last guys you'd expect NATO to be assisting but such is the complex web of forces that guide geopolitics these days. In truth, oil makes everyone a bitch, loyalties cheap and alliances tend to shift like desert sands all so long as the proles get to fill up their SUVs on the cheap to make that commute from surburbia to their cubicle in Wageslavistan affordable.

   All this does point out though, in case anyone didn't already know, the serious value of professional infantry.  Guys in uniform are a good thing. Some ancient general in antiquity came up with the idea that having all the guys on your team wear the same outfit was a pretty cool idea. And not just to prevent accidental bludgeoning and friendly stabbing but more so to instill an Esprit de Corps amongst the troops. Part of the cost of raising an army has always been the uniform and having a uniform gave the average soldier confidence that his general had enough bank to pay up when the fighting was done. Gadaffi's hold on his army has a similar dimension. With sanctions beginning to take hold Gaddafi has doubled public sector and army pay and increased interest rates to try to coax money out from under mattresses, where millions have gone since fighting started and coax it back to the Libyan central bank.

   In fact, with neither side looking like it'll be able to pull off a decisive military victory, this war seems (as Gaddafi predicted) to be entering the post season and the long war phase. Here, economics comes into play and it's harder to see how Gadaffi can win this phase. He's already burning through his cash stash and one wonders how many dollars he has buried in the desert. The rebels too are running low on cash but they managed to fill a tanker over the weekend that made off with $100 million worth of sweet crude that sure helped rebel coffers. That's probably why Gaddafi wanted Brega and its oil refinery so bad, denying it to the enemy is at least as good as owning it yourself, broken though it is. 

   The problem with the inevitable economic victory for NATO is that it is liable to take time and not look very convincing. Waiting for Gadaffi to run out of money or for sanctions to cause food shortages in Tripoli is liable to create the type of 'humanitarian crisis'  Operation Odyssey Dawn was designed to prevent. That kind of messy victory is going to leave more chimpanzee shit on NATO's doorstep.

   Still, the situation is not by any means good for our villain. A bunch of his cabinet ministers abandoned ship last week which didn't look good for Gadaffi and the morale in his camp. The most high profile defector, former foreign minister Moussa Koussa seems to be trying to play the role of 'honest broker' on the international stage and seems to think a deal can be made. Anything he can do to make himself useful is a good idea because he's facing questioning for the Lockerbie bombing and needs a favorable phone call from the MoD to get the dogs called off.

   One idea that I saw floated was the partition of the country which seems pretty ugly but would probably suit sleazy western oil companies since all the oil fields are in the east and the rebels hold most of them. They've already proved they can play ball and be compliant on the oil front, having filled three tankers over the past month and that's something Western governments need to know. With oil prices hovering around the $110 mark and jittery news in America of $5 a gallon gas by summer, that's the kind of shit that crashed the economy two years ago and makes the corporatocracy shudder. And with the US consumer already broke, pricey oil will cause all kinds of commodity and food price spikes that's going to eat up every disposable dollar in circulation, leaving a whole bunch of iPhones and plastic pumpkins gathering dust on store shelves.

   This is still Gaddafi's best play right now. Keep the uncertainty flowing for as long as possible and see if you  can parlay that into a sweet deal for yourself and the in-laws. Something involving stepping down in favor of a son and getting to keep the money in your offshore bank accounts. Meanwhile, churn out brutal urban warfare in Misurata while conducting hit and run raids in pickup trucks against the rebels who are sure to run like fuck and scream at the sky, demanding the magical appearance of A-10s. Oh wait, the US has scaled down air operations. Guess they'll have to rely on French Mirages or British Tornados, neither aircraft being ideal for loitering over the battlefield providing close air support to idiots who wouldn't know to take advantage of it anyway.

   What a mess.

   One thing is for sure, no matter how this ends, there won't be many Libyans smiling or laughing.

   Not even the 'arch villain' himself.

Ivory Coast: Gbagbo's army goes AWOL.

   In the vintage year for war that 2011 is turning out to be, Ivory Coast's is turning out to be a minor dust up. Like I've been saying for a while now, it was just a matter of time before this shit went live. With news today that 800 civilian bodies were found in the western town of Duekoue, shot and hacked up with machetes, seems this war has finally got its shit together. Of course, both sides are blaming each other for the body count. But that's pretty much par for the course when genocide is in play in Africa; both sides are willing to play the game but no side wants to be caught standing with blood on their hands when any particular round of media musical chairs ends.

   You can't really call this a proper war though. Not when one side, in this case that of former president Laurent Gbagbo, the president who refuses to step down after losing last November's election, doesn't seem like he has the stomach for a proper fight. Gbagbo's army put up almost no resistance to the UN and IMF's man, Alassane Ouattara, whose forces seem to have marched right in over the last few days and taken 80% of the country with almost no resistance.

   That sure had me scratching my head. 

   Seems a lot of them saw the writing on the wall and stayed at home. Even Gbagbo's chief general and head of the army, Phillippe Mangou, took refuge in the South African embassy with his five children. By mid afternoon on Friday 50,000 soldiers and cops had abandoned Gbagbo. Although there has been constant gunfire in the capital Abidjan and fierce fighting, Ouattarra's men have already taken the presidential palace and a bunch of them slept in Gbagbos bed. When you lose your bed, you know the war is pretty much over for you. Still, there's no sign of Gbagbo.

Ouattara's forces preparing to enjoy Gbagbo's bed in his palace.

   This Gbagbo guy sucks majorly.

   Seriously, he should win some prize for the worst defence of a country ever. Was he really that clueless that he didn't realise a large chunk of his army would surrender at the first sign of trouble? Actually, probably yes. That was why he was running a little mini Hitler Youth recruiting drive over the past few weeks and handing out AKs to angry teenagers with tribal grievances and calling them the 'Young Patriots'. Nothing like tapping into the old colonial divisions and ethnic fault lines when you need a fog of ultra violence to hide behind. He also has about 2,500 troops of the 'Republican Guard' (think hometown tribe who you've been funnelling chocolate profits to for the last ten years, much like Saddam's Ba'ath buddies in Tikrit) and it looks like they are putting up decent resistance in the capital Abidjan; prolonging shit to at least save some face. Gbagbo's forces have also managed, after conflicting reports, to retain control of state broadcaster RTI where they've been playing tape on a loop of last November's election 'victory'. There are also reports of a dishevelled Gbagbo news guy showing up impromptu and claiming the station had been attacked by the UN "assisted by Guinean, Malian, Senegalese, Beninese and Burkinabe mercenaries", which seems to me to be an attempt to stir up tribal tensions and get the wider genocide ball rolling.

   The problem right now for the international community is they are not giving Gbagbo a way out. With resistance in the capital proving more stubborn then they expected (understandable after you've captured 80% of the country so easily in a matter of days), the longer this goes on the more destabilizing it can get. Just like in Libya, you need to float a decent escape plan for the designated 'bad guy'. But with the International Community floating the idea of indicting Gbagbo for 'crimes against humanity', that pretty much rules out the villa in the south of France and access to his inevitable offshore bank account.

   What I don't get is if Gbagbo had some inkling that his guys were going to surrender so miserably? If so, then why not make a deal while he still had a decent amount of chips left on the table? My guess is the guy's a retard surrounded by yes men who were trolling the fuck out of him. Did Gbagbo really know his chief general, Mangou, was such a pussy or was he just that clueless? Of course, I have no idea but it makes for a comedy sketch that goes something like this:

  

                   INT - President Gbagbo's HQ - Evening, a week prior to Ouattarra's attack.

     President Gbagbo is reclining in his armchair, smoking a cigar while a hooker smokes his 'other cigar' under his sprawling mahogany desk. He has requested an audience with his chief general, Phillippe Mangou, in order to assess the readiness of his army for the upcoming war.

       Gbagbo: So how are the troops, General Mangou?
       Mangou: They are fabulous el presidente.
       Gbagbo: And how do they feel about that $20 a month raise I gave them.
       Mangou: They are really pleased with it sir. Most of them bought another six pack with it.
       Gbagbo: SIX PACK!?
       Mangou: Yes sir...it's an erm... extension for the magazine cartridge on their AKs.
       Gbagbo:  Ah that's the spirit! I like dedication like that. For a second there I thought you meant the men were drinking!
       (Nervous laughter)
       Mangou:  Drinking? Why would they do that? Granted, with the UN, the IMF, the African Union, ECOWAS, the World Bank and the International Community breathing down their necks, the men might need to steady their nerves a little.
       Gbagbo: True. That's true. (Gbagbo begins signing papers on his desk)
       Mangou: What are you doing el presidente?
       Gbagbo: I'm increasing the army's chocolate ration. Nothing makes men want to fight like Hershey and Snickers bars!
       Mangou: Good plan... good plan! (muttering to himself) That'll work retard!

Laurent Gbagbo: Not the sharpest tool in the shed.

   This war is pretty much over already. Gbagbo has failed to get the genocide ball rolling and his forces will soon be running out of ammo. Still, Ouaterra has a lot to lose here if he doesn't play his hand carefully. He's been offering Gbagbo multiple chances to surrender. This is presumably to try to avoid a high body count which tends to put a dampner on your swearing in ceremony. It also makes all that foreign money that's bankrolling you nervous. These foreign interests just want business to settle down nicely and the economic rape of Africa to continue on the down low as it has done for centuries. Ouattara knows the game since he was an inside man at the IMF for much of the '90s.

   So everything should work out better than expected for the economic hitmen.

  

The M2 Browning .50 cal: A ghost gun from another era.

   Go ahead and name some piece of machinery originally designed and made in the 1920s that is still in use in pretty much its original form today. You'd be hard pressed to find anything as ubiquitous as the M2 Browning machine gun. The .50 cal or 'Ma Deuce' is like some dinosaur walking amongst us today, like the gator that chewed your leg off when you innocently went swimming in your Floridian urban sprawl condo pool that happened to extend into the Everglades; a hazard your sleazy real estate agent allowed to get lost in the fine print when you signed the lease.  Sure, you miss your leg but you find yourself respecting the ancient intelligence that chewed it off.

   The M2 Browning is a little like that.

   Its design is just so damn perfect that nobody has dared mess with it much and even today many of the newer modifications would be compatible with the original 1920s model. In today's shitty dystopian sci fi novel that we're all living in, it seems everything from washing machines to automobiles get manufactured with a built in fail date so you'll have to buy a whole new one from 'MegaCorp' in a few years; and toss the old one in the ocean somewhere where it'll kill five dolphins. Not so the .50 cal. Of course, this was a time before the Bladerunner corporations that make everything today owned the government. There was a time once when a government design contract meant the best possible design and was not the best possible way to spread corporation cash to the most Congressional Districts to get re elected.

   The designer himself, John Browning, was a pretty fun gun nut.

   He was born into it. His father, a Mormon pioneer and gun designer himself, was part of the mass exodus that followed Brigham Young from Illinois to Utah in 1847 in search of an American Jesus. Or something.  I love how religious folk like Browning are always drawn to weaponry. I just have a little trouble finding the part in scripture where Jesus liked to break out his peacemaker when things got sketchy. Sure, firepower is always handy but Jesus was not the type of guy with a backup plan in case the peace and love message didn't work out for him. It's pretty funny how his followers today tend to eschew that philosophy in favor of something with a little more stopping power.

   And the M2 Browning sure has a lot of stopping power.

   If you get clipped by a .50 cal round it's pretty much a death sentence. The hole in you is large and bleeding out from artery leakage is a bitch. And that's if you're 'lucky' enough to just get whacked in a limb. Anything in the torso gives you a few seconds to remember how Mom made Christmas fun by lying to you about the existence of Santa Claus and the origin of the presents under the Christmas Tree. Then it all just goes the way of nothingness. Browning himself, of course, would beg to differ and say a nine inch hole in your chest is just a flesh wound in comparison to the paradise to come.

   The young Browning designed his first gun in his father's workshop in Ogden, Utah when he was just thirteen years old. That certainly casts today's teenagers as a bunch of underachievers. But then again, that's what lack of  instant access to Lady Gaga's ass on YouTube once did to you; makes a horny teenager channel all that masturbatory energy into something productive like guns.

   Browning's first design was a single shot rifle which the Winchester company soon bought the rights to and, before long, the young Browning was fully employed by Winchester and producing a slew of single shot rifle designs; probably the most famous being the Winchester .30-30 that you've seen in just about every cowboy movie ever made.  Interestingly, Browning himself was responsible for WWI. Well, not really. But he did design the FN Model 1910 automatic pistol that offed Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 that sparked the whole clusterfuck. Not Browning's fault, but still a mishap you are going to have to explain to Jesus at the pearly gates.

  But Browning's greatest legacy is probably the M2 .50 cal. Still a mainstay not just in the US military but in the militaries of over a hundred other countries, the reliable old .50 cal is still increasing the body count in multiple war zones today. The original design order was placed by venerable old war dog John J. Pershing when he was faced with the task of whipping up a US army to chuck onto the Western Front in 1917 to prove to the Euros that splendid isolation wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Pershing needed something heavy that could shoot down aircraft (those Fokkers were still bothersome in 1917) and a gun that could punch through the thin armor of the Kaiser's armored cars.

   Browning set about the task.

   The original M2 started out water cooled with a heavy water jacket, like the British Maxim gun that was proving so effective in the trench stalemate. It wasn't until after the war ended though and in the early 1920s that Browning's gun started to mature into something serious. The water jacket was obviously cumbersome and wasn't much use if you wanted to mount the gun in aircraft wings; aircraft being seen in the 1920s as the new 'stalemate busters' in any future war. That's why the Versailles Treaty allowed the defeated Germans no aircraft and how their glider program got started; ironically educating the likes of Kurt Tank and Willy Messerschmitt in the fundamentals of flight. Isn't it funny how the best laid plans of mice and men tend to backfire? Those early glider guys went on to design the Me 109 and the FW 190.

Browning's .50 cal with water jacket and top hat.

   With about 140,000 machine guns lying around and gathering dust after the Great War, the US felt no immediate need for new gun development. But then, as time went on, all these guns started becoming obsolete, Vickers, Lewis, Marlin... but not good old Browning's M19171A. It still had merits and just needed an upgrade for the 1930s. One of these was standardization. The brass were onto something when they issued a requirement for a heavy machine gun that could be used in a universal role across all branches of the services. A heavier barrel was introduced, designated the M2HB, that increased heat dissipation but sucked for infantry teams that had to carry the thing. But infantry fire teams were never where the .50cal's destiny lay. Its true home was as the standard gun on almost every tank, APC and WWII era fighter that the brass could spread it to. Unlike today, cost used to be a factor in the American military budget. And with the M2HB mounted on every vehicle and in every aircraft wing possible, saving taxpayer money was something that once made sense to law makers unguilty of taking 'Tyrell Corporation' cash.

Lego likes the .50 cal. You see the smile on that guys face?

   The M2HB (heavy barrel) is the variant we all know and love today. Today, it's mounted atop the M1 Abrams and standard on Humvees in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's pretty much confirmation of the success and ubiquity of a hundred year old design. It comes in very handy when you've got a bunch of 'insurgents' holed up in some structure but isn't worth an HE round from your main barrel. Thanks to Pershing and that heavy .50 cal round design order, you just spray the structure, knowing that rounds eat concrete like cookie monster and anyone inside who gets clipped loses his ability to run like fuck.

   But what good is a major gun like the .50 cal today without a personal interest piece?

   In today's bullshit media environment the only way to present something that the plebs will find interesting is to wrap it up in some story that makes sense to today's "gas your vehicle, work like fuck and watch the History Channel" for ancient aliens to know how better off they are than anyone in human history because they have TV and Internet and didn't get their ass conscripted into a war.

   So I present to you, American badass and volunteer, himself a ghost from another era, Audie Murphy.

   Sure he became a 'star' and banked some cash after his exploits in WWII but he was always the reluctant star and spent the first bundle he made on a home for his extended family. Always modest and the uneasy hero (as any true bona fide hero must be), he's always struck me as the ideal American military archetype. He harks back to a time in American history when you could admire a guy for his courage and stands in contrast to today when the media manufactures heroes by sheer control of the airwaves; like that dim blond Jessica Lynch that got 'rescued' from an Iraqi hospital in 2003 by Special Forces even though the Iraqi doctor that treated her was begging for her to get heloed out of there days before the media-industrial-complex decided they could latch onto the event and feed the plebs a feel good story.

   Murphy earned his Medal of Honor on a .50 cal in 1945.

Audie Murphy. A true American badass even before the media decided he was a 'hero'.

   I'm not going to try to bullshit my way through his actions. I'll just let his MOH citation speak for itself.

   "Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to a prepared position in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad that was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued his single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way back to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack, which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective."

    In reality, the guy suffered from PTSD for the rest of his life. And this was a time when psychological casualties of war didn't exist officially. He did it from the exposed position of the mounted .50 cal on Sherman tanks at the time that made you sniper fodder. That's badass.

   Just like Browning's century old gun.

   It makes me wonder what humans will be firing at each other 100 years from now.

   Einstein's sticks and stones or George Lucas laser guns? 

   

  

Libya: The cavalry arrives!

   So NATO finally weighed up all the options and decided to act. After the Saudi "Day of Rage" fizzled, the point was made that the West would not intervene in Arab civil wars or support any rebels in the Saudi oil prize vassal state. They even stood by and offered no condemnation when the Saudi's steamrolled armor into Bahrain and started slapping the Shia around for daring to suggest that the 60% 'minority' Shia in that country should have a say in government. With the point made that the West won't always help rebels, it was time this weekend to swoop in on Libya and save those rebels making a last stand in Benghazi.

   Intervening in a civil war is serious business. That's why NATO only does it on a selective basis; like in Libya but not Bahrain; like in Kosovo but not South Ossetia. I feel sorry for all those citizens in places like Bahrain, Darfur, Burma, Congo and Rwanda who must be kicking themselves right now that their shitty piece of global geography contains no oil. With the Libyan rebels making a last stand against Gadaffi's forces in the eastern city of Benghazi,  the cavalry arrived just in time to rescue the garrison like John Wayne in some 50s Western. With a UN resolution to protect "civilian life" safely in hand, it was time to launch operation "Odyssey Dawn", a typical NATO moniker dreamed up by some pencil pushing general in the Pentagon. It does seem to suggest though that the West is embarking on a journey here and is unsure of the outcome. Seems about right. NATO are being purposefully vague about the objectives and even stated on Sunday that Gaddafi himself was not the target of British missiles when they levelled his compound in Tripoli. It's pretty funny when they resort to obvious bullshit like that but more interesting when you consider the wider Middle East context. This operation is supposed to look like part of the wider Sunni narrative of Arab uprisings against dictatorial regimes and is absolutely not a Western enforced regime change.

   So how did these attacks go down?

   Late Saturday evening the French flew some sorties out of Istres air base outside Marseilles and dangled some Mirages and Rafales over Gaddafi's arty and heavy armor sieging Benghazi. This was supposed to scare his army shitless but that never works in war. You need explosions and bodies to make a point and the French proved that in spades by coming back later that night in force and ripping Gaddafi's forces a new asshole. Where the US and Britain focused their attacks mainly against airbases and Gaddafi's compound mostly with standoff sub and cruiser launched Tomahawks (British Tornados, US F-15s, F-16s and B2s were also employed), the French seem to have gone straight for the jugular by going after Gaddafi's heavy armor and arty directly with their air force. That was pretty impressive for the French. I always get the feeling that the frogs are perpetually trying to overcome that 'surrender monkey' rap they got after WWII. We can safely presume Sarkozy will be running for re election.

   They caught Libyan armor napping in a field about ten miles outside Benghazi. Sitting ducks for the French, Gaddafi lost all his heavy armor sieging the city with a lot of the crews dying in their sleeping bags near their tanks without a mark on their bodies. Those pressure waves have a nasty effect of turning your insides to jelly while you sleep. Of course, this kind of rape doesn't come without its reasons and not all of them are about the French proving they have decent sized balls. A 2009 wikileaks cable revealed that Gadaffi was attempting to renegotiate the terms of French oil company Total's deal and give Libya a greater share of crude oil production. Ain't payback a bitch? Also, the Euros are pretty freaked out right now about the possibility of hundreds of thousands of hungry Libyan refugees winding up on their shores if Gadaffi gets to take his revenge on Benghazi. That might have been the final straw that set this NATO operation in motion.

   Still, it seems like Gadaffi's scorched earth threat to blow the Libyan oilfields might be back on.

Death by pressure wave is 'clean'. There are even pockets left to pick.



Big ass explosions are fun... from a safe distance. Thankfully, civilians don't drive cars in Libya.



   In fact, going by the sheer destruction and rapid turnaround in Gadaffi's fortunes, these initial strikes  could be seen by many as a little 'excessive'. Not only were Gadaffi's heavy weapons around Benghazi destroyed but also those retreating to Tripoli  have been subject to a free for all turkey shoot on the main highway. So much so that the Russians, Chinese and Arab League are starting to grumble about the US led coalition with Putin complaining that NATO overstepped the  'mandate to protect civilians' and was engaging in the' indiscriminate use of force'. Typical geopolitical stuff from the Russians who get pissed when the West pulls shit like this with the longterm view of oil price stability.

   Of course, that doesn't mean that they're wrong either. It's just means that no one has clean hands. The Russians are probably just pissed that $4 billion in arms contracts with Gadaffi went up in smoke, $2 billion of which were still pending when NATO swooped in and cancelled the contract with Tomahawks. Shit like that tends to make Putin suddenly care about civilian casualties. Let's face it, we're living in a dystopian future sci-fi novel where every nation state is dirty.

   That said, there's been pretty much a media blackout on the civilian casualties of these air strikes. As usual, the West is killing people in poorer countries to save their lives. US Navy vice-admiral Bill Gortney gave a press conference at the Pentagon on Sunday and showed a bunch of reporters a series of slides of the attacks and insisted there were no civilian casualties. Not even on the main highway to Tripoli. None of those cars contained civilians of any kind. You've gotta love that kind of bullshit.  Your population will only swallow it when it doesn't give a shit and that's a safe bet right now in Western countries where people are getting jittery about the price of oil.

The main Libyan East West highway is not ideal terrain for retreating armor.

  

     Gadaffi himself is understandably lying low.

    No more TV interviews for him. Now his bullshit comes only in audio format recorded over the phone. That's to aid him in his ongoing mission to dodge a Tomahawk. He has declared a ceasefire with the rebels (to try to buy some time) and threatened to open his arsenals to the civilian population to aid in the defence of the Libyan nation. It's unclear how many people would take him up on the offer of a free AK after he bombed them. He's still got a very healthy bank account though and even without air superiority and much diminished armor, his forces will still present a significant force. Gaddafi has vowed to fight a "long war" and it's still hard to see how a bunch of guys in pick up trucks with no training can defeat Gaddafi's professional infantry. NATO has been quick to point out that it won't be landing ground forces so it will up these 'rebels' to take the fight to Gaddafi.

   That's going to be an interesting fight. Urban warfare is tricky. And it can never be won by air power alone. If Gaddafi can avoid dying it's hard to see the rebels pulling this off in the absence of a proper command and control structure. Gaddafi's prediction of a "long war" doesn't seem too wide of the mark. He now has the West engaged in a third 'imperialist' war which is going to play in his favor on the streets of the wider Arab world. No matter what, if Gadaffi can stay alive, he is at least putting himself in position to make a deal with the West should things go south for him militarily; like a beachfront condo somewhere sunny and him getting to keep the billions in his offshore bank accounts.

   The coalition too will suffer from command structure problems. Who exactly is in charge of this op? Sure, it's the US right now but they are eager to wash their hands of the whole thing as soon as possible lest it disrupt other interests in the Middle East. For one thing, they don't want the Muslim Brotherhood in nextdoor Egypt getting elected on US imperialist populism fueled by refugees and ugly reports coming out of Libya. The nightmare here for the US and part of Gadaffi's "long war" strategy is the US losing control of Suez, central to US strategic planning in the Gulf. Defense Secretary Gates wants to hand over control of the mission later this week to someone but he doesn't know who yet. War by global commitee is a special type of clusterfuck and can get nasty if conflicting generals start slapping each other around in the press when things don't go the way they're supposed to. Odyssey Dawn indeed.

   Ideally for the West this ends with Gaddafi dead and a new compliant Libyan government installed which will go along with a new set of oil deals written by Western oil companies. Either way, this ends up pretty shitty for Libya. The thing is, although Gaddafi is an asshole, he has taken Libya a long way since the 1970s. The country has had the highest living standards in Africa. Various subsidized or free services in health, education, housing, and basic foodstuffs have ensured basic necessities for most people. In fact, quite a lot of Libyans were pretty satisfied with their lot and is why, a few weeks back when this 'war' began, Gadaffi was quick to portray the rebels as a bunch of 'drug addicts' and malcontents. Of course, he jumped the shark when he used his air force to bomb his own people and indiscriminately shelled his own cities. That likely lost him a lot of home grown support he might otherwise have had and caused mass desertions in his military. A lot of guys came back after he started winning and it'll be interesting to see if they stay now that he is 'losing' again.

   Right now, he'll likely portray this as a typical Western oil grab in another Arab country and try to churn out brutal urban infantry battles for as long as he can and play to a wider narrative. That narrative is that the West only gets involved in shooting wars in the Arab world when there is oil at stake. 

   And he won't be totally wrong.

Libya: Gaddafi strikes back!

   While the West adjusts its knickers and tries to figure out how best to play its hand, Muammar Gaddafi has staged a successful attack on the city of Zawiyah 30 miles east of Tripoli with up to 50 tanks and a shitload of Toyota Tundra pick up trucks from the 'elite' Khamis brigade led by his son. Zawiyah, a city of about 200,000 and right in Gaddafi's back yard, was a thorn in his side and it's pretty logical that he would aim to 'cleanse' that first. The shelling has been pretty indiscriminate (as shelling always is) and it seems his forces have taken out power to the town. Cellular and land line phone communications have been cut which I'm sure is making the rebels jittery. There are reports of them using bullhorns to try to rally men to the main square where they seem to have some makeshift HQ. The town has been surrounded and cordoned off by loyalist forces and anyone attempting to escape is getting sniped on the highway. 

   If and when Zawiyeh falls things are going to get interesting because the country will fall into an almost perfect east-west divide. With NATO offshore fanning their pussies and still wondering if the imposition of a 'no fly zone' will harm or help the rebels, Gaddafi's forces seem to be strengthening. The 5000 troops he's paying to stay loyal seem to have been bolstered by a few hundred Tuareg warriors from Mali and Niger. These 'blue warriors' are Saharan tribesmen Gaddafi helped out when they rebelled in '07 in Mali and now seem to be repaying the favor at the price of a mere grand a day per warrior.

   Don't you love this shit?

   In the east, Gaddafi's air force has been messing with the oil refinery in Ras Lanuf and dropping the odd bomb to mess with the rebel's heads. It also makes sure no more oil tankers make off with any more loads like the two that managed it last week. Gaddafi's forces also repelled a balls to the wall rebel attack on Sunday when a bunch of fools in pick up trucks attempted to advance on Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte only to get pawned by arty and heavy weapons. They returned to base with heavy casualties and Gadaffi loyalists were seen celebrating in Tripoli on news of the victory. The momentum shift now is interesting as suddenly both sides believe they can win.



Enemy jets! They suck! Also note the guy's initials on his AK. He doesn't want his shit stolen while he sleeps!



   Without some NATO weaponry or fire support it's difficult to see how the rebels in pick ups can bring it to Gaddafi. And with Gaddafi seemingly gaining the initiative, a push to the east with armor toward Benghazi seems inevitable if Ras Lanuf falls. There are reports that the rebels in Ras Lanuf are running low on fuel and ammo, not suprising when you consider every time a jet swoops overhead everyone and their mother opens up with their AK. Let's face it these guys are not professional soldiers by any means just a motley bunch of guys who've been cut out of Libya's economic pie all their lives. Born into the wrong tribe or social group this is their chance for a better shot. Problem is, heart and enthusiasm can only get you so far in war. And with no heavy weapons and under arty and rocket fire guys like that tend to buckle when enough of them end up on stretchers in the hospital ward that has no electricity or doctors. They've got no command structure. Or discipline. There are reports of disparate groups of them arriving in pick ups in Ras Lanuf, driving west to wherever they believe the 'front is', firing a few shots in the general direction of Gadaffi's forces and going for a cigarette break.  If Gaddafi can capture Ras Lanuf you could see the rebel forces crumbling and making a break for the Egyptian border with all the mess that would entail, last and not least of which would be Libya's oil off the world market for the next ten years with Gadaffi back in charge and the 'terrorist state' the West always claims it is so terrified of becoming a reality in the heart of North Africa.

   Of course, if NATO does intervene, and with Gadaffi's gains it needs to make up its collective mind, that'll have wider implications all across the Arab world. There will be clamoring voices in next door Egypt saying it is an imperialist oil grab which will push that new 'democracy' into the hands of hardliners and risks handing the country over to the Muslim Brotherhood. Having them in control of Suez is a nightmare for the US Navy who needs that waterway as part of its Persian Gulf strategy. Interestingly, the crushing of the rebellion in Libya would be seen in Saudi Arabia as a bonus and might put a dampener on Friday's upcoming "Day of Rage". When one side has all the heavy weapons, maybe Facebook and Twitter aren't enough to win a war after all. 

   Interestingly, there were reports yesterday of Gaddafi floating an exit strategy for him and his money. Although later denied (you always deny it until you're safely aboard the plane to your beach front condo), it seems Gadaffi would bail if he and his family could get immunity with no pesky war crime trials and get to keep their money. That hole is pretty deep now and it's hard to see the West being cool with this especially since all those shiny oil investments are now dust.

   Probably the best bet right now for the West is to slip in some covert 'military advisors' Vietnam style and train some rebels to use the Javelin Anti Armor system and FIM-92 Stingers to take down Gadaffi's aircraft. But even then, it's hard seeing that motley bunch having the command structure to put them to good use. Sure any move by NATO like this would be obvious but certainly a quieter move than imposing a no-fly zone that'll have the rest of the Arab world screaming oil grab or Zionist plot.

   The thing is, with Gadaffi gaining the initiative, the West will have to make up its mind very soon if it wants to act, because if the rebels start losing ground a "no fly zone" is not gonna cut it (Gadaffi's airforce not being the rebels main problem anyway and NATO will be forced to take out Gadaffi's arty and armor just so the rebels can hold real estate.

   And that is not going to viewed favorably in the wider Arab world.

Ivory Coast 2: Trickle down economics West African style.

   I thought I'd take a quick break from the North African situation and comment on a post I wrote a while back on the situation in Ivory Coast. The whole impending civil war thing was not happening quick enough for some readers and I was getting emails saying everything was cool and Fonzy and nothing bad is going to happen. Well this is not so. Stay tuned because the price of your Hershey bar is about to increase (Ivory Coast being the worlds leading cocoa producer) and there are a number of signs that this war is about to go live although how exactly is still anybody's guess.

   If you've read my previous post on the situation or happen to be one of the few that gives a shit what goes down in West Africa, you'll know the winner of November's election according to the UN, the IMF and most foreign governments was Alassane Ouattara. He and his cabinet have been holed up for the last few months in the "Golf Hotel" just outside the commercial capital, Abidjan, protected by a bunch of UN troops from the current slimey President/General Laurent Gbagbo and his army who have refused to accept the result of the election for the obvious reason that Gbagbo seems to have lost. Of course, losing to a guy like Ouattera who was also a bankster who acted as Deputy Managing Director at the IMF from '94-'99 presents an easy conspiracy theory to feed to your loyal troops. And those loyalists include most of Ivory Coast's army who Gbagbo is feeding a healthy share of the country's profits to, Caesar conquest of Gaul style. 

   The international power elites are pissed because the only real 'successful' West African country (success equalling exploitable profit) is undergoing a bout of instability because of a power hungry general Gbagbo. They see Ouattara as the man easier to do business with. The fact that he's holed up at the "Golf Hotel" smacks of irony. I mean, how many golf courses are there in West Africa anyway? Golf is the sport of rich corporate fucks and it just so happens that their guy ends up at the only resort in West Africa where you can take a swing at your handicap. Sure, Gbagbo himself is pure sleaze so there is no good guy in this situation, just an easier guy for foreign interests to buy more chocolate and bananas from.

   So what are the latest developments?

   Ouattara and his 'cabinet-in-waiting' are still holed up at the luxury Golf Hotel presumably sipping cocktails at the 'nineteenth hole' and still under the protection of about 9000 UN troops. In the meantime, Gbagbo has been looting their homes with his 'elite paramilitary police force' (Cecos) with reports of cop trucks leaving the homes of prominent cabinet members with fridges and big screen TVs. Gbagbo also seems to have given free reign to groups of unruly teenagers who have been seen leaving the same homes with slimmer pickings like bags of rice and canisters of cooking gas;  that's trickle down economics West African style... you get to loot the cheap shit when you're poor.

   Meanwhile, 200,000 people have already bailed from the country on the threat of violence, 70,000 of those to the neighboring shithole of Liberia next door. It's pretty sad when people from the most successful country in West Africa need to escape to the beach shitters in Liberia. But with the tribal insignias being painted on doors and gates (so you don't get massacred by the wrong death squad) you know word on the ground is that this shit still has the potential to get ugly. Maybe not quite Rwanda ugly, but up there in terms of machete slashing.

   One of the more ugly incidents in recent weeks was the shooting dead of six women protesters by Gbagbo's troops. The women's demonstration became a scene of terror when security forces rolled up and opened fire with machine guns in Abobo, a sprawling, impoverished suburb of Abidjan. That was pretty shocking up until last week when Gadaffi went and jumped the shark in African terms and ordered his air force to bomb protesters in Benghazi.

   Who knew 2011 would offer up so much war and it's still only March?

   The whole regional civil war thing seems to be getting well and truly out of hand for those that care in Western capitals. And yet it is still only happening in countries nobody gives a shit about or those that don't have an impact on the world economy. The only real fear now is contagion to Saudi Arabia and commodity price. We in the West can live with a few cents increase in Hershey Bars and Iran floating destroyers through Suez but oil cresting the hundred dollar a barrel mark and beyond is something that makes Washington and Brussels shit brix.

Massacred women: An outrageous image if it'd happened outside West Africa

   Probably my favourite scenario for Ivory Coast is if the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) decide to get involved. They have no love for Gbagbo and the idea that they could invade would be a fun move for pan African independence (Ouattera was ECOWAS first president from 1977-85). Restoring order 'in house' and not forcing Western nations to get involved in the bongo party would truly be seen as some kind of maturity by the Western economic hitmen. It's not something ECOWAS couldn't do in house (well equipped as they are with Soviet and NATO armor) versus Gbagbo's AK and RPG wielding Ivorian Army (vehicle deficient) but such action could precipitate all kinds of nasty tribe on tribe genocide as the cornered Gbagbo forces go down fighting and whipping up genocide for shits and giggles.

   It seems right now that all sides in Ivory Coast would prefer to hold out for some future 'peaceful' resolution then have ECOWAS invade and force the issue. The UN seem content to protect Ouattara in the Golf Hotel for the time being in lieu of knowing what the fuck else to do. Gbagbo, for his part, seems content looting TVs and refrigerators and relocating them to the homes of his senior officers. There is a lot of hate brewing under the surface, much of it running on old colonial lines between the southern coastal elites who did business with the French (Gbagbo's men) and the impoverished north plantation workers and their disenfranchised immigrant kin who voted for Ouaterra and would love a share of the country's profits. For those of us amazed by the swiftness of 2011's developments but impatient for a grab the popcorn war, right now I think it's best we stock up and watch North Africa and the possible contagion to the grand oil producer.

   The only thing for sure right now in Ivory Coast is that it's not going away.

   But at the end of the day, let's face it, chocolate is not as tasty as oil.

Libya: The tumultuous middle of the wider chess game.

   Gaddafi and his forces seem to be holding out for the moment.

   The country has fallen into two camps, in the East and West, with the rebels centered around Benghazi and Tobruk. Yeah, Tobruk. Doesn't it make you salivate for the good old days of the 8th Army v the Afrika Corps? Gadaffi holds Tripoli but has rebel skirmishers bothering his stronghold from the nearby town of Zawiyah. The Rebels and the Libyan army say they have secured 80% of the oil resources in the East so Gaddafi's threat to set them afire and cause an oil apocalypse have been minimized. That's a bit of a popcorn killer and the reason oil prices retreated somewhat today. In fact, shipments resumed yesterday when two full tankers left Tobruk with some sleazy oil whoring company saying things are all cool with the rebels. Those guys will ship no matter who dies on the streets.

   Still, Gaddafi must be seriously pissed.

   There were reports today in Western media that Gaddafi may have the components necessary to whip up some mustard gas. Sounds fishy to me and more like an attempt by Western interests to lead public opinion in the direction of direct intervention. The usual playbook is in force here which first means 'sanctions' on everything except Libyan oil exports. That is, we stop selling you shit and stop buying shit from you except for the stuff we absolutely need like oil. Much like sanctions against Iran, they have minimal effect and right now, Gaddafi is so far gone, I doubt if he cares whether or not he can import soybeans and pork bellies. He's more concerned with counting his ammo and digging up his buried cash reserves to pay off his loyalists.

   He gave a delusional speech today to the BBC about how his people love him.

     Last time I heard such a lolworthy denial of apparent reality it was Comical Ali in Baghdad in 2003. Obviously, we are dealing with a delusional subject here. There is much to be said for bluster and denying the facts when you are trying to court an audience of loyalists at home, especially when your hold on those loyalists is tenuous at best and based on how much gold you can supply to buy that loyalty.

   But with NATO trying to figure out how to end this shit for "humanitarian reasons", one is forced to wonder what the wider game at play is here. For one thing, the longer this 'Arab revolt' goes on, the more pressure it puts on the 'jewel in the crown' of oil exporters, Saudi Arabia.  Crown Prince Abdullah dropped 35 billion this week to placate the plebs in his country as an insurance policy against them wondering why they're getting a peanut share of the oil wealth in Saudi Arabia. The West seems to agree that the longer the instability in Libya continues, the more precarious things could get for the stability of the world economy, that is, petro dollar flow, Saudi oil supply and the possible cost for the plebs back home commuting to work from suburbia.

   So right now we've got a motley crew of Western interests willing to close the deal on Gaddafi. The Americans are moving the USS Enterprise from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean (seems Suez is a free flow zone now considering Iran floated two destroyers through there last week). The British are ready to enforce a "no fly zone" over Libya (the next standard step in the playbook after sanctions) with Tornados and Typhoons within range from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Some in British circles are starting to miss the carrier Ark Royal after its recent decommissioning but those Harriers it fielded were never a safe bet especially for a BARCAP mission like this over Libya. With limited radar, a shitty top speed, no one outside the Daily Mail sees those Harriers as anything but a lucky score against the Argentinians 30 years ago.

   The French seem game to enforce a no fly zone too and that would be fun since they sold Gaddafi a bunch of Mirages in the 80s, obviously previous generation, but its interesting how things change. Also, it's unclear exactly what Gaddafi has left considering a shitload of his air force defected to Malta and elsewhere after their pilots realized the deranged nature of an order from Gaddafi to bomb their own citizens. The latest word is that two Soviet era Mig-23s bombed Benghazi today, one of the targets being the water supply to that city which they missed.

   Still, you can see how this is about to play out.

   Gaddafi has an interest in stretching this out as long as possible. The longer he can hold out means he can keep this story in the headlines in the Arab world and the longer he can court wider instability in the region, the more valuable his poker hand. This is a direct play against the West and it weakens the Saudi position the longer it goes on. There is a delicate chess game at work here. Gaddafi is inviting the West to overplay their hand here. If the US and its Euro partners wish to shut this down by imposing a 'no fly zone' over Libya or if there's some wild amphibious landing, (the US has the USS Kearsage offshore currently) then Gaddafi can scream invasion and claim a wider Zionist plot which is a trope that easily gains adherents in the wider Arab world.

   So what do? How does the West play this?

   It's a delicate game. And hard to play even with a winning hand.

   Right now, the protesters are closing in on Tripoli. It's tempting to let things take their course and have Gaddafi toppled 'in house'. But if the protesters need a little extra then that's where things could get sketchy. As soon as the West imposes any kind of intention on an otherwise 'in house' rebellion, they risk 'jumping the shark' on the whole deal.

   Gaddafi right now has those Migs at his disposal and also a bunch of my favorite angry looking choppers, Mil Mi-24 'Hind' gunships. They can do serious damage against infantry not equipped with decent AA. Probably the best bet right now for the West is to sneak some shoulder mounted AA into Benghazi to help them out. Less obvious than a 'no fly zone' or sanctions that aren't going to impact Gaddafi in the short term.

   You know what I hate about this whole thing? How we in the West have robbed the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya of their whole revolution. Sure, it's natural for the West to measure things from their own perspective but ultimately, it is the people of these country's victory. They did it! All by themselves! They made it happen and Western interests positioning forces offshore to play global chess emasculates their achievement. Still, you can't hope to escape geopolitics but it is worth mentioning. If I were there, I know I'd be amongst that crowd, flinging rocks to prove a point.

   But it's a very big game right now and even though it's well known Gaddafi is mulling over a losing position, overplaying its hand by direct intervention and taking victory away from the victors is the riskiest move the West could play right now.

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