PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

OPPOSITION FORCES ARE IN TROUBLE IN LIBYA

Part of the picture is missing in Libya. It is an organized, effective rebel opposition to Qaddafi. The rebels have been described variously as a "ragtag army". This is overstating the case. They are ragtag, all right, but they are in no way an army. They are completely uncoordinated, mostly untrained and all but entirely without commands (forget control).

It is evident that they don't know what they are doing or even how to do what they would hope to do, if they were at all effective. These are brave, foolish, patriotic men fighting to end a dark curse on their land, Qaddafi, and they must be admired for the bravery, if nothing else. Two days ago, in attempting to fight back against official forces, the rebels were reported to have fired a rocket in the wrong direction, toward their own position. This is sad and heartbreaking. They have missiles and other sophisticated weapons, but little knowledge (sometimes none) about how to use them at all, leaving aside using them well. One of the greatest dangers of this army is to itself.

As in all such situations, we can only hope that those making the ultimate decisions are better informed than we are. It could, in fact, have been obvious to top American officials, based on back channel communications, that the chances of Qaddafi's regime splitting apart like a fractured atom were excellent, if only some additional pressure could be applied. Well, the pressure has dropped and it will keep on dropping. I was startled to learn tonight that Belgium had launched air attacks on official forces. Belgium? Since when have they been involved outside their borders in a hostile way since the days when the Congo was called the Belgian Congo?

We are all very inclined to doom say, because, in the rumbling history of the last fifty years of American involvements in wars, semi-wars, police actions, whatever you want to call them, the doom sayers have almost always been proved right. There's little to be gained from optimism when we consistently send billions of dollars of American military power, and young lives, down dead end alleys in far away lands and then send in more and more. Maybe this time will be different. Maybe stripped suits (or stripped pant suits, as it were) at the State Department, the military brass at the Pentagon and all the spy agencies we pay billions for every year really knew something we didn't before they launched.

I think it could happen. Every dog has a day of reckoning, a meeting with a two ton SUV, if he runs out in the street enough. Qaddafi has trifled with his people, with the world, with torture, with unjust imprisonment, with international terrorism and, to top it off, with misappropriation of his nation's money too gross to measure. With a measure of luck, I wouldn't give him more than two or three weeks. The rats appear to be ready to jump off the ship and let him sail, or  crash,  into port on his own.

Doug Terry, 4.1.11

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