The Peoples' War

They were described as ordinary people, store owners, doctors, lawyers, clerks. People with one thing in common. They were fed up with living in a police state ruled by a tyrant with little resort to basic human rights and they weren't prepared to take it any longer. They had the example of Egypt, their populous neighbour in North Africa which had undergone a successful revolt of the ordinary people against their far more tolerant dictator.

And before Egypt, Tunisia.

So why not Libya? The rulers of Egypt and Tunisia had some compunction about conducting a reprisal campaign of mass murder against their own people. Their own ruler is possessed of a far less troublesome conscience. He was and is more than prepared to sacrifice as many Libyan lives as necessary to beat back the revolutionary zeal. The initial days of the rebels' attacks against government forces were surprisingly successful.

Encouraging the rebels to forge on, determined to reach success and eventually Tripoli, to unseat Moammar Gadhafi, his family and his supporters. Encouraged even further by the defection of key government ministers, diplomats and military personnel. They were on a roll to successfully combating Gadhafi and his forces and reaching the victory of the deserving.

The outside world looking on was perturbed at what they saw and what they anticipated was yet to come. A certain slaughter of civilians. So France and Britain urged the UN Security Council to condemn Moammar Gadhafi and to exact sanctions. And finally a no-fly zone, which China and Russia abstained from voting for, but did not defeat.

The rebels were overjoyed, knowing that foreign intervention in the form of fly-overs that would target government planes, helicopters, armoured vehicles and tanks that were bombing, strafing and attacking them would decimate the Libyan armaments. They were equally adamant that they had no wish to see foreign troops on their land.

This was their war, and they would be more than adequate in numbers and determination to successfully prosecute it.

That was then, when they were fully confident, fully zealous and fully motivated to their task. Now, the Libyan rebels who cheered on lustily with news that NATO had taken over responsibility for enforcing and co-ordinating the no-fly zone and wiping up Col. Gadhafi's mechanized artillery, are well and truly embattled.

And bitter that the advantage they anticipated would result from NATO intervention has not yet won the war for them.

While the intervention has enabled them to certain advantages, the successfully aggressive push-back from government forces has disabled their progress. And they are now accusing the NATO-led air mission of not sufficiently aiding them. While NATO's chief of allied operations claims the alliance is doing all it can to protect civilians under the UN mandate, the rebels are bitter.

They are furious over their loss of territory at the advance of government troops; the loyalists' artillery barrages are too fast and furious for them, causing them to fall back from their early advances. This is a stinging reversal. "There is no revolution without setbacks", sighed a spokesman for the Transitional National Council.

Which hasn't stopped them from berating NATO for not accelerating attacks and bailing them out of their dilemma.