A Fractured Vision

Libya's civil war appears to be at a weary standstill. The rebels are fractured, they have been incapable of cohesion, of working together in a disciplined manner. They are divided along tribal, fractionated lines, with authority being vested in clan and tribal representatives. Even while the Transitional National Council claims to represent all the rebels and their interests.

And even while the international community has turned away from the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, to recognize officially the Transitional National Council. Taking steps to freeze Libyan government assets and use it as collateral with which to help fund the rebels. Although scant funding as promised has yet been funnelled through to the cash-hungry rebels.

These are the confident, cocky rebels who once posted their insistence of "No foreign intervention!" They were capable and prepared and able to do it all on their own. And they rolled right on, in their determination in their rag-tag militias, barely adequately armed, to confront and challenge and best Gadhafi's disciplined and well-armed military.

Taken by surprise, and having the initiative, it did look to the outside world, just as it did to the rebels that they had the upper hand and would expeditiously march on to Tripoli and depose their dictator. And then, even before the tide began to turn to balance the equation of might, they thought better of it and invited NATO to buy in to an air campaign to cover their backs.

Both the rebels and their Western backers insisting there would be no "boots on the ground". Completely unneeded. There are still posters in evidence that seek to thank NATO nations for their support, for their airstrikes and sea and air embargoes. Now, however, the rebel leadership speaks not of the failure of their disorganized militias, but the failure of NATO to dislodge Gadhafi.

The council of rebels has assured the U.S. that there are no al-Qaeda Islamists among them. And NATO chooses to take them at their word. Even while the council insists that Islamic law will become the basis for post-Gadhafi-era legislation. Which will guarantee individual liberties under a transitional, inclusive government. Contradictory?

Chaos reigns in the wake of the assassination of General Abdul Fatah Younes. Whose tribe remains unsatisfied with the council explanation on why the general would have received a notice he was to appear before it, why it was authorized, what it meant. Let alone their explanation relating to his assassination, with few details that make sense, and much contradictions.

Rebel militiamen, from various tribes, view one another with suspicion, charging one the other has ties as a "fifth column", with the Gadhafi regime. The tribal-based militias refuse to surrender to the authority of the central rebel group. Which is short of cash and fuel, and everything appears to have ground to an impotently frustrating halt.

Whither the rebellion?