Another day, another fiasco. Now, some might accuse detractors of excessive snark, but it’s hard not to when stuff like this happens. Even if you ignore that factoid about 4x the wasted ammunition as being unreliable, there’s plenty of stuff that makes one smack the face:

But in the characteristically fanciful version of events provided by the Shabaab, a spokesman claimed it was all part of a cunning regime plot. According to Mustafa Ali Omar: “Some of Gaddafi’s forces sneaked in among the rebels and fired anti-aircraft guns in the air. After that, Nato came and bombed them.”

Captain Rahim Mohammed Fatousi, an army officer who defected to the revolution, shrugged “It is very difficult with the Shabaab: they were told many times to leave because we knew the coalition was going to carry out air attacks. But these people have support from some of the political factions in Benghazi who want to use their influence through them. We shall continue to try and have some discipline into this operation.”

and..

By yesterday, however, this had frayed. The Shabaab, as well as unarmed civilians, were allowed access to the front line and the result was seen in the retreat from the scene of the “friendly fire” when the Shabaab began to shoot in panic at their own side — rebel military moving along the desert — and even others fleeing behind them. Later, another retreat followed when a “volunteer”, a 17-year-old who had decided to observe the fighting while his school remains shut, mistook some local farmers for undercover Gaddafi troops.

At some point the Shabaab needs to ask themselves whether they’re tagging along for a photoshoot jaunt or they’re actually serious about overthrowing Gaddafi. All the impartial observer is seeing are disaffected youths letting off testosterone-fueled steam. Lives are at stake here, most of the time not theirs, as evident in the witch-hunt roadblocks they run in friendly cities and the lynchings of black migrant workers from the sub-Sahara.

Also, in other reports:

Despite reported ambiguity on Barack Obama’s part over the issue of arming and training the rebels, Gates made clear that the Pentagon firmly opposed it. Repeating that it was a “certainty” that no US ground troops would be authorised by Obama, he laid into the rebels’ capabilities, describing the opposition as a faction-ridden and disparate “misnomer” whose forces lacked “command and control and organisation”. If the opposition needed training and weapons, he said, “someone else” would have to provide it, a declaration that would seem to slam the door on the rebels’ hopes of being armed by the West.

The rebels better hope for a ceasefire, because that’s the best they can achieve out of this pointless stalemate as Gaddafi will be adverse to moving far out of Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad, knowing he can starve the east out of oil revenue if he holds those towns. All this hooha about the Benghazi Bravado(tm) also ignores the real problem of Misurata, where the civilian deaths (that pesky issue that Resolution 1973 was actually SUPPOSED to be about) continues with merciless shelling by Gaddafi forces. Now, with the US withdrawing their gunships, these people have been effectively left to their fate.

Ah, parody imitates life. Turns out that Libya’s very own (admittedly not very entertaining) Baghdad Bob has a certain German wife, and her blog IS very entertaining. How can it not, with posts like these?

I’m not sure what to write really. I am stunned by the atrocities I have seen committed by these so-called rebels. Hangings. Beheadings. Immolations – and then they pulled out the heart and stamped on it. Is that what they want Libya to become?

I SPIT ON THEE DEFENCELESS HEART, NOBLE SOLDIER OF GADDAFI!

P.S: Meanwhile, back in reality, things are as grim (or comedic, depending on how dark your humour genes are) as ever for the ragtag rebels this week. How can it not? As one Guardian journalist puts it:

He [Gaddafi] seems to have adopted the rebel tactics of using pick-up trucks with machine guns mounted on the back. Highly mobile, much faster than using heavy armour, they’re able to sweep through the desert and around the rebels. Not only is he copying what the rebels are doing, he is doing it much better in the sense that he has much more disciplined troops.

Not hard to beat a force that has no radios, doesn’t listen to what few military commanders they have, wastes ammo, shells its own forces by mistake, is quick to brag but equally quick to blame the coalition for not fighting 99% of the war for them.

It seems like my analysis here has been a tad optimistic, judging from the coverage here by Time:

“The loyalists’ rapid advance on Benghazi last week before the coalition air strikes began also shook the fledgling rebel movement. Much of Benghazi’s civilian population has fled to towns farther east, and some of the previously prominent rebel leaders and defecting military commanders appear to have gone to ground. Amid rising fears of fifth columnists and Gaddafi sniper cells amid the loyalist push on the city last Friday and Saturday, some have also grown more suspicious of the soldiers who defected. “The big problem here is that most of the revolutionary guys don’t trust the military people because a lot of military guys were with Gaddafi from the start,” says Najla Elmangoush, a criminal-law professor at Benghazi’s Garyounis University and an activist at council headquarters. “We welcomed them when they joined,” she adds. “But people are concerned that maybe they’ll try anytime to change sides.” The regime is trying to encourage that fear, spreading false rumors last weekend that rebel commander Younis had returned to the regime’s camp.”

That’s not even considering such basic issues as the rebels using the mobile phone network to relay orders (they probably haven’t imposed any control on the chain of communication, so there’s no way it’s not a complete gaggle geese effect), and if that fails, they use motorized runners in medieval 2011. Short of the Western infidels hijacking their precious picnic war, which the rebels manifestly reject, there’s nothing here Gaddafi needs to worry about short of assassination.