The Libyan rebels took Tripoli a week ago. Within a few hours the punditry and the media talking heads began to minimize the role played by Libyan guerrilla fighters in this triumph.
A number of people have talked to me about their view of what happened in the campaign against Qathafy that began last spring. The nearly universal opinion among them has been that NATO air power did it all and the guerrilas are just a sort of armed mob herded around by the CIA as props in a drama. The CIA part of this is to be expected. According to the CIA, they have been the decisive factor in everything violent since World War 2.
More worrisome is the feature of the American mind that insists that war is about machines and technology to the exclusion of any significant role for humans as humans.
People have been contacting me to ask if I "know" that this or that kind of munition was decisive or if the USAF really won the war using predator drones, etc.
In fact, this little war was won by a combination of covert assistance in training and advising the Libyan rebels AND NATO airpower. pl
