Libya Without Ghadafi?

International response gathers pace after Gaddafi counterattacks

"No-fly zone or sanctions among options being considered as world bids to force Libyan leader to end the violence"

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"But there was no sign Gaddafi was prepared to change course. In another semi-coherent and abusive speech on Thursday, he accused protesters of being drugged and agents of al-Qaida. "Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafé," he said in a telephone interview with Libyan state TV – suggesting he may already have left his heavily guarded Tripoli compound.

It only boosted the growing impression that he is desperate and out of touch with reality. "This is the speech of a dead man," said Said el-Gareeny in the eastern city of Benghazi, which is now in opposition hands.

"People always warn about al-Qaida and say this will become an Islamic state ... to get support from western countries. This isn't true. The Libyan people are free. That's it.""

Got that, my righty-tighty friends? I think your fears are causing you to back the wrong middle eastern horses.

Also from the same report:

"Reports from Libya said between 23 and 100 people had been killed in al-Zawiya, which controls the western approaches to Tripoli.

Medical sources in the capital reported that the corpses of those killed in recent days and injured patients were removed from the Tripoli medical centre and another hospital.

Witnesses said they had been taken to Mitiga military airport. "They are trying to hide the evidence and cleaning up the streets and telling people to go to work," said one man. "But from dusk onwards it's a ghost town."

In eastern Libya, many soldiers have now withdrawn from active service and some are supporting the revolt, with a former Gaddafi minister helping to organise the next stage of the uprising."

Unless he's completely barking mad, which could very well be, the last thing Ghadafi will want to do is order his troops to shoot down or at any vehicle carrying foreign nationals wanting to get the hell out of the country. Such an act could very easily be the catalyst that starts a full-fledged military engagement by NATO and/or other forces.

And it wouldn't take much to bring the regime to an end, as it seems the great majority of Libyans hate him, and are hoping other countries, specifically Western countries, come to their aide.

So, I would suggest, hope and presume, that the allies mentioned at the top of the story are considering just such scenarios, and very likely others. I highly doubt sanctions will have any effect on Ghadafi, although a no-fly zone could reduced his ability to slaughter his own people, but reduce is all it could do.

Indeed, I think Western Civilization stands at a crossroads and Ghadafi has just handed us an opportunity to do the right thing vis-a-vis the Arab world. Might not be so easy in other parts of that world, but here, in Libya, right now, is a opportunity to show that we side with the common man on the street. Over the past decade, Ghadafi has had enough time to show us his true colors and what we have seen so far is all there is to see. The curtains have come down. The game is over.