Yeah, they are targeters. It's either that or trust the Lybian rebels to call in strikes .... not sure that would be a preferable situation.

The problem I have with the "we wanted Lyba's oil" is that Qaddafi was the *perfect* strongman who was totally playing ball. This was not really the case in the days of Cheney's task force. Western companies were deeply involved in the oil fields before the uprising. How do western powers gain anything they didn't already have? If this is some kind of conspiracy to steal their oil, we carried out a military operation who's mechanics were to entice the Libyan citizens into protesting, hope Qaddafi attacked them, hope they fought back, ????, profit. I'm skeptical.

I'm a bit bugged about how it's being handled. I disagree with you about some aspects of it; but it's totally a war.

The Libyans are in a civil war. I don't see how Qaddafi's presence could possibly serve to make it any shorter. There are real indicators tribal unity is decently strong. That, at least, is in favor of a reasonable transition from chaos. I don't know how functional it is, but the council seems to also be broadly inclusive and has not had any major disagreements totally erupt. The anger is strongly personality based and laser-focused on Qaddafi. It doesn't seem like rebels are pointing to a specific loyalist demographic that must be defeated in order to prevail. There is an arguable case for cautious optimism although skepticism isn't unwarranted either.

Al Jazeera should also probably be noted. They seem to have a prominent role in documenting this - clearly right in the midst of the rebel camps. And they do indeed occasionally highlight crappy stuff done by the rebels. But they certainly have a sympathetic slant, especially that blonde dude. If they are giving sincere coverage, I would call their generally positive view a good point in favor of the rebels.

Both the rebels and their leaders are Libyan so they have obviously been involved in most aspects of Libyan life. But unlike in Egypt where the military hierarchy peeled, Qaddafi's core largely stayed loyal. It seems like whatever new pecking order emerges, the specific thieving crackhead monsters who have run Qaddafi's show are rather late to the party as it is - if they can even get through the door. So, at very least the Libyan people will get NEW thieving crackhead monsters.

Some disturbing things happened on the rebel side, especially in the chaos around securing Bengazi. And I guess there are some recent cases of POWs shot in the foot. But there sure doesn't seem to be any of the systemic torture type abuses. The POWs are seemingly well fed and mostly talk of trauma in terms of the fucked up stuff they were being asked/forced to do by Qaddafi. This gets back to Al Jazeera and the quality of information we have, of course, but we aren't seeing the systemic torture or mass executions. Again, I think there is an arguable case for cautious optimism that at the end the Libyan people would have less oppression rather than more.

I don't know for sure we are directly targeting Qaddafi currently. I tend to think we aren't, but it wouldn't surprise me. If we really go all in for a targeted kill I think it would go relatively quickly. But that assumption kind glosses over some important issues if this is not really the current operation.

What about the official case? If the near misses have been random chance due to Qaddafi's habit of putting military installations in the basement of every home he owns, we're really in a very different discussion. For instance, are you saying that it would be better to just target him rather than carry on the UN resolution more or less as it's been interpreted?

And if we don't target him, what is appropriate in support of a longer effort by the rebels under the UN mandate? It seems like eliminating tanks and rocket launchers just shooting randomly into towns would fit the bill, for instance. Some of the land targets make sense such as the facilities making attack boats. They need to establish a better policy for reporting details and explaining attacks on non-lethal targets before this goes on much longer. I don't think traditional military secrecy should apply in the same way with a war being conducted under a UN humanitarian mandate.

I prefer not trying to kill Qaddafi directly. I'm not convinced it would be faster, would far prefer to see him stand trial, and think the potential for unnecessary collateral damage makes it not worth it. Although it really doesn't bother me if he thinks we're targeting him. I'm OK with a few NATO folks targeting from the ground so helicopters can finish clearing out the remaining heavy armor - particularly where towns are being attacked daily, which should be NATO's A#1 priority as far as the mandate goes.

And Boner pulled Kucinich's bill, so no vote for now; possible to probable he and a couple other R's don't want it to pass.  And Kerry and someone are sponsoring an 'Okay Libyan MisAdventure bill in the Senate, which technically, Obama never asked for; just sent a letter to Leadership explaining his thinking...