I’ve always been skeptical that the oft-referenced “Libyan people” is really a clear category. But articles like this show just how wrong it is to see what’s happening in Libya as a uniform democratic uprising against a tyrant. There are huge sectional elements. Not that that on its own necessarily proves the intervention is wrong:
Members of the NATO alliance have sternly warned the rebels in Libya not to attack civilians as they push against the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, according to senior military and government officials…
“We’ve been conveying a message to the rebels that we will be compelled to defend civilians, whether pro-Qaddafi or pro-opposition,” said a senior Obama administration official. “We are working very hard behind the scenes with the rebels so we don’t confront a situation where we face a decision to strike the rebels to defend civilians.”
To point out the obvious: If the rebel soldiers really were pure representatives of the Libyan people, we wouldn’t need to be working so hard as above…