Under the NATO banner, the U.S., Britain, France and several other nations supported Libya's rebels and over several months, bombed the former dictatorship out of existence, killing thousands of Libyan men, women and children in the process.
Now across Libya, a battle has begun between more westernized Muslims and their rigid religious countrymen, to define what rights people will have.
Or as Time magazine put it: "Throughout this country, Libyans are discovering that their hard fought battle to win freedoms is at risk. Puritanical Muslims known as Salafis are applying a rigid form of Islam in more and more communities. They have clamped down on the sale of alcohol and demolished the tombs of saints where many local people worship. The small town of Zuwara near the Tunisian border, dominated by a heterodox Muslim sect despised by the Salafis, is quickly becoming the battlefield for competing visions of Libya's future." To read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2104578,00.html#ixzz1jvvxKS83
Whether the former Libyan dictatorship would have peacefully ceded control to the people we will never know for that was not a NATO option. Warfare and all of its cost in blood and treasure was the only option. It is my hope the Libyan people can now non-violently resolve their differences and if not that they will request United Nations or other forms of mediation rather than allow the situation to dissolve into further death and destruction, for their own good and that of all mankind.
Dick
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