Roman Emperor Nero is said to have fiddled while Rome burned. American President Obama may be said to diddle while Libya, and brave Libyan patriots, burn for weeks on end. "Well, look," our President says, with his hallmark and meaningless phrase. Well, so many of us here in the West have been looking, and listening, and watching, and waiting for The Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave to actually do something. And so many of us have been immensely disappointed at our New Nero's failure to act.
But, of course, the United Nations also diddles while freedom for Libya and Libyans is extinguished by the total brutality of the illegitimate Qaddafi regime. Libyan leaders have never credibly denied planning and helping to carry out the Pan American Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland over two decades ago. As if that were not enough, Libyan leader Qaddafi welcomed the only man ever convicted in that tragedy to Libya after the Scottish government released him from prison due to "health problems."
Muammar el-Qaddafi and his regime should never have been removed from the watch list of nations which support and perpetrate State terrorism, as was done in the 1990s. The record of his atrocities, including those against his own people, has continued under his sons, one of whom boasts of rivers of blood flowing in the streets of Tripoli, and elsewhere in that oppressed nation. That blood belongs to its own youth and others with the unbelievable courage to stand up to bombs, helicopter gunships, tanks, and the like.
While the Rules of War have been violated more than observed for many years now, the intentional bombings of medical centers and hospitals treating wounded Libyans are way over the line even today. The use of mercenaries from some of Africa's worst atrocities in Somalia, Uganda, and elsewhere to wound and kill Libyan freedom-fighters is horrid. It is more than clear that Quaddafi and his forces know no restraint and have no limit to their willingness to destroy their own nation, and its proud people, in a misguided attempt to save their corrupt and crumbling regime.
On the world stage, while America grumbles and the United Nations mumbles, only French President Sarkozy has had the courage to speak out forcefully against the Libyan slaughter, endorsing the attempt by the Libyan people to free themselves and their nation of the scourge of the Qaddafi family. President Barack Obama needs to follow Sarkozy's lead, with a no-fly zone and whatever else it takes to end this brutal regime and return Libya to its people. Bad judgment, such as Nero's, may be eternal -- but so is courage!
