I’m not offering myself as a rhetorical human shield for Muamar on account of his family tasting some collateral damage. One can not be so certain of the Secretary of Defense, however. Gates says we have not been attacked by Libya and we have no national interest in Libya. Both of these things are untrue. Khadaffi has attacked us, just thirty years ago and no one has had the balls to do anything about it, culminating in the ultimate display of ball-lessness, the embrace of Moamar, beginning with W, because of his late (though apparently genuine) suspension of WMD research/production. Our current national interest is to demonstrate that anyone with Khaddafi-esque habits, domestic or international, had best kiss his ass goodbye.

Yes, Kinetic Military Action was a break with our recent “outreach” to Moamar, but so what? Hey, we changed our minds. We did it on Mubarak and Assad, in different directions. If we are just being opportunistic, with no serious regard for friend/foe status or even practical possibilities, we might at least do it in the pursuit of our own regional goals. Yes, these rightly include humanitarian AND democratic liberation. Whack-a-doo? The whole notion of decency in government is whacky from a cold historical perspective. We should pursue it anyway. We cannot leave Iraq and Israel as the last two islands of basic sanity in the region. Not with Iran in the mix anyhow. Those islands will be innundated. This is the open plan of every nasty of any description in the area.

Yes, we can mourn Khaddafi’s toddler grand-children and maybe even his youngest son. But the fault lies with Khaddafi. He knew he was being shot at. His recent public appearances were calculated provocations. He is daring us to take him out on the international news. Don’t give me any crap about the laws that ban assassination. War by whatever name is assassination just on an industrial scale. We are far more certain of the guilt and danger of Moamar Khaddafi than the last four dozen walking tampons in Pakistan whose last words were, “Do you hear that?” But as a political actor we have declared that the one guy whose immolation could plausibly end the whole affair is off limits. If we are concerned with the philosophical basis of our principles, and we should be, we should ask, just what is the real foundation of this thing we call “Americanism” that is unique in the world and well worth exporting? We saw a little bit of the contrast last week. Guesses?

Even our lovely birth mother, Jolly Old England is still mired in an embarrassing anachronism demonstrated with their perverted adulation towards The Crown. Americanism is based on the notion that we are all the same. The so-called Royal Wedding is a rebuke to that, not that Kate or Wills are intending an insult. Royalty, like Jong-Ilism, is a deification of selected humans. This is not something Americans should be embracing as it violates our own foundations. None are born with stirrups anymore than others are born with riding crops. That is Franklinism. That is Jeffersonism. That is Adamsism. In part this is why the unworkable projects of the Progressive Levelers poll so well occasionally. It’s all about mystical equality… a truly dangerous delusion. Americanism says we are Created Equal, per the papers, in a moral sense that should be reflected in equality before the law.

Communicating this in arabic was a big part of the Iraq project. Sunni, Shia and Kurd lived in a pecking order enforced with professional peckers under Saddam. Not only did we put a halt to that we have TRIED to introduce some workable political innovations to replace that structure with something that can democratically deal with conflicts that were resolved through torture, rape and murder yesterday.

Now it must be admitted that this has been only partly successful. Much of the police state coercion has been replaced with bombelt coercion. This isn’t very cheery but I submit that it is an improvement and NOT just because it is less efficient for the coercers. There is no one outside of the group doing the bombing who can claim that market bombing is a legitimate method of governing. And in large part these groups are attacking each other tactically for gangster-quality reasons of their own. There is no real competition for the government of Iraq. No civil war. Not now. Not yet. With whatever caveats, they have held a number of elections now that have been uneventful enough that I have lost count.

Much of the cultural progress needed in Iraq was legal and moral leveling. When Bush Sr went into Iraq, we found Sunni on top, Shia below and Kurd below that but off to the side. Above all sat Saddam Hussein al Tikriti and in Tirkit, they sat higher than other Sunni Baathists.These were the cap of the pyramid with a genuinely deprived and oppressed underclass at the bottom. Way back in da day, Saddam was also a beneficiary of this baseless hesitance to kill the supreme commander of a military we are at war against and this bitterly validated the brutal caste system on which Batthism relied. The only plausible reason for this forebearance was a hope of reciprocity. That Kennedy was killed by whomever because Kennedy had at least acquiesced in the murder of Diem is a presumption that still looms large with us like all ’60s events do, for whatever reasons. We would be setting a bad example, is the argument. Assassination BY us removes any moral argument against assassinations OF us.

But like the gratuitous application of Geneva Convention niceties never intended for this herd of goatfucks that violate same AS A MATTER OF RELIGIOUS CONVICTION, this habit is supposed to protect our own precious Presidents, czars and tax collectors from abuse. But in both cases, demonstrably, there is no beneficial effect. You think Obama or any other bigwig is off Al Queda’s menu? I hope the President is not foolish enough to believe this. The jihadis treat us all the same. They recognize no status as Prisoner of War. We are kuffir. We are infidel. And any particular splinter of jihadism will say that of the goatfuck across the road from a different splinter. That is why the road gets bombed. So the explicit targetting of Khadaffy is an important lesson in equality. King Moamar has a bullseye on his head for the same reason any other Moamar driving a tank, firing a rifle or swinging a knife. We don’t spare him because he is too important to be shot. It doesn’t hurt that personal loyalty to him is much of what must be overcome to get things calmed down at least to an Afghanistan level of chaos. This should not be seen as some lofty goal.

Largely, what protects Khadaffi is a relic of the pre-Iraq War status quo, and before that of the Cold War, this was Devil You Don’t Know-ism; the not unreasonable fear that the departure of the present strongman, by whatever means, would yield to a much worse strongman, almost certainly a more fervent practitioner of jihad than the last guy (and they all, at least rhetorically, back jihad). In days of yore the fear was alignment with the commies. There is a lot to that. We know that in Egypt and all the other local revolutions jihadists figure large. If they are not a strong plurality they tend to have other advantages, not the least of which is their famous willingness to get real ugly real fast. Also the general appeal of Holy War extends even into the ranks of real democratic reformers who, yes, certainly do exist. So what to do? There is no way to vet fighters on the ground with the rigor, say, a Presidential candidate might expect. There are bullets flying and people crying. Distinguishing a friendly Berber from an unfriendly Druze is not practical or, I think, necessary.

What we should be doing (and in part, we are according to authorities) is first off halting the use of heavy weapons. It’s hard to tell one Libyan from another, yes, but the tanks are basically on just one side. Heavy armor, weapons and all aircraft, should be destroyed if their engines are running (something we can tell with sensors, by the way). Khaddafi needs to be issued an ultimatum. Every day he does not surrender, some key element of his infrastructure should be wiped out. Yes, this means oil fields, the only infrastructure anyone cares about. He should be under constant personal attack to whatever extent we can locate him. It should become inescapable knowledge that Khaddaffi brings death in his wake which is another bit of leveling since the non-loyalist elements of Libya have long known this to be the case.

There is no moral or political reason for not giving Dr Bashar of Syria the same treatment, absent consideration of Russian and Chinese objections, which they lodge on purely business grounds, you can be sure. But as a practical matter we may not have the capability to do the same with the evil ophthalmologist as we do with the well-upholstered tyrant, so it must wait but in the meantime there is an educational benefit for Assad in the Khadaffi dilemma. The Libyan Theatre of KMA should be, like Iraq, a real-time Powerpoint Presentation on the benefits of American alignment and the perils of attacks on Americans of whatever vintage, in whatever venue. This is your country. This is your country on terror. Any questions? Once everyone gets a passing grade on that lesson THEN we can meet and greet, find out who is really dedicated to blowing up your mom and who is pursuadable that it is a bad idea. These are our alternatives, sadly, but better to deal with Reality when you must on your own terms than have her deal with you later on hers.