Some countries want to make punishment on libya, really?? what a f***!!!! they are killed by that criminal called Muammar and they want to punish them?? for what?? for being killed

And if there is any intervention from other countries there be more and more and mooooore blood as Muammar and his army is not living separately from other people in Libya...

Do suggest something like what happened in Afghanistan by the American army when they claimed that they want to free Afghanistan from Russia, what was the result? 1.5 million Afghani people were killed by the American army. Do you want this to happen again in Libya????

I think that the part of the army in Libya which refused to follow Muammar orders should end this blood shedding and kill Muammar and his followers...

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American intervention would be disastrous for about a zillion reasons. First can anyone think of a successful U.S. Intervention anywhere? Haiti? Iraq? Afghanistan? Second no one in Libya asked for this. Just like Iraqis they are NOT asking for America to liberate them.

Third, U.S. can't do it. They don't even have the forces to enforce a No-Fly-Zone. You don't just declare a No-Fly-Zone. You have to have enough aircraft, air crews, forward operating bases and AWACS to patrol a No-Fly-Zone round the clock. Before you can run a no-fly zone you have to go in and bomb any air defenses they have. SAM missile sites, whatever. So the person who wrote this article has zero military knowledge of what it actually takes to have a No-Fly-Zone. That's basically why no one is even raising it. By the time we got it together this thing will be over.

Then the craziest idea is that by intervening in Libya they are going to welcome us in the Arab world with sweets and candy. Where have I heard that one before? U.S. intervention might just succeed in uniting enough Libyans around crazy Gadafi to keep him in power longer! Let the Libyans do it. They are doing a fine job without us.

YES..... - like the author mentioned, the U.S. should react and intervene over Libya in a limited, yet responsive, manner that might include sending military aids, equipments, or perhaps even ground troopers to avoid further escalation and spill-over. We should despatch our troops, alongside other soliders sent by NATO members, under the flag of peachmaking, and backed by any sort of U.N. resolutions on Libya.

We should however stay underground if, and only if, there is little international consensus from the UNSC. That said, given the gravity of the Libyan revolution vis-via-vis the stability of the Arab world, and the importance of ensuring our strategic interest in the hydrocarbon producing region, we must take action now and, I believe our diplomatic and intelligence efforts are already trying to make progress on economic and foreign issues involving Libya.

The U.S. have enormous interest in Libya and the rest of Arab world. Any sort of limited scale intervention, on-the-ground or not, would certainly help expand our interest. We just need to be vigilent and independent in our own decision making, when hearing such ask for intervention from the Arabs.

I share the reservations that many have about active military invervention in Libya. However, it is now clear to me that the only way to limit the bloodshed is for the Free Libyan forces to achieve a quick and total victory over the Qaddafi regime forces. It will be a bloodbath, but a quick bloodbath is preferable to a long, drawn-out bloodbath. Sad, but that is the reality.

If we are not going to actively intervene, however, that does not mean that there is nothing we can do to help bring about that quick end to the conflict. There are several actions short of direct military intervention, and we should be doing all of these right now.

First, we (and I am speaking mainly here of my own country, the US, although most of this advice applies to many other nations as well) should immediately switch our diplomatic recognition from the now-illegitimate Qaddafi regime in Tripoli to the Free Libyan in Bengazi. There is nothing magical about Tripoli as Libya's national capital. Bengazi used to actually be the capital, and the majority of the nation and its people can be said to now be governed, however loosely, from there.

The reason why we must shift our diplomatic recognition to the Free Libyans is more than just symbolic, and gets to my second point: We must allow the Free Libyans with unimpeded access to any Libyan government funds held outside their nation. Merely freezing these funds, while helpful, is not enough. More helpful is to not merely starve off Qaddafi's source of funds, but also to enable the Free Libyans to access the funds needed to procure urgent supplies and to start getting the liberated parts of their country back on its feet. We also need to help them to get the the oil exports from their part of the country moving again, so they can start earning more foreign exchange.

This, in turn, comes to my third point: The Free Libyans need to be allowed to supply themselves with the weapons and other supplies they need to complete their overthrow of the Qaddafi regime. Their numbers may be growing, but they are still terribly outgunned - thanks to the eager willingness of many nations to do business with Qaddafi over the years and supply him with a substantial array of weaponry. Placing a blanket weapons embargo on all of Libya right now may sound humanitarian, but it would actually be anything but, and would lead to the same tragic situation we saw in Bosnia (where an embargo left the Bosnians terribly undergunned compared to the already-armed Serbs).

I am sure there must be some reluctance on the part of US and other national governments to send arms to the Free Libyans, not knowing what the nature of their government will be in the future or what those arms will be used for. However, while some caution is justified, a total embargo is not. We do not need to ship them with thousands of Stinger (or equivalent) shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles; just a few will be enough to down a few regime aircraft, and thus ground the remainder out of fear.

Fourth, we particularly need to supply the Free Libyan forces with effective communications equipment, and with real-time intelligence on the locations, movements, and capacities of the opposing regime forces. Coordination of the Free Libyan forces in the midst of chaos is a major challenge, and helping them to overcome this one particular challenge will go far toward maximizing their fighting effectiveness and their chances of successfully defeating the regime forces. Giving them access to intelligence could be a real game-changer, and could do much to overcome any remaining deficiencies the Free Libyan forces might have against their opponents.

Stop the mechanisms of mass killing by Gaddafi, provide humanitarian aid to the Free Libya areas, and wait it out. Preferably let our NATO allies (Turkey? Italy?) patrol the skies, while we provide more passive tactical/logistical assistance.

I agree this is a tough situation but the author is dead-on -- we need to help the Arab people pursue legitimate democracy, and avoid a humanitarian disaster. Intervening against Gaddafi is the only way to do this.

I'm an Arab, and I'm warning you than an intervention similar to that in Somalia, Iraq, or Afganistan will never be welcome by Libyans, even if you spend days talking about your well intentions to each and every citizen.

The West has a very deteriorating credibility. The impression we have is that not only you care about your interests, which is your right, but you have been supporting tyrant puppets ruling the whole region with brutal bloody fists, and for this, there is absolutely no moral justification.

If you try to intervene with military force in Libya, we will consider you as invaders! you will never be met with flowers, but with armed forces.

We would have appreciated an earlier "political" intervention, to deter this criminal from slaughtering us. But the West again chose to watch and hope that Gaddafi will be able to quell the revolution, sustain the fear, and offer a "stable" regime that maintains continuous flow of oil to power the west production engine. At this moment, Libya is being liberated, and there is no force to Keep Gaddafi for even one more week, he is history. Intervening at this stage will be a message that says "we, the Western governments" don't allow a democracy in an oil rich country". If this is what you want, a message of confrontation, I can only imagine that you'll very quickly unite the Arab and the Muslim world to topple the remaining puppets and confront those who want to steal their freedom.

Right now, Arabs are sending the West "people" a message of love to the whole world, hoping to present ourselves, instead of letting the media project a message of fear. This is a great opportunity to start a new era of mutual respect and maintain world peace.

Leave us alone to free ourselves, we need no support. We will sacrifice our blood to get our freedom, and we believe that this will be a winning trade.

When is our President going to declare a no fly zone and tell Ghadafi that we are going to shoot down any helicopter or plane firing on civilians and that if he does not order his military to stand down we will stand him down? President Obama, America is supposed to be a beacon of hope in a world of darkness, not a flashlight with its batteries fading away.

Mr. Hussein Ibish .. it seems to me that you forgot how arabs think and feel about external intervention on their issues ..
I can not meet your point, may be because you're talking as a CIA office reporter, that never got to act on field, may be because you do have some secret reasons for that .. I don't know .. but every single word you wrote here is non sense ..
Look .. you want to help Libyan people, very well, so do we. The question is, how we can do it? Millitary intervention? and becomes new Iraq, Afganestan, Sumalia or, who knows, a new Vietnam? Don't you think that western politicians have already learnt the lesson?
It might seem tragic to say that, or even cruel, but the Libyan people are very close to do it alone .. really very close .. they don't need an external help .. they can, and they are ready to, sacrefice more that what they have already sacrefied seeking their goal .. we just can protect them over, supporting with basic needs, leave them doing things their way ..
When we say it's time now to stop this irritating tone of politica and media speech we mean it .. and we mean that now is now .. not tomorrow ..

That's a bit of a stretch.

Moral obligation perhaps.

When the Pakistani army went on a genocidal rampage in what was then East Pakistan it was only the intervention of India that stopped the atrocities. Perhaps it is time to suggest that the Egyptian army might do something useful with all the American dollars and equipment that it has received over the last thirty years.

Whatever the answer- critics will be there en-mass - hindsight being 20/20 of course.

All the world can do at the moment is make the best decision with the information currently available.

No, american led interventions do not have a great track record of success, and although many people are sceptical that intervention will ultimately turn out to be a positive thing, Mr. Ibish is right in pointing out that this situation is unique- and demands international action. Given the explicit claim of Qaddafi that he will commit genocide to purge all those who oppose him- the world simply can not stand idly by...

There were just as many warning signs that a genocide was about to occur in Rwanda and the world stood idly by- only to publicly apologize and issue statements of regret and sorrow after the fact. In this case, the warning signs are similarly blatant and economic sanctions and establishment of no-fly zone parallels the UN's inadequate decision of keeping some 300 troops in Rwanda on the eve of the genocide - policies that were knowingly insufficient and had only symbolic value later allowing policy makers to claim ignorance.

Irrespective of worries regarding legitimacy or success of the democratic movement- international intervention is demanded to protect the lives of innocent bystandards that will be targeted by the government's 'purge' .

Although the legitimacy of the international order (and Americans) is at stake and an unwanted intervention could further alienate those in the Arab world- for the world and Americans not to stand up and be willing to substantively support the very principles and values that they have been heralding, will only work to further undermine the credibility of the liberal democratic agenda. If intervention is welcomed by Libyan opposition leaders the world must meet these calls in a meaningful way - irrespective of the cost. Especially for the US- who intervened in Iraq on 'humanitarian grounds' (when the WMDs were no where to be found) when there was no indication from the population that this was what was wanted- for them to not intervene when it is the people who are demanding an end to the regime, would be another hypocrisy in american foreign policy that would further weaken their international legitimacy and clout in the region.

Although the moral imperative exists for international intervention I think we won't see substantive intervention until it starts to hit the pocketbooks of the big players. Once oil interests become severely threatened we will likely see the initiation of a substantive (possibly military) option that will oust Qaddafi. Rwanda didn't have the oil card to play to entice involvement - although its sad that it needs to be played at all - the Libyan people should play it as soon as possible to engage the world and prevent massive bloodshed.