If International "law" prohibits us saving Libyans from slaughter at Gaddafi's hands, why then, Sir, the law's an ass.

@The Godless

The law is not an ass. What is an ass are people who swallow self-serving propaganda about non-existent "slaughter". You might like to acquaint yourself with the facts about the armed insurrection by people armed and encouraged by the CIA before the matter even came before the UN. How do you suppose the Australian government would react if, say, Western Australia mounted an armed insurrection in opposition to Canberra rule?

You might also ask yourself why the Americans are silent on the "slaughter" of unarmed protesters in Bahrein by a despotic royal family (Sunni in a country 70% Shi'ite), aided by the Saudis using American tanks etc. The Saudis banned any protests at all in favour of democratic reform and have killed those who went ahead anyway. Again not a peep out of the americans.

The Libyan situation is a great deal more complex than the Australian media even begins to hint at. Your obvious swallowing of one version is not only a reflection on the poor quality of our mainstream media. It speaks volumes about people too lazy to actually try and find out what is going on, content instead to parrot the Rudd-Gillard idiocies and blame situations they neither like nor understand on the law. If you bother to actually think about it, the law is what we rely on to maintain a thin veneer of protection for ourselves from despotic governments.

Why is noone bothered about Bahrain? Well the Emir/Sultan/etc. of Bahrain did NOT sponsor the Lockerbie bombing, or the many other atrocities that have not only been credited to Libya's nutcase Qaddaffi-duck, but which have been claimed by him as well. Why is the West doing nothing to help Shi'ite protestors? Maybe because they are sick of trying, last time they tried to help, Al-Sadr blew the whole thing out of proportion, the time before that, they blew up a car-bomb underneath the US Embassy in Beirut. On top of that, we have the Iranian Clerics/etc. openly calling for insurrection against the Saudi Gov't, the Bahrain Gov't, the Lebanese Gov't, etc.

As to why the west is dragging its heels at the present time, the bulk of the rabble are Al-Quaeda insurgents/sympathizers, the west is doing the very least it can to assist them, while doing as little as possible to stop the Libyan army. In the long term, it is better for us to let them kill one another. It is also better for the hard-core Rebels, including the various General's that went over at the start of this, if the rabble is dealt with first. The well-trained, poorly equipped regular army forces that defected are the only ones ANYONE is interested in equipping to take on the Libyan Army, the West knows who is behind them, not comparable to the disorganised rabble dying by the day now.

When my enemy fights my enemy, I'll do anything in my power to ensure that they do the best possible job of removing each other from the planet (Israel supplied aircraft parts to both Iran & Iraq in the 1980's). The few, privileged, pro-western Leaders, with intact command structures are too valuable to waste in the current war of attrition, they'll be rearmed, re-equipped and retrained in time to take advantage of the damage done to both sides before they are unleashed.