Action? What Crisis?

"If it's ordered we can do it, but frankly there is a lot of loose talk about this. Let's call a spade a spade - a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy air defences." U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates

But if the United States, the United Nations Security Council, the European Union are talking tough what good does it do to have a dilatory response when so much carnage is ongoing? Yes, it's a tough call. The Arab League sits on its hands: "The Arab countries cannot remain with their arms folded when the blood of the brotherly Libyan people is being shed", but they are doing nothing.

Moammar Gadhafi has promised the international community that blood will flow, and flow it does. After attempting repeatedly to bomb ammunition dumps, and failing to come close to the target, those living relatively close to those dumps were worried there would be a success. And there was, resulting in a gigantic explosion - and more carnage.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, after lamenting the huge numbers of people desperately fleeing the crisis in Libya, now worries that there has been a sudden halt of the surge of people flowing into Tunisia looking for refuge. They have been held back by force, by government troops, from continuing their flight.

That 100,000 internally displaced refugees are in dire straits, with food, water and shelter absent. "They are outdoors in the freezing cold, under the rain, many of them have spent three or four nights outside already", appealed a UN Refugee spokeswoman, asking for "tens if not hundreds of planes" to help clear the refugees.

So, unleash a no-fly zone? Plenty of uncertainty, not the least of which is the interference of the international community in a state's sovereign affairs. But then there is the UN-advanced Responsibility to Protect international obligation at play here, as well. The U.S. in particular has no wish to become embroiled in another Afghanistan or Iraq. And the anti-Gadhafi
protesters have no wish to welcome the U.S. troops on Libyan soil.

But they would appreciate a bit of a boost that bombing Gadhafi's air arsenal would bring. Of course Col. Gadhafi would welcome UN human rights representatives to enable him to 'prove' that there have been no gratuitously grisly events like deliberately targeting civilians. And he has his fervent supporters who shout "He is like an eagle. He is our only eagle."

One nowhere near prepared to fly from his comfortable aerie.

Meanwhile, the country is in virtual lock-down. Libya imports most of its food. Transportation, food distribution, most infrastructure for delivering aid and food has been impaired. Aid groups are anticipating a huge humanitarian crisis that might affect millions of people, with fuel, medical supplies, food and water in severe shortage.

The World Health Organization warns of a "precarious" situation in the country. with the food supply chain at risk of total collapse. Government planes have attempted to blow out the main water pipelines carrying water to Libya's main cities. Col. Gadhafi envisions starving his opponents, cutting them off from electricity and water, outwitting and outwaiting them.

And Europe shudders at the prospect of having to give shelter to hundreds of thousands of fleeing Libyans. The foreign workers who worked the oil fields and the food distribution centres have fled. The country's seaports are at a lockdown and supplies are not arriving. If conditions continue to deteriorate, the country will collapse in upon itself.

But not before a protracted standoff takes even more civilian lives.

Foreign intervention?:

"Be warned that if you intervene militarily one more time, in any of the countries in North Africa or the Middle East, the regional nations will rise and dig the graves of your soldiers." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

While the Turkish government expresses its strong opposition to external intervention in the crisis in Libya, the head of Turkey's main opposition party would support it if the Libyan people agree:

"In the 21st Century no one can sit back and watch as people are murdered." Kemal KilicdarIglu, Republican People's Party