This may have been one of the least factually-based articles I have ever read. To take one quote as an example:

“At any rate, as I say, the likelihood of a very bloody fight for Tripoli is high. Note that the Benghazi-centered rebels are not threatening
anything like what Gaddafi threatened them with some months ago. That
is not a good sign in this context; it is a very bad sign.”

So this guy is arguing that threatening reprisals makes it less likely they’ll happen and not threatening them makes them more likely. Okey-dokey…! More likely that he has zero proof for his ideological position, so therefore is inventing justification.

To the contrary, there is, in fact, empirical proof to which we can make reference: which party has engaged in consistent violations of the laws of war, including reprisals against citizens? And which party to the conflict has not?

I like your blog quite a bit, but linking to this post is an embarrassment .

Let’s hope the Libyan rebels have enough sense to “finish the job” as per the allies in WWII, or the coalition against Napoleon.
 
What I take away from WWI, the American Civil War, Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous other end-of-major-combat situations in which the nominal victor was too quick to heed the call of the “better angels” is that too much mercy will soon be regretted. 

Much like the end of your typical horror/thriller genre movie, in war, you have to make sure the bad guy is really dead, or else he will be popping up to strains of discordant violins and clawing you by the ankle.  I don’t want to see anything like the rape of Nanking, but a “slaughter” of Ghaddaffi’s dead enders won’t cause me to miss any sleep.