IT is difficult to avoid the impression that the two wars in Libya are quite unfair. The first is the war launched by Muammar Gaddafi against his own people, which then triggered the second war: the allied attacks on Libyan territory on March 19. To use the analysts’ term, both are ‘asymmetric wars’—a way of describing unbalanced conflicts.

In the case of Libya, the situation is becoming more unbalanced because the victims are civilians,