It may be the Gulf of Sidra that is at the northern border of Libya but does it remind anyone besides me of the Bay of Pigs?  In April 1961 John F. Kennedy refused air support to an invading force of democratically minded Cuban exiles who wished to depose Fidel Castro from Cuba.  Due to that lack of air support the invasion failed.  In a conversation after the invasion had been repelled former President Eisenhower asked Kennedy why he had not provided the support.  He said he was worried that the Russians would then know that the Americans were supporting the invaders.  Eisenhower responded incredulously and asked Kennedy who the hell Kennedy thought the Russians would assume had provided landing craft and weapons to the freedom fighters?  Kennedy goofed.  It was the low point of his short presidency.

Today muammar gaddafi sits in a position similar to the one Castro was in back in 1961.  There are reportedly some freedom fighters who wish to depose gaddafi but they need what?  Air Support.  Who might be able to provide it?  The United States.  Who must order it?  The President of the United States.  

The point Eisenhower made to Kennedy in 1961 was that the overt provision of air support would have signaled the Soviets that Kennedy was strong.  Eisenhower knew the Russian mind.  They would have respected that and they would have backed off.  They like most totalitarian regimes respect strength and move against weakness to gain more concessions of land and resources.  Because of Kennedy's timidity Eisenhower warned Kennedy that the Russians would surely challenge Kennedy someplace else and challenge him they did.  In the late summer and early fall of 1962 the Soviets attempted to install offensive missiles in Cuba and there was a showdown that put us on the brink of nuclear war.  

Gaddafi is no different than Castro was fifty years ago.  Oh he is much older than Castro was but he is a bully.  When Reagan bombed Tripoli in 1986 gaddafi went back into a hole and hid from Americans.   When Bush showed force in Iraq gaddafi voluntarily surrendered his nuclear program.  What is gaddafi's likely response to the failure to act by Barack Obama?  It could likely lead to the slaughter or arrest of the freedom fighters who desperately need air support.  At a minimum, they need this president to authorize an enforcement of a no fly zone to keep gaddafi's air force on the ground and thus protect the freedom fighters from a certain slaughter from the air.