As our planes, along with some from Britain and France, bomb anti-aircraft positions, radar installations, and Libyan tanks and other armored vehicles, we start to see some reasons why this might not be such a good idea.

First, despite the fact that they called for a no-fly zone, the Arab League is now going wobbly. Apparently, they think you can have a no-fly zone without bombing anything on the ground.

Second, some Liberal Democrats in Congress are now asking a pertinent question...why did the President not get authorization from Congress before sending our military into action? This despite the fact that, as Ross Douthat writes, this is a very liberal intervention.

The most pertinent point about the whole operation, though, is made by the historian Arthur Herman, who says that the operation cannot succeed without boots on the ground. Victor Davis Hanson, another historian, also thinks the operation is a bad idea, but says now that we are in it we need to win it.

As for me, I was never a big fan of U.S. military action in any circumstance that does not involve our vital interests. Who governs Libya is not our concern, and does not matter much in terms of our economic or military security. When Gaddafi killed Americans, especially when his agents blew up a civilian airliner, that was the time to use our military power to remove him. I hope he goes (preferably, carried out in a body bag), but I'm not very hopeful that we will get anything more than a bloody stalemate using air power alone.