West must help rebels create a state

IN BENGHAZI a few weeks ago, I talked to a friend who has lived her entire life in Libya and whose father had, until the uprising began, been very closely linked to Muammar Gaddafi.

What had struck her as the finest development since the uprising started? I expected her to talk about newfound freedoms, about the ability to truly speak her mind for the first time. Instead she replied: “Not having to hear Gaddafi’s speeches every day.”

It was a telling detail. While the rebellion swirled around her, she focused on a seemingly minor aspect of life under Gaddafi that she had come to find intolerable: the fact that the Leader — also known as the Guide, and King of Kings — was someone whose mere voice was asphyxiating.