Is it Really Aggression if You're Fighting a Rebellion?

Look, I'm sure that Muammar Kahadaffy (or however his name is spelled) deserves every salty ounce of the rage that the Libyan rebels have for him. But Mickey Kaus has a point:

It’s one thing for a supra-national authority–the U.N.–to authorize a war against someone who has committed cross-border aggression, or who has repeatedly violated earlier U.N. resolutions left over from a previous war. That was the case with Saddam in 2002–in theory.*It’s another to let the U.N. authorize a war on what Obama calls ”humanitarian grounds”–whether it’s to stop actual killings or some less severe variety of  “human rights violation.”  These are concepts that are easily watered down to justify intervention–indeed, as Massimo Calabresi makes clear, they seem to have been watered down in this very case, where Gaddafi’s pending atrocities are hardly Rwanda-sized...

And yes, that's a mighty flimsy defense. But legal authorization carries with it the threat of precedent. Are all rebels to demand UN-guarunteed Marquess of Queensbury rules?

Getting rid of Gaddafi is an easy call on national-interest grounds: he's a slime. He has the blood of Americans on his hands. His people, carried up in the winds of the Arab Spring, want him gone, and it behooves us to make nice with them. Done and done. But jumping in with a vague constructions about atrocities that may not have happened, in an internal revolt that touches no other nation, this may lead we know not where.