Libya and the failure of British news

Am I alone in thinking that the West has just done things illegal and immoral in Libya, on the basis of lies and and half-truths told to us? Last night's BBC News had Jeremy Bowen and I-forget-who chatting away comfortably on location and the only question seemed to be whether getting Gadaffi killed had been (a) a good thing or (b) a very good thing.

These two gossiped agreeably like a latter-day Huntley and Brinkley. It would have been good to see the BBC fulfil its brief on balance and impartiality, for example by having one question the other's assertion that Lockerbie had been a Libya plot, rather than (say) an Iranian one, and asking why victim-father Jim Swire and Professor Emeritus of Scots Law Robert Black QC FRSE both feel that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi is innocent and his trial a travesty of justice. Also, how a UN resolution to protect rebels in Misrata developed into NATO bombing raids on Sirte.

And why we got involved. EU empire-building? Securing Western oil supplies? Scaring the Saudis into withdrawing their support of Wahabi terrorism?

And what's going to happen next. Democracy? That's what Iranian students thought they'd get when they helped overthrow the Shah; instead they got a far harsher, fundamentalist government and Teheran's blood-fountain.

And why are we pretending to foster democracy abroad, in a week when all three major UK political parties are planning to instruct our Parliamentary representatives to vote against holding a referendum on the EU?