Not Libya

Meanwhile amongst our allies, in the benign stability of Bahrain:

Manama. They turned over the limp, lifeless body of the young man,. His back was riddled with bullet wounds. His skull flopped open revealing a bloody mess and a gaping hole where the brain used to be before it was blown out by a high-velocity weapon at point-blank range.

A surgeon at Salmaniya Hospital in Manama said helplessly: “We could do nothing to save him.”

Ahmed Farhan was just one of several Bahrainis killed yesterday by state forces that went on a murderous rampage in mainly Shia towns and villages deemed to be supportive of the popular uprising against the autocratic US-backed regime headed by King Hamad al-Khalifa.

Another doctor said: “This is all-out war against civilians who are simply demanding democracy.”

As hundreds of injured were ferried along the corridors of the hospital, there was an atmosphere of dread among medics that the Persian Gulf island regime had lost all restraint under international law.

This was less than 24 hours after a large convoy of Saudi-led troops arrived in Bahrain, with the ostensible aim of “restoring stability”. At the same time, the Bahraini rulers declared: “The government will never tolerate any disruption of social peace.”

I'm sure, in the idle moments between planning the attack on Libya, our macho leaders will urge restraint both on the Bahraini government and the bullet-ridden opposition.