omg....that is nutty. Because there maybe some al queda in the rebels ranks does not make the whole movement thus. Qaddafi took power by force and has sustained terrorist. You are a bit mixed up here I think.
The Iranian revolt that toppled the Shah wasn't 100% Khomeinist. It wasn't even majority Khomeinist. But Khomeini took the reins and knocked off the nationalists, the Communists, the Social Democrats, and so on. The October Revolution of 1917 was the same way. It wasn't majority Bolshevik. It's just that the Bolsheviks knocked everyone else off, paving the way for WWII (thanks to Stalin's material assistance and diplomatic support for Hitler during the Nazi invasion of Western Europe), the Communization of China, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. All told, the October Revolution cost us 500,000 dead GI's (WWII, Korea, Vietnam).
Gaddafi's many things, but he's a minor villain in the overall scheme of events. If we want to take out a serious evil-doer, we ought to take a long, hard look at Kim Jong-Il, not get involved in a revolt that could end up toppling an annoying government in favor of an Islamist movement hell-bent on creating an pan-Muslim caliphate spanning North Africa and the Near East, i.e. the age-old Arab dream that made Saddam Hussein and bin Laden so popular among the Arab masses (and so hated among the Arab rulers). The issue I have is that once such a movement gets rolling, there's a non-trivial chance that the Arab populations of Libya's neighboring countries could rise in support of the unification of Arabia, turfing the existing rulers. How would you like to see the dozen or so Middle Eastern countries in OPEC suddenly transmogrify into a single Islamist-ruled country? How would that affect Israel? How would it affect oil prices?
Movement? What makes you think there is a movement?
Who are they and where are they moving to?
Not at all. I certainly am not as mixed up as those who believe this has anything to do with the establishment of a democracy. Basically anything our media is cheering cannot be good for the US.