Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi is not Osama bin Laden.

The killing of bin Laden, by a US Special Forces team, was a just and proper use of America’s national security capabilities to eliminate a terrorist who was engaged in open warfare with the United States. But the apparent, NATO-led efforts to kill Qaddafi, using targeted air strikes and on-the-ground intelligence capabilities, is something else entirely.

In the case of Libya, it’s an illegal assassination effort, not sanctioned by any UN resolution, to force regime change in a state that has never attacked the United States and poses no national security threat.

Yet the United States and NATO—NATO officials won’t say who, exactly—bombed a residential compound in Tripoli, killing Qaddafi’s son and several grandchildren, toddlers and infants. That’s outrageous and unacceptable.