This may seem a banally obvious statement. It's shit because nobody should kill people for engaging in non-violent protest (or maybe even violent protest if it has a good enough justification) against a dictatorial regime.
However, there is an additional reason why it is a tragedy if Gadaffi claws his way back to power by fighting his way through the rebel strongholds while the UN hum and haw about a no fly zone and freeze a few oligarch's assets. It tells other dictators that the way to deal with protest is to go in guns blazing. Mubarak's regime and the Tunisian government refrained from such violent responses to a far greater degree than Libya and they were toppled.
Arguably we can see this already happening. Bahrain has followed different strategies in response to protests, sometimes resorting to violence and sometimes not. However, soon after Gadaffi's army started gaining ground they called in reinforcement troops from the UAE and Saudi Arabia to 'guard sensitive areas'. If these regional heavy weights are getting involved they must be fairly certain that there will be no repercussions from the UN or America for their anti-democratic actions.
EDIT - 18.03.11 And as of yesterday we have a step in what is hopefully the right direction! UN security council passes a resolution calling for a ceasefire and no fly zone. Hats off to Cameron, Sarkozy, The Arab League and all the other countries that (by vote or in spirit) supported the resolution. Let us hope it is enough to save Benghazi.
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