"the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return. . . "

"• Western planes are leading air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's military as world leaders ordered the biggest intervention in the Arab world since allied forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The Pentagon announced that the action, codenamed Operation Odyssey Dawn, was under way."

Operation "Odyssey Dawn"?  As in, the beginning of an endless, circuitous, tortured path, beginning in media res after the real war itself has ended, the dawn of what should be a simple return but will constantly find itself caught in eddies, sticky situations, complications?  The doomed entry into what might well be called a morass?

To their credit, as titles for interventions "in the name of democracy" go, this is a step forward in transparency, up there with the self-aware baldness of Operation Freedom Deal.