A Puff Of Smoke

Of course, a puff of smoke is actually what emanates from the teleologists when they finally exhale:

Wanting and Doing « Hot Air: "For a teleologist, expressing your desire is how you bring about the event. If enough people say that Qaddafi “must go”, he will vanish in a puff of smoke. That’s why you work for a world consensus, for it is that consensus which alters reality.

(A slightly less implausible way to put it is that if there is strong enough international disapproval, Qaddafi will bow to peer pressure and voluntarily go into exile. But clearly that isn’t going to work with him.)

To a teleologist, it isn’t necessary, and it is obviously wrong, to use military force to depose a corrupt and brutal dictator. Soft power is obviously better.

Except for the minor fact that it isn’t very effective. But as mentioned, to teleologists, empirical results are not persuasive."

But in the case of Libya I'm not at all convinced that O Duce wants Daffy Duck to go -- after all he's best buds with O Duce's best buds Wright and Farrakan.