US Civil War and Moammar Gadhafi's Libyan military forces vs rebels in the east. The principle of free choice?

On one hand

On the other hand

Moammar Gadhafi's military forces pushed into the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on Saturday. Artillery rounds landed inside the city, and pro-Gadhafi tanks rolled into the town firing rounds, witnesses said. U.S., European and Arab leaders met Saturday at a last-minute Paris meeting on Libya. "There is minute-by-minute consultation between the United States and the militaries of other countries that are considering their support of action" under a U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force, a senior State Department official told reporters.

In the United States of America in 1860, a war of northern aggression was caused by the north deciding that it wanted to impose their laws and morals on the southern states instead of allowing the southern states to chart their own course. This war was transformed, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, into a war for a "new birth of freedom." The 60,000 death casualties of a Civil War was the worst in American history. Rebels from the south fought against government forces of the north.

Suppose in 1860 USA, after observing the Confederate rebels being attacked by federal government forces, foreign nations decided to intervene?

On 21 February 2011, the state television HQ in the Libyan capital Tripoli was breached by anti-government demonstrators and a government building was set ablaze as protests continued.

On October 16, 1859, John Brown, [a northerner who hated slavery and had previously raided pro-slavery strongholds in New York, Kansas and here in Virginia] and twenty-one men attacked the armory at Harpers Ferry and rounded up sixty men from the area as hostages. Brown and his compatriots planned to take the federal arsenal and armory there and use the weapons to arm slaves in a rebellion they hoped would spread throughout the South. Government forces, headed by Colonel Robert E. Lee, attacked the armory, killing ten men--two of whom were Browns sons. Brown survived the attack but was wounded. He was charged with murder and treason and was hanged on December 2, 1859. Following Brown's hanging, the southern militia was formed into a viable fighting force. This was the beginning of the Confederate Army.