Multiple reports have confirmed that machine guns with high caliber bullets were used by the Gaddafi regime's defenders. Some reports say as many as 1200 have been killed.

Gaddafi, who took power in a coup 41 years ago, is the world's longest-ruling dictator. Until a few years ago, Libya was part of George W. Bush's "axis of evil," but then Gaddafi cut a deal with the U.S. and Western Europe and all was forgiven.

Now that Gaddafi is an ally, decades of human rights abuses are forgotten by Western governments. As the cynic Cardinal Richileu said, "treason is merely a matter of dates."

And so the normally eloquent Obama is tongue-tied about U.S. bullets killing unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and many other places. He is mute about regime repression except where the regimes are opposed to the United States.

Today's protesters in Chicago answered with their chants: "Obama, you know, Gadhafi's got to go!"

While this was one of the smaller Middle Eastern solidarity demonstrations I've attended over the past several weeks, its spirit was at least as dynamic as the largest one I was at.

The look of concern and determination on the faces of the protesters, virtually all of whom were from Libya and neighboring countries, is not something I will forget soon.