If it is a civil war, one side is vastly outmatched by the other for one glaring reason: Qadaafi has (had) the advantage of air power, and his opponents don't.

Let's talk alternate history for a moment. What if, in the days of the American civil war, the Union had an air force and was dropping bombs on cities (rather than exclusively military bases) in the Confederacy? The Confederate forces likely would've had only the air power that it could capture from Union bases, and so be hopelessly outmatched. Under those circumstances, with civilians in the target sights, it would've been completely okay with me for still-Imperial Britain to impose a no-fly zone within the warring no-longer-United States. Cannons loaded with grapeshot were bad enough, then. Grenade launchers are bad enough, now.