Hunted like a hound, Muammar Gaddafi just got official confirmation from a four-star American admiral of what he already knew: this bomb's for you.

Career U.S. naval officers are a little like the Junkers whom German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck put into every important position in his late 19^th century government.

H. L. Mencken admired the cold candor of the Iron Chancellor. So does Henry Kissinger in his recent  New York Times review of Jonathan Steinberg's important new biography.

"They will not lie," von Bismarck said of the proud Prussian noblility of which he was himself a member. "And they cannot be bought."

Broke last night the news, via the UK's Daily Mail, that Admiral Samuel Locklear has told a delegation of American Congressmen visiting his NATO headquarters in Italy that NATO's goal in Libya is to kill Gaddafi as a way of effectuating the United Nations Security Council's resolution to protect Libya's civilian population from their own murderous government. The way to do that, Admiral Locklear explained, is to take out the Libyan chain-of-command.

All the way to Brother Leader.

Good to know. Now if only the Obama White House would tell the American people - or the Congress - that.

Killing the target country's head of state is NATO's mission in Libya? That's what Admiral Locklear said.

Sounds like "hostilities" to me.

Bashar Assad, please take note.