No Fly Zone, said the world

f one looks at even a condensed history of Col. Gaddafi’s leadership in Libya, one cannot help but become skeptical of his treatment of neighbor countries. Yes, it has been reported that the man is posing a threat to his own civilians, but is foreign involvement purely because of ‘safety maseaures’ or are there external interests guiding this involvement. It seems like the globalized world is a big playground, with the U.N. elbowing Mr. Gaddafi saying: “Stooop iit!”
This is a snippet from an article from the New York Times relating the most recent development in the story (NATO agreeing to enforce the U.N.’s No-Fly Zone):
The U.N. Security Council authorized the arms embargo and no-fly zone last week to protect Libyan civilians after Gadhafi's forces attacked anti-government protesters seeking his ouster after nearly 42 years in power.
An international coalition comprising the U.S., Britain, France and other nations launched an air and missile campaign on Saturday to enforce the air quarantine. But it has also targeted Gadhafi's ground forces and military installations.
I’ve read as much as I can about the revolts in Libya, Egypt, (and now Syria apparently?), and it was literally these two paragraphs that put things in perspective for me. I feel like the whole situation is completely contradictory. The U.N. proposes the No-Fly zone as a security measure, to preserve civilians’ safety and peace. Yet the actual means of taking these measures includes having nations launching missiles. It’s kind of contradictory isn’t it, that an attack is a safety measure?
I have another point in a more ‘national’ perspective, is something I thought about after reading two opinion articles, one by Michael Tomasky in The Guardian and one by David Bosco on The Washington Post. Specifically, the articles refer more to the U.S.’s reaction to the events in Lybia. The second issue I have in understanding these events is the question of how is the U.S.’s attack now different than Bush’s reaction in the Middle East back in 2003? Is this a more “moral” approach to invading another country? Or is this a “militant” way of being moral and supporting democracy?