TRIPOLI—In the midst of widespread unrest, Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi convened his closest advisers Tuesday and asked them to be totally honest about whether they thought his brutal crackdown against his own people made him a bad person. "When he closed the door, he said that if ordering air strikes against fellow Libyans, allowing the repeated sexual assault of female prisoners, and conducting public executions against political dissenters made him sort of an awful human being, then we should just tell him," adviser Atia Mahmoud said. "We all assured him that he wasn't a complete monster and that he was doing the right thing. I mean, we were all pretty worried we'd be shot in front of our families if we said otherwise." Satisfied by the response, Qaddafi ordered bulldozers to flatten every building in the rebel-held city of Benghazi, as well as any inhabitants that got in the way.