Blunt comments and Libyan crackpots

Reuters has an interesting analysis of the most likely countries to experience an uprising similar to those that have effectively ousted the despotic regimes of Egypt and Tunisia, and is threatening to unseat Libyan crackpot Muammar Gaddafi. I've been following the situation pretty closely and I honestly have little to add to the discussion. My only observation is how ineffectual the U.S. and the "developed" world itself has been in the whole affair. We're sending aid to the opposition and making "blunt comments" about the dictators, but what were we doing 5, 10, 20 years ago? Revolutions can only originate from within a country, true; but we certainly had no business propping up or tolerating some of these dictators for as long as we did.