The circumstances around the death of Muammar Gaddafi are unclear and likely to remain so. He was filmed injured but alive, and then later died of gunshot wounds, including one to the head.
It wasn’t a death in combat — from which he was fleeing when injured — and he may well have been the victim of extra-judicial killing. Libyans will now not have the opportunity to put their former dictator on trial and, had he ever been released from whatever penalty was imposed on him in his own country, nor will the International Criminal Court.
Nonetheless, that is Gaddafi’s fault. He had innumerable opportunities to negotiate an end to the conflict that erupted in Libya in the aftermath of the flight of Tunisia’s Ben Ali — a subject on which Gaddafi thought fit to lecture Tunisians and their use of social media — and accelerated after Hosni Mubarak was driven from power in Egypt. Even after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him, there is little doubt the western powers engaged in providing air support for the uprising would have been happy to accept a negotiated settlement in which Gaddafi went into exile and safety elsewhere, perhaps with his good friend Hugo Chavez.
Instead, Gaddafi chose to fight on even after he lost his capital to a exquisitely timed and impressively co-ordinated uprising in Tripoli. In doing so, even he would have been aware of the risk he was taking of ending up like Romania’s Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu. And that, it seems, was his fate, one that has been met with an eruption of unbridled joy among the populace he had terrorised for decades.
It is regrettable that he will never be compelled to answer publicly for the long litany of crimes he inflicted on his country over the course of decades. Instead, he died humiliated, surrounded by enemies, wounded and begging for mercy. But given the monstrous nature of his régime and, particularly, of his response to the uprising against him — and that he courted exactly such a fate — that’s an outcome not entirely devoid of justice.
Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh should take heed and understand they may well face a similar choice to Gaddafi. For their countries’ sake, we hope they choose more wisely than he did.
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What I want to know is where was his retinue of female bodyguards he used to have escorting him on visits to Italy.
Dr Benjamin MacQueen, deputy director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre- what a right wing US propaganda unit writing bullsh…… in an Australian media outlet – how unusual.
Gaddaffi was a benevolent dictator who’s people had the highest standard of living in Africa! They were not religious fanatics as is the case in the US and the US funded invaders of Libya who are in fact Al-Qaeda (yes those ones that claimed the two towers in the US as their own work). Funny bed partners for the US don’t you think but the US don’t and have never understand the term “moral” when enforcing their “foreign” policy.
Gaddaffi was targeted by the US because he was negotiating with African nations to instal an African Reserve Bank for the whole of Africa, instead of dealing in US$.
The US is desperate to retain the world currency (all global finance and oil must be bought and sold in US$) so that they can continue forcing the world to fund their military endeavours and wars and to keep printing money with impunity. It means that the US does not have to properly manage their affairs and can simply continue to allow big business to control the direction of the US.
Of course, as a big bonus and also part of the reason for creating an invading a ‘rebel’ force, is OIL.
Gaddaffi is the OPPOSITE of the despots that the US has installed around the world (eg. the previous dictator of Egypt) and I knew he would stay and die for his country and people.
I am saddened greatly by the demise of such a great man and I only hope that the US loses its world currency quickly before many more innocent civilians are murdered throughout the world.
Dragged out of sewer, from whence he came.
Why have you not highlighted that the US (NATO) was there to protect civilians but then proceeded to support of group of Al-Qaeda rebels by bombing civilians throughout Libya who supported their government. This was particularly evident in the two cities of Tripoli and Sirte. The US (NATO) were sanctioned by the UN to protect civilians NOT to indiscriminately bomb cities (full of civilians) to ensure that a few Al-Qaeda rebels were able to overthrow a people.
Just to make this clear – Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden – yes, the group that it was claimed, took down the twin towers in the US.
As to global politics – you have not detailed that Gaddaffi was negotiating with African nations to form an African Reserve Bank, so that they would no longer have to deal in US$ and what this means to the US. The US is the world currency which means that they are effectively funded by the rest of the world to build up their military, wage wars, to manage their affairs without reference to a ‘budget’, and most importantly, print money – all with impunity.
The US will lose this power and extreme privilege if other countries stop using the US$ as the world currency.
Hence the removal of Gaddaffi was essential to the US, combined with the fact that another OIL facility has been put in US control and therefore US$, ensures US world dominance.
Gaddaffi stayed and died for his country and his people – I really think that the US have created a martyr, especially when the people soon find their way of living dictated to them by a militant Islamist terrorist organization. Women in particular will be affected.
Sorry about the redraft, the other was posted in error.
To misquote the apocryphal, “he may be a murdering bastard, but he’s doing our dirty work”. Applicable to any number of tinpot dictators, strong men, autocrats and presidents-for-life until they cease to be.
Like Chavez, Mossadeque, Allende, Zia alHaq, if they stick to the script they’re tolerated, esp if they have useful quantities of Shaitain’s Blood or unsinkable aircraft carriers but, ride the tiger, chase the dragon, whatever metaphor, remember what Golda Meier (according to Dr K, “the best man in the Israeli government”) said – “it’s better to be an enemy of the USA – they usually make friends with they enemies but always betray their friends“.
As for the NTC, the West should careful what it wishes for because they might get it.
Egyptian elections in November anyone?