Colonel Maummar Gaddafi is dead.

[Phil H]

Whatever the case, let's just hope it brings Libya and the world as a whole closer to peace.

Adam,

I think that people my age (60s) will look back and think we have lived through a golden age.

I recall in the 60s/early 70s that people could travel in VW campers from Beirut to India across countries now so strife torn and unstable as now to be effectively no-go areas.

A period of cheap air fares is sliding away and travel will become more difficult.

I see no easy resolution to the issue of Islamic fundamentalism and there is a potential rift of fire from the borders of China, through the "Stans" in what was southern USSR, north south through the Levant, and then across the Mahgreb. Along the whole length of that line Muslim countries rub against western countries, and if fanaticism should spread...

Factor in failed or failing states (Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan) and the influence of a nuclear Iran..

And then what of israel - increasingly questioned in regard to her policies, and with unrest all around her - Syria, Egypt, Yemen... Saudi?

Add to that climate change and the potential for huge population moves (akin to those around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire (Huns, Visigoths, Vandals etc) motivated by a search for water, rising oceans reducing available land, poor harvests, aridity etc and you have a recipe for chaos and war.

The Cold War (for all its implicit tensions) actually produced a very stable political climate globally - I cannot see that returning.

If the Eurozone collapses and the world recession continues what will be the effects on the liberal democracies? The US can turn inwards (isolationism) but what would that do to Russia's reawakening interests internationally, and what of China stretching its limbs. What would the effects be on the Pacific rim?

While I hope for peace, as a student of international politics, my expectations are of a much bleaker, nastier future... I just hope that some conflict does not lead to a nuclear exchange (India/Pakistan; Israel/Iran) or that terrorists never get their hands on and explode a dirty bomb - I think that would change everything.

I suppose I actually believe that what is going on in the Mahgreb and among other Arab states is not something to be hopeful of, but to be regretted. What sign did the US send in abandoning its ally Mubarak (who was also useful to israel - to support uncertainty? Gaddafi and his fellow dictators may not have been nice but at least they brought an element of stability and you knew what and who you were dealing with... no, I just don't know.

Sorry to be so depressive...

Phil

[Heinrich]

He was murdered while in the custody of a mob, which is a bad omen of things to come. Only the English and French seem to believe these rebels will be any different to what went before. In no time their suited businessmen will be in there for oil deals with the new strong man just like they were with Qaddafi.

[Adam Went]

Agree with most of the sentiments already expressed on here - glad that Gaddafi is gone but the way in which he was ended is perhaps not necessarily the best way it should have been done.

Whatever the case, let's just hope it brings Libya and the world as a whole closer to peace.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Limehouse]

Seems to me there are different ways to make war on your enemies. Hitler, Stalin, Gaddafi, Sadam, Bin Laden and many others will go down in history as wicked madmen - and quite rightly so.

Others will sleep soundly in their beds in the comfort that they indirectly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the name of western liberal democracy. Still - I am in a funny mood tonight. Maybe I'll see things differently in the morning.

[ChrisGeorge]

The next few months will be key to Libya establishing a stable and democratic government.The 'rebels' have tended to be portrayed as a single force fighting Gaddafi and his supporters,whereas in fact they were an alliance of different factions united by their desire to oust a dictator.Now that he is no more and with a potentialy oil rich pie to be divided up how long the alliance will last before each presses its own claims remains to be seen.

Hi brummie

I think civil war is a likely scenario to follow Gaddafi's death, and likely untold suffering to come for the Libyan people. As Gary Neville wrote about those who would like Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger to step down, "Be careful what you wish for."

Chris

[brummie]

The next few months will be key to Libya establishing a stable and democratic government.The 'rebels' have tended to be portrayed as a single force fighting Gaddafi and his supporters,whereas in fact they were an alliance of different factions united by their desire to oust a dictator.Now that he is no more and with a potentialy oil rich pie to be divided up how long the alliance will last before each presses its own claims remains to be seen.

[ChrisGeorge]

Libya MIGHT see some liberal progress, but I suspect that a strong man will emerge. Tunisia might have the best chance of a democratic future, but squeezed between Algeria and Libya I wonder. Also if Egypt does go fundamentalist, that may send a new wave through the area akin to the Moslem conquests of C7th/8th CE.


Bleakly,

Phil

Hi Phil

The history of the revolutions in France and Russia, in which Napoleon and Lenin, respectively, where the strong figures that emerged after periods of uncertainty and weak government, provide models for what might happen in Libya. Also Hitler was admired at first as the strong man who emerged after the weak German Weimar government. History has a way of repeating itself, as the old adage goes.

All the best

Chris

[Phil H]

Those of us who are fortunate to live in western democracies can sometimes forget that other areas and countries have neither the same traditions, the same societal framework, standards of education or of liberal principles.

Years ago someone explained to me, rather patiently, that truely democratic government was really almost impossible in some African countries because their artificial (often colonial era) national boundaries cut across tribal boundaries in an arbitrary way. Thus a country can have a majority tribe and a minority tribe, and in almost any conceivable election, the majority tribe would win - hence the one party dictatorships and lifelong rule of individuals that have been seen in many states in the area.

In Afghanistan, Karzai may be heavily criticised in London and Washington as "corrupt" but I suspect that that is how business is done in a hugely tribal country, and that karzai is just better at it than most. Throw him out, and replace him by a democrat and he won't last long - because he won't be able to manage the "system".

Egypt has no tradition of democracy, going back to the Pharoahs (Ozymandias is appropriate, indeed). Nasser toppled King Farouk and became pretty much a one man ruler - Eden in 1956 thought him another Hitler.

China and Russia have no tradition of anything but autocracy - hence that their modern rulers are Emperors and Tsars just as much as the Ming and Romanov rulers were. They have just changed their names.

I have little optimisim for the "revolutions" in the Mahgreb. I think Egypt will become a fundamentalist religious nation within a few years. I regret that I probably will never get to see the sites again. Further, I fear for the safety of some of the remains. (My reasons, the Muslim brotherhood is better organised than any of the more liberal groups and I suspect would have stronger support in "Middle" Egypt. Also if a weak liberal democracy is established it will either have to go hardline to defeat hardliners - as Mubarak did; or the hardline militants will win.)

Libya MIGHT see some liberal progress, but I suspect that a strong man will emerge. Tunisia might have the best chance of a democratic future, but squeezed between Algeria and Libya I wonder. Also if Egypt does go fundamentalist, that may send a new wave through the area akin to the Moslem conquests of C7th/8th CE.


Bleakly,

Phil

[ChrisGeorge]

Heard one news report that gave Gaddafi's alleged last words:

"What did I do to you?"

I heard the same kensei, and was very interested.

I had been musing in the Hitler, Nazi's etc thread on Hitler's personality, and mentioned that I had come to the conclusion that he lacked some "moral" component to his character - specifically the ability to see that his words/decisions could have consequences and lead to harmful effects.

I wonder whether the same was true of gaddafi - an inability to connect his "orders" with their human outcomes.

I saw a report from John Simpson today saying the he once decided that shopkeepers were exploitative and banned shops - and that as a result many Libyans almost starved to death.

After 42 years in power he was also probably detached from reality in a very real way - surrounded by yes men and manipulating family members and utterly out of touch with a much changed real world.

I have no sympathy for him, but regret the rather squalid nature of his end. Mobs are always short-sighted and stupid I suppose.

His last moments must have been full of pain, fear and dread.

Phil

Hi Phil and Kensei

I didn't ask from which country my cab driver in Washington, D.C. this morning came but he looked and sounded as if he came from the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia or Somalia as many of the immigrant D.C. cab drivers are. His comment on the demise of Gaddafi was, "Such tyrants think they are Gods."

I think there is something to this -- that they think they can do no wrong. Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and Muammar Gaddafi each likewise thought they were rulers for life. In Gaddafi's case, he certainly seems to have become increasingly detached from reality.

I also regret Gaddafi's sordid end even if it was richly deserved. The poem by Shelley, "Ozymandias," comes to mind -- see below. According to one rumor, Gaddafi may have been shot in the head with his own gold pistol, by a kid in a New York Yankees cap. The rebel is shown holding the weapon in some of the photographs that have been appearing in the media.

All the best

Chris

Ozymandias

I met a Traveler from an antique land,
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings."
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

[niko]

Heard one news report that gave Gaddafi's alleged last words:

"What did I do to you?"

I also read his last word's were "don't shoot, don't shoot. All the best. Agur.

niko

[Phil H]

No rehabilitation possible, of that I'm sure.

But I don't think any civilised society should put a madman on trial - and I really do not think that Gaddafi would have been found fit to plead.

I am rather taken by the older method of dealing with "dangerous tyrants" - exile somewhere remote and safe (St Helena: Napoleon and an island off the coast of France: Petain)

Napoleon was never tried, Petain was and the death sentence commuted - he was around 90!!

I wonder what the Russians would have done to Hitler had he been caught, or Himmler? Show trial and a barbaric death no doubt - but I think it leaves a smear on the nation that carries it out.

Phil

[kensei]

I think Gaddafi established himself as a source of evil many years ago, but in more recent times I don't think it can be denied that something happened to him mentally. He had so many public appearances in which he seemed to be just spouting insane drivel that he almost had to have been either under the influence of heavy drugs or else genuinely mentally ill. A person who begins as evil and then goes crazy- should we pity such a person? I don't think so. I think that in opposition to "Not guilty by reason of insanity" there should also be a category of "GUILTY by reason of insanity," and that someone like Gadaffi who is so overflowing with insanity that he rises to the level of a James Bond supervillain has just got to go. Does anyone seriously think he could have been rehabilitated? Sad but true.

[Phil H]

I heard the same kensei, and was very interested.

I had been musing in the Hitler, Nazi's etc thread on Hitler's personality, and mentioned that I had come to the conclusion that he lacked some "moral" component to his character - specifically the ability to see that his words/decisions could have consequences and lead to harmful effects.

I wonder whether the same was true of gaddafi - an inability to connect his "orders" with their human outcomes.

I saw a report from John Simpson today saying the he once decided that shopkeepers were exploitative and banned shops - and that as a result many Libyans almost starved to death.

After 42 years in power he was also probably detached from reality in a very real way - surrounded by yes men and manipulating family members and utterly out of touch with a much changed real world.

I have no sympathy for him, but regret the rather squalid nature of his end. Mobs are always short-sighted and stupid I suppose.

His last moments must have been full of pain, fear and dread.

Phil

[kensei]

Heard one news report that gave Gaddafi's alleged last words:

"What did I do to you?"

[Mads]

The next couple of months will be very hard for Libya. I pray the fighting will stop now.