Gadhafi Is Dead

@tsarstepan,

I'm mostly fine with Gadhafi being taken out, given his malefactions, but have the odd qualm or two that fits with my general unhappiness about people killing other people, no matter the righteousness of it. Self defense, sure. Otherwise, I'm for trial, however difficult that would be, if it would be. But I'm an odd one, in that I don't like the police shooting to kill either, in many circumstances.

I've been out for a few hours so I haven't read up past the first notices earlier today.

This was from an AP report - at 2:14 pm Libya time:
"White House officials are monitoring the reports of Gadhafi's capture and death but say they can't confirm anything. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was just in Libya yesterday and said then she hoped for his demise. She also offered U.S. aid to the interim government."
My discomfort with that is almost quaint given our and many other nations' involvement in assassinations in the past, but my softer and possibly wiser self wishes she didn't say that. Not because she's a woman, but that we so directly call for killing a past head of state.

When we are brutal, when any are brutal, even if the one hit has been exceedingly brutal, there is bite back much of the time, so speaking for practical reasons I think being assassini can be dumb, on top of other qualms. Not that I know that we directly killed him, but I assume we're involved in some orchestration with our sticky feet.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

I would be pretty surprised to find that the US or NATO countries had anything to do with killing him.

If he was murdered upon capture, as opposed to dying from his wounds, I can't see that there is a need to look beyond the rebels.

I'm sure a scenario can be cooked up wherein the West would want the Colonel to die before he could go on trial and spill his guts about prior dealings, but it's a possibility, not a likelihood.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Wasn't us. CNN has video. He survived the Hellfire missile that hit his vehicle and was alive when the Libyans got hold of him.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I doubt it was obviously us. I have read (where? google news?) that we were involved in their chasing him hither and yon. Obviously, I don't know myself to what extent we facilitated anything, or advised anything at all.

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@tsarstepan,

Moment of silence and we're done. His new name is Nomore Gadhafi.

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@Irishk,

That the video of him being dragged out of the drainage pipe?

That clip pretty unsettling, but based on it I would bet the mob killed him.

Considering his history, there was probably karmic scales being leveled a little once they got a hold of him. Still, it wasn't a pleasant sight.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

I'm sure a scenario can be cooked up wherein the West would want the Colonel to die before he could go on trial and spill his guts about prior dealings, but it's a possibility, not a likelihood.

Given what we think is true about how this went down by far the most likely is that he gave orders to his people that they were supposed to make sure that he was not taken alive. He was much too proud to suffer Mubarak's humiliation.

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@hawkeye10,

That's more likely than the US or NATO taking him out, but what is most likely is that one or more rebels put him down.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

That's more likely than the US or NATO taking him out, but what is most likely is that one or more rebels put him down.

The only way we might find out is if someone who was with him survived , which I am not seeing... or if the US aircraft tape shows what happened and they release, which is highly unlikely. The French likely have tape as well but they have too fly too fast for it to show much.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

In the taped footage they got from al-Jazeera, it showed the sewer pipe with the dead bodies of a couple of Loyalists lying there and a rebel pointing to the one in which they found the colonel hiding. Then they'd switch to the video of the rebels pulling him from the back of a pickup truck, roughing him up and screaming at him and then cutting away to the surrounding celebrations. Always with the 'gruesome' warning and instructions to shoo any kids out of the room.

They played it over and over all day, along with still photos of the video and also of him dead just minutes away from a hospital (looked like they were in a sort of ambulance). In that photo they'd always point out the gunshot to the left side of his head, speculating it may have been from his own 'golden gun' that had been confiscated in his capture (cue showing the gun which really is made of gold apparently).

I kept thinking they'd go on to report on other news of the day, but they never did. Wolf was entertaining with his questions to some of the 'experts' and politicians that showed up to comment. One in particular to Sen. McCain was, IMO, hilarious Smile

Had to do with whether or not the Libyans would reimburse the U.S. for the money we spent helping them with their revolution and getting Kaddafi. McCain said, "I can't imagine anyone who would even ask such a question!" and Wolf replied, "Oh, I did...I even wrote an article about it". Awkward lol.

1 Reply

@Irishk,

I must be getting soft in my old age, because I found the video disturbing. Something about seeing a bloodied individual helplessly vulnerable before an angry mob makes me queasy. Very difficult to remember who the captive monster is.

(BTW-No Huntsman-like "call me crazy" sarcasm intended here)

Come to think of it, why shouldn't we ask the Libyans to reimburse us? We could easily work out a very patient payment plan. The symbolism would be worth more than whatever we could collect.

Instead we'll end up increasing our costs by providing them with great wads of financial assistance, and expecting the pay back will come in the form of good relations...like Pakistan and Egypt.

So we will have spent over a billion dollars helping to liberate them from a brutal dictator, and we'll get to spend billions more to help them rebuild, and in return they won't go out of their way to blatantly screw us over

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Hillary Clinton said the United States was working with Libya to "return frozen assets" and that Washington would "stay focused on security".

She went on to say that she was "proud to stand on the soil of a free Libya", and that the US would work with Libya to destroy chemical weapons stocks.

Flanked by NTC officials, Mrs Clinton said: "We want to expand our economic co-operation with Libya to create new educational and cultural exchanges and deepen our engagement with civil society.”

She added: "First we'll launch this new partnership to provide care to the wounded. It deeply moves us that so many people dropped whatever they were doing to fight for their freedom.

"We plan to evacuate some of the most seriously injured to specialised medical facilities in the US. We want to hep you care for your patients here in Libya and we'll work together to establish a modern medical management system," she said.

Flanked by senior NTC leaders, she said: "We want to expand our economic co-operation with Libya to create new educational and cultural exchanges and deepen our engagement with civil society."

Mrs Clinton said the US was also focused on young people whom she said had the most to gain from the new-found freedom.

As such, as part of the new aid package, the U.S. will re-launch several educational programmes, including Fulbright scholarships and English language training. The size of the programme is to be doubled to permit more Libyan students to study and train in the US.

The US will also help fund an archeological project that will survey eastern Libya, the officials said.

It has been reported that the new US contribution will boost Washington's contribution toLibya since the uprising against Muammar Al Qathafi began in mid-February to around $135m.

http://tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=1&i=7122

Given that most observers say that even if they manage to get a unified government formed it will take years to get oil production back up I am sure that this $135 million is just a down payment....

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@Finn dAbuzz,

That was Wolf's point. He asked each of his guests that were on to discuss the event what would be wrong with the U.S. keeping a billion or so of the $37B in Libyan bank assets we'll soon be turning over to them. One of the Libyans said they'd be willing to consider it. Then he (the Libyan official) said they needed one of our hospital ships to treat their 30,000 war wounded (and also means to transport them to our hospital in Germany) because they don't have the skills to treat such wounds at Libyan hospitals. Wolf asked him if he'd been able to secure such a promise from any U.S. official and he said that he had.

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Quote:

"One of Gaddafi's men came out waving his rifle in the air and shouting surrender, but as soon as he saw my face he started shooting at me," he told Reuters news agency.

"Then I think Gaddafi must have told them to stop. 'My master is here, my master is here', he said, 'Muammar Gaddafi is here and he is wounded'," Bakeer said.

"We went in and brought Gaddafi out. He was saying 'What's wrong? What's wrong? What's going on?'. Then we took him and put him in the car," Bakeer said.

At the time of capture, Gaddafi was already wounded with gunshots to his leg and to his back, Bakeer said.

Other government fighters who said that they took part in Gaddafi's capture, separately confirmed Bakeer's version of events, though one said the man who ruled Libya for 42 years was shot and wounded at the last minute by one of his own men.

"One of Muammar Gaddafi's guards shot him in the chest," Omran Jouma Shawan said

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/10/20111020171225339666.html

Almost certainly this is what happened.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Almost certainly this is what happened.

Come on Hawkeye..............

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@hawkeye10,

The rebels can't exactly say they killed him in captivity, so it's easier to float the theories that he was a victim of the crossfire or died of wounds he suffered from the missile that hit his vehicle or wounds he suffered during his initial capture. I doubt we'll ever know what really happened.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

I've read more since my last post and back off thinking we were there at the immediate end.

On the matter of the close air strikes, I have qualms there too (the armaments for the group were certainly re self defense as they fled and may or may not have been a threat to whatever populace, the nato pretext for action).

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@Irishk,

Irishk wrote:

The rebels can't exactly say they killed him in captivity, so it's easier to float the theories that he was a victim of the crossfire or died of wounds he suffered from the missile that hit his vehicle or wounds he suffered during his initial capture. I doubt we'll ever know what really happened.

No they can't because to do so would be to, arguably, admit to committing a war crime.

We may never know for sure, but after watching the clip of his final moments, I'm convinced the mob killed him.

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Another dictator dead. At least he is dead, didn't have to suffer much, or hang out in a courtroom propped up.

Yes, it's sad. But, he lived a grand life at the expense of his own people. Shame.
Gadaffi's dead, but his house didn't burn down. Now, it'll be surrounding by a park for the people.

What the people are doing in that part of the world is just flat amazing.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I just saw a tv clip and an interview with some of the people - he was basically being dragged out in the street and was obviously beaten, but alive. One of the men there said they were dragging him to a car - and some one came up and shot him in the head.

2 Replies

Gadhafi Is Dead

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