My last post x-posted over yours. I didn't see it until after I had posted.

@Situation

Putin and I are fine. He's a big boy; he doesn't need you to defend him.

^ ditto. I missed everything after SantaClausowitz's post

rofl

Well, this thread went to shit in no time. Sorry for my part in it, OP.

My personal role model just died. RIP.

I don't think he will be missed. It's not altogether surprising that this ended in assassination, given his violent rhetoric toward the beginning of the revolution.

@hellalt

Do you have pinstriped suites where the stripes are actually just "hellalt" over and over? : )

@youradhere

Yeah, but the problem is we've been setting a very, very bad precedent that it's OK to assassinate people if the US doesn't like them. That's a very scary thought.

It would have been fine if it ended in a military assassination as part of the war effort, but this sounds like execution without trial. The Iraqis gave Saddam a trial and Gadaffi deserved the same. While the result may have been the same for him, the anti-Gadaffi forces lost the higher morale ground with this execution style murder. And the treatment of his body afterwards is even more criminal. I've always had a problem with abuse of a corpse no matter who it was in life.

Let´s throw some wood on the fire just for fun. First of all "Gaddafi was a hero to many". So was Hitler, Stalin and any evil dude that has ever ruled a region of the world. Also, too really piss off the "humane" people around here: the reason all of you say that any human life is too be mourned and that there should be no rejoicement at the death of anyone is because you have never been the victims of said evil persons. "They are still human" I for one do not think so. A person who is so vicious and evil that has thousands of dead bodies on his/her shoulders and doesn't give a crap surely is not human. No consciousness at all of their actions, following instinct rather than thought. That is an animal, not a human. This does not mean that I rejoice at the deat of Gaddafi, but that it is stupid to vociferously argue that those who rejoice are in the wrong. If Gaddafi had killed the entire family of all of you people I am sure you would have reason to rejoice at his death, like many Libyans out there.

Now go, have fun with this comment.

quak, civilized people must act civilized even when they have to face not civilized dictators. that's the difference between humans and animals.
Not to mention that before Gaddafi became a cruel dictator he significantly raised the level of living of the Libyan people...

"Yeah, but the problem is we've been setting a very, very bad precedent that it's OK to assassinate people if the US doesn't like them. That's a very scary thought."

Wait, that precedent doesn't exist yet? I think we can feasibly argue that the assassination was a domestic issue. The US has been much more involved in assassinations in the past; this execution without process reflects the violence inspired in large part by Qadaffi himself. How many people did Qadaffi have executed on a whim, how many did he threaten to massacre in Benghazi? The man is reaping what he sowed.

It does not seem as though NATO was directly involved in his killing. I am disappointed in the NTC for its lack of control over its fighters, but that is hardly surprising. If the NTC can maintain peace after this, Qadaffi's extra-judicial execution will not be sufficient for NATO's intervention to be worth regretting.

NTC could have had a short military trial and then executed him.

No worse than recent American assassinations. Yet the NTC are not a democracy, They are in the middle of a civil war, and not the kind of civil war where both sides have standing armies to throw at each other...

If NATO could have pinned down Gaddaffi's location and hit him with a cruise missile i'm pretty sure they'd have done it months ago. Though this might have been considered stealing their kill (from the NTC, who not only earned this, can be pretty confident that the people of their country will remember this day - which may prove useful when trying to build a new country....)

Yeah sure well Gaddafi's government made it so his people had subsidized housing free healthcare and education, and he even gave students studying abroad a living stipend to do so. Gaddafi was instrumental in helping liberation movements across the world like the African-American civil rights movement and anti-apartheid movement, while the US has done nothing but prop up colonial and racist regimes. He also gave a lot of resources in the promotion of African development. Colleagues from Mali of mine said that without Gaddafi Mali would have no televisions or television network.

But whenever the interventionists want to oust an independent government, they always manufacture nonsense about "oppression" that has no basis in reality, so they can rationalize their support for jihadists and insurrectionists who do nothing but kill and destroy. The pro-Gaddafi rallies were much larger and more authentic than the armed gangs of Al Qaeda thugs, and yet Gaddafi showed remarkable restraint in dealing with the "opposition". It was only when they started lynching and murdering people, and attacking and burning government installations, that the fighting began.

There's a reason why Gaddafi was named African Leader of the Year in 2009. He has always been a voice for the voiceless. Something the colonizing bastards of Europe and North America and their Islamist errand boys can't countenance.

Raised the level of living according to whom? Because I for one live in Venezuela. We are currently around 40 years behind in standard of living than we were before Chavez. Yet, according to government and in some cases the world we are progressing... Why? Because oil prices keep rising to ridiculous rates and the GDP is huge. But how exactly is that GDP spent? It ends up almost entirely on government officials´swiss bank accounts and the pockets of the whiskey companies who are the suppliers of said government officials. The rest goes to feed the poor for a day and make them all believe that daddy government is good for them... In the meantime, there is no milk or vegetable oil in the supermarkets, Caracas, the capital, is the most dangerous city in the world and people are poorer than ever. Not to mention the power outages, water shortages and gas shortages (particularly hilarious in a nation that only produces oil).

And yes, I agree civilized people should always act civilized. However, ask yourself this: is it uncivilized to kill an animal? I thought hunting was a "civilized gentlemen´s sport". And anyway, no one said Gaddafi's killers are civilized or would make good rulers. Knowing the world, they are probably as bad as Gaddafi. Either way, rejoicing at the death of a murderer does not make anyone uncivilized or barbaric as Putin would like us to believe.

And in direct response to Putin's last comments: That is what all dictators do. Buy public and international opinion to disguise the fact that they are meanwhile oppressing the people of their nation. And yes, you socialist freak, they have failed again and again to actually gain any success through those exact same policies you mention. They lead a country to ruin. Forget about subsidies. They represent the ruin of a nation.

Putin... without commenting on anything else related to Qaddafi, can you defend the fact that he held onto power for something like 43 years?

If you can remove that blight from him, I may begin to listen to you, otherwise he is the definition of an autocrat - someone who holds power for himself.

Maybe he did help Libyans in the ways you are describing, but that I think may be like saying just because Bush started PEPFAR he was a good president (assuming you think PEPFAR was good.... debatable).

Doing a few nice things doesn't absolve your other sins.

Anyway I don't know if blaming the Libyan government for the way Gadhafi died is fair, the troops are extremely disorganized. Blame the dudes who did, it sure, I join you, his killing was inhumane and against the rules of war to say the least, but given how Gadhafi acted and the nature of the NTCs armed forces, I don't know how anyone really expected a different result.

Would it have been *nice* if they brought him in before the ICC? Yeah. But it also would have been nice if he had given himself up when Tripoli fell, or, I dunno, not bombed the protesters to begin with.

I agree with the sentiment that celebrating a human death is in bad taste though. No action you can take can strip you of your inherent humanity and fair treatment before your fellow human race. So on that note my thoughts on this are the same as my thoughts on Osama, I think most here agree with me on that.

Good riddance. I opposed this intervention from the start and think Libya will be a mess for decades because of how this has all played out, but the world is better today now that this scumball is dead. If nothing else this is the unambiguous end to one of the most awful regimes in human history.

There was a story on the radio earlier. Apparently in the 80s the Italian embassy in Tripoli made an official objection to Gadaffi's regime after a load of rubbish bags containing human limbs were dumped in the street away from them. A bad person has left this world and he is no doubt being judged probably as this thread develops. One further thing I will say is that the primary source of alot of bad things that have happened over the last 40 years has now been silenced. The truth about Lockerbie, Yvonne Fletcher, the bombing of a nightclub in Germany may now never be known.

@Putin - while I don't doubt the remarks of your colleagues, or the fact that Gadhaffi allowed for a more secular society than the one replacing it, there are many, many worse things out there that he has done. Lets just take education, which you said he improved. The universities taught out of his Green Book - which was full of fallacies - and anything that went against his doctrine was suppressed. (University) Students were beaten on campus. Now, with universities opening again, they're trying to figure out how to form student governments and the sort, because all of that had been a sham under Gadhaffi.

About his murder. I don't like it and neither do most people (oh, and his son was executed too) but it was really to be expected. The NTC can't control the western forces, as was the case time and time again in Bani Walid and other areas. The NTC forces from the East are the ones who have a command structure, who are well trained, disciplined, and listen to orders. The fighters from Misrata, Tripoli, and the western mountains are the ones who don't take orders from anyone, and are the ones who loot and kill. To support this, it was a group of fighters from Misrata who killed Gadhaffi and took him back to (guess where!) Misrata.

What is wrong with you people???

The arabic/muslim civilization is a few hundred years behind the western civilization. They have yet to have their renaissance etc....

When the west only allowed (some) gender equality within the last 100 years, its hardly surprising that these people act in a barbaric manner when they fight in a "war"

What do you expect? Read the "clash of civilizations" and get to grips with what is happening

oh and @draugnar

enough with all the "ive lived through this and that" and the "ive seen war man, you dont know what it is like man"

everyone has different experiences- i have some u will have no clue about

the muslim civilization will get their eventually- they are just behind other civs by a small number of years

@dr Rush. Not entirely sure that our values should be classed as something different ot better than other countries. Look at Europe standing by and watching at Schrebrenica, or the world doing nothing in Rwanda. Then there was the assination of Bin Laden....

But he does have a point with the fact that the relative level of industrialization, modernization, and education of a country determines how "civilized" they are. Wealth and education are what distinguishes "civilized" people from "uncivilized" people (note: I'm putting civilized in quotes because its not exactly like these people are barbarians, its just that their social norms are not in alignment with universal human rights and their governments are not stable). Its not merely the fact that they have more money/education, but rather the benefits that come from having money/education. If you have money you can go on the internet, and education can let you read, etc. So in that respect, dr. rush is right, because they will get there eventually, and it will be much faster than it took for the west to get there

"The arabic/muslim civilization is a few hundred years behind the western civilization. They have yet to have their renaissance etc...."

In 800AD when Christians were debating whether or not women had souls, trying to figure out how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, thinking that diseases were caused by evil spirits, and resolving disputes with trials by combat, the Muslim world had female jurists and religious leaders, were translating and expanding on Greek mathematical and astronomical observations, pioneering scientific fields like optics and navigation, writing medical textbooks that would be used for another 1000 years, and building the wealthiest and most powerful empire on earth at the time.

None of which the 'civilized' Christians would catch on to for another 600+ years, when they finally started rummaging through captured Muslim libraries in Spain and Sicily and started picking up the knowledge of those Ay-rab barbarians. The Renaissance was the West catching up to the Islamic world, not pulling ahead of it.

Good point, well made goldfinger. What was the difference between the death of Gadaffi and Bin Laden?
PS, Please don't get me wrong. I'm playing devils advocate. I'm glad they're both dead, but there are some unanswered questions which will now be more difficult to obtain closure on.

The 'dark ages' in Europe were indeed an incredibly enlightened time in Asia Minor and North Africa.

@Putin

Yeah, Gaddafi did some positive things. He also killed a lot of people and threatened to kill many more. I do not think he should have been murdered, but to pretend that Gaddafi's death represents yet another imperialist intervention by the evil, oppressive West in a land of sunshine and prosperity ignores reality just as effectively as the celebratory tone of many reports of his death.

A good way to think about the relative advancement/languishing of society throughout history is by comparing it to baseball teams, say, the AL East. Let's compare being "civilized" to who is in first and how far the other teams are trailing. Europe, the Middle East, and Asia can be seen as the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays respectively. Each of them led the division at some point, but then later were beaten down to the benefit of another. I don't know which region would be the Blue Jays, but sadly Africa is the Orioles.