While I disagreed with the NATO intervention in Libya, it would take a pretty sick person not to be relieved somewhat on behalf of those who fought to overcome Gadaffi. You would think so, wouldn’t you? It is regrettable that he did not face a trial, but his death spells the end of an era and a new start for his beleaguered country.
But over in Guardian land Steve Bell treats us to another of his idiotic, puerile, amateurishly drawn juvenile doodles and below the line, the Guardianista are accusing Cameron of atrocities. Gaddafi is just some poor dazed old man who was “collateral damage”. For example:
The Prime Minister rejoicing at the barbaric murder of an unarmed and dazed old man degrades us all.
Shame on David Cameron.
Shame on us all.
No, shame on you.
These people really are sickening beyond belief. Just how evil does a dictator have to be before these creeps feel that apologising for him is beyond the pale?
Well Malcolm Caldwell of SOAS – and a member of the Labour Party – was an unreconstructed admirer of Pol Pot (although Pol Pot had Caldwell murdered) and Chomsky rubbished François Ponchaud’s Cambodia: Year Zero. There’s nothing that lefties won’t support (as long as righty or whitey get stuffed).
As fara as I’m concerned, Gadaffi got his just desserts. All this bemoaning the lack of a fair trial is the usual leftie bleating – they fear the wrath of those they oppress.
The Libyan people showed Gadaffi as much mercy as he showed the Libyans during his 40-odd year regime. The bloke that shot him did Libya and the rest of the world a huge favour. Now there can be no wrangling about Gadaffi’s “human rights”, there can be no argument about whether he should be tried in a Libyan court or the International Court in The Hague and , best of all, no lawyers can become rich on the back of this. Let’s face it any trial in The Hague would have been drawn out for years and years and then Gadaffi would have spent the rest of his days locked up in prison.
Swift justice via a full metal jacketed 9mm projectory was fully deserved.
Message to Messrs Mugabe, Assad and Chavez: Take note. You are next!
For the first time in my life, I totally agree with the Guardian, The leaders of all NATO countries together with their senior commanders should be arraigned at Nuremberg at the earliest possible time.
I am truly ashamed of my country mainly because of the leaders but also because of the “shooting fish in a barrel” attitude of our heroes, especially when there was no plausible oppsition.
Heores – I’ve shit ’em.
I really haven’t the slightest clue whether GADAFFI was good bad or indifferent. Everything I do know about him has been gleaned from blogs or the MSM, or our alien government.
However I think its true to say that having him shot prevents a lot of potentially awkward questions being answered.
Live by the sword – die by the sword. 😐
I do hope you are being ironic…
I don’t think that NATO should have been involved in an internal civil war. However, the intervention was entirely legal and designed to give air cover for the rebels – effectively evening the odds. So while I am a non-interventionist, I cannot but accept that this intervention had a positive outcome in that it removed a horrible dictator.
I went to college with a couple of Libyan students and they tended to confirm pretty much what we had been told about Libya by the MSM at that time.
Much as I dislike the MSM if all sources are all saying the same thing over and over and this can be corroborated by people on the ground and events on our own turf, then yes, we can make a reasonable assumption that Gadaffi really was a despot who brutalised his own people. After all, we only have our governments and the MSM to tell us that Uncles Adolf and Joe were naughty boys, don’t we?
Like Henry and Tattyflarr, my view is he got what was coming. In a warped kind of way, he would have agreed – although he would call it martyrdom…
Longrider,
I thought you were against the death penalty, but you make an exception when it’s a lynch mob. Interesting.
I have no love for Gaddafi. (or however his name is spelt)
I shall however be celebrating when Cameron is executed after being arrested begging for his life. That one though I would want to see the video.
History shows that the Left always sides with the bully.
Every time.
lord T – there are more deserving candidates than Cameron.
TT – no hypocrisy here. The man was engaged in a war. He died as a consequence of waging war. No one could reasonably exercise any control over his capture. His end is ultimately a good thing for Libya in that the country can now move forward. I would have preferred live capture and a proper trial, but my opinion is not relevant to those who are on the ground, is it? Nowhere did I say that I approved of lynching and it’s not entirely clear that that is what happened. Nice try. No cigar.
I have no love for the man or anything he stood for, however I can’t help feeling that his executioners have just lowered themselves to his level.
Blowing somebodys head off because you hate them is not war it’s butchery.
But LR the other day you said you approved of the Russian navy’s robust attitude towards Somali pirates ie blowing them out of the water, now you could extend the ‘at war’ argument to that situation too but there’s a bit of a mis-match between a Frigate and a boatload of pirates, it amounts to summary execution I feel and that in what is, essentially, a policing role rather than a war. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the pirates, despite my slightly ambivalent view of their actions and I have none at all for Gadaffi, the stuff in the Guardian is exactly what you’d expect from the pathological haters of their own society there but I do find the gloating over his death distasteful – not what you are doing but others are. The Libyan people have a right to hate him and rejoice at his death but we ought to be more circumspect.
What Bucko said too.
Bucko, yes, I agree, but we don’t actually know that is what happened. We probably never will. The official version is that he died during a firefight. Without hard evidence to the contrary, we simply cannot say with certainty that he was summarily executed. Balance of probabilities? Yup, likely. It’s not right, it doesn’t bode well for the new regime, but I ain’t shedding any tears either.
Thornavis – regarding the piracy, policing is a Naval role on the high seas, protecting shipping. The inequality of firepower is irrelevant. The pirates are using firepower against unarmed merchantmen. Using superior firepower to put a stop to it is a reasonable response. And a robust response is exactly what is needed if shipping is to be able to navigate the area in safety. My sympathies lie with the crews of the merchant vessels.
No one here is suggesting gloating about Gadaffi’s death. Recognising that it is on balance a good thing says nothing one way or another about its circumstance. I saw Cameron’s comments yesterday. They were not gloating either. Like I said, I disagreed with his decision to intervene, but the outcome has been positive, whether I agree with the decision or not. That is simply a matter of observable fact.
“TT – no hypocrisy here. The man was engaged in a war. He died as a consequence of waging war.”
Pretty sure there are rules for war. Pretty sure executing unarmed captured prisoners out of hand is frowned on under them.
Pretty sure NATO countries are signed up to those rules, too…
“The official version is that he died during a firefight.”
In which no-one else was injured, all the bullets fired (allegedly by his own supporters) mysteriously ending up in him?
The bastard gave Semtex and weapons to the IRA and they killed a lot of innocent people. Then there was WPC Yvonne Fletcher, gunned down in London by a shot or shots from their embassy. Gadaffi didn’t give up the killer and was forever damned in my eyes.
We don’t know this, do we? We don’t know very much at all – other than that he died of gunshot wounds, which is an entirely foreseeable consequence of waging a war.
I didn’t approve of Ceausescu’s death by lynch-mob either, but I didn’t shed tears when it happened. The old scrote died as he had lived. Same with Gadaffi, he brought his end upon himself – even though I agree entirely with Bucko regarding his captors lowering themselves to his level.
NATO wasn’t on the ground and therefore had no control over the situation. And, as I said, we don’t know for certain that those rules were broken, we are conjecturing, aren’t we? None of which has any bearing on my original point; that members of the Guardianista are willing apologists for an evil man and his regime.
MSM ??
Stands for?
Yes the Guardian will always apologise for opponents of the west no matter how vile they are, my problem is with those in this country who are salivating at his end, like the Sun this morning with its “That’s for Lockerbie” headline as though his brutalising of his own people was somehow less important, leaving aside the doubts about who was responsible for Lockerbie, maybe if and when Assad falls we’ll find out. It’s that sort of stuff that gives the Guardian its excuse to feign occupancy of the moral high ground, the Cameron bashing is, I agree, nonsense and distasteful nonsense at that, their hatred of him is reaching absurd levels.
Greg – mainstream media.
Thronavis – the Sun is simply the opposite end of a very shitty stick – the Groan being the other end.
LR,
“These people really are sickening beyond belief. Just how evil does a dictator have to be before these creeps feel that apologising for him is beyond the pale?”
The question is; should a captured, unarmed wounded prisoner be shot out of hand? The answer must surely be ‘no’. How we feel with regard to the dead prisoner or the perpetrators in any particular case is a separate matter.
Those who say they don’t care, cos he had it coming, I am not going to argue with, I only point out the general rule, i.e. my answer ‘no’ above.
You say:
“Recognising that it is on balance a good thing says nothing one way or another about its circumstance.”
What is your reasoning? A good thing that he has been executed for his crimes? This would contradict your opposition to the death penalty. You must be thinking of all the money we’ve saved not having to hold a lengthy trial, n’est-ce que pas?
A good thing that he is gone. That the regime has ended. Nothing more. If he had not been captured or killed, there was always the risk of him raising an insurgency.
Stating this does not contradict my position on the death penalty.
That was the matter I was discussing, though.
“If he had not been captured or killed”
It is the difference between these two things which is at issue.
In March, the UN General Assembly administered a ‘harsh rebuke’ to Ghaddafi and his Government, for assorted ‘breaches of human rights’- including thousands of deaths over many years.
Now they ‘demand’ a war crimes trial – because of one killing.
No, it isn’t. I was discussing the willingness of the Guardianista to apologise for this man and to liken Cameron’s actions to his and to suggest that Cameron was rejoicing at summary execution, which he clearly was not – that was what I found sickening. I was not discussing the behaviour of his captors, nor was I discussing the ethics of summary execution – if that is what happened and we don’t know for sure that it did. Unfortunately, everyone here wants to drag the discussion in that direction and some of you have assumed incorrectly that because I have expressed an open lack of sympathy for Gadaffi and his fate that I somehow approve of lynching. Unless I specifically tell you that I approve of lynching, you cannot assume that this is the case. It is perfectly possible to recognise that someone brought their own fate upon themselves and to acknowledge that they had it coming and to also disapprove of the actions of those who carried it out. There is no cognitive dissonance in such a stance.
The West is really disappearing up its own drainpipe.
A man, who was without doubt guilty both directly and indirectly of so many violent deaths at home and abroad, meets a violent death because he was captured by irregulars during a fire fight that he was participating in at the bitter end of a civil war bought about by his own actions and which he could have ended at any time by standing down as president.
FFS…
Indeed.
@ AWM,
“The West is really disappearing up its own drainpipe.”
If pointing out that summary execution is by definition wrong constitutes a betrayal of ‘western values’, then the quicker the West disappears up its own drainpipe the better.
LR,
“some of you have assumed incorrectly that because I have expressed an open lack of sympathy for Gadaffi and his fate that I somehow approve of lynching.”
I would say rather the assumption is that you don’t approve of lynching, so some of us are inquiring further into what you’re actually saying. As you have characterised the Guardianista as ‘apologising’ for Gaddafi, when the quote you use does not do this. Calling him ‘an unarmed and dazed old man’ is correct. He was a man, he was unarmed, he was dazed and he was 69 years old.
Besides anything, the title of the post is interesting, because, I would say the images of a man during and after his violent death should disturb you more than the comments of a Guardianista.
TT
“If pointing out that summary execution is by definition wrong constitutes a betrayal of ‘western values’, then the quicker the West disappears up its own drainpipe the better”
What I find amusing here, is this insistence on pretending we are dealing with the equivalent of a war between traditional national armies with all the usual discipline and conventions that such wars are (supposedly) fought under.
Summary execution? This isn’t the SS shooting Allied POW’s in WWII France or whatever. Let’s have a reality check please. The most you can accuse anyone of here is simple murder, and given the circumstances, I can imagine any defence lawyer worth his salt would get an acquittal.
But anyway, is there really no one else more worthy of your sympathy or demand that justice is done in this conflict other than the man responsible for it? Shame on you.
Hurry up in that drainpipe, there’s obviously a queue…
AWN,
your attempt to heap shame upon me does not bother me at all, especially as you seem incapable of distinguishing between the various points under discussion here.
I like this line: “The most you can accuse anyone of here is simple murder”
“But anyway, is there really no one else more worthy of your sympathy or demand that justice is done in this conflict other than the man responsible for it?”
Would you like to point to where I expressed sympathy or demanded justice? Take as long as you like.
A title is just a title, something to hang the article on. I wouldn’t put too much weight on it.
I used that quote – out of several possibles – because it was accusing Cameron of gloating/rejoicing over the killing of a dazed old man, which was the point of the Steve Bell cartoon. I watched Cameron’s statement. There was no such gloating. It was a fairly muted statement.
I am sickened by the attempts by the Guardianista to try and draw a moral equivalence between Gadaffi’s regime and Cameron’s government. Why should I also comment upon wider issues such as the images in the papers? I was commenting on the Steve Bell cartoon and his idiotic followers. If I wanted to comment upon the images, I would have done so. Am I now obliged to comment upon only those things that are “more sickening” before I get to comment on what I choose? I didn’t realise that I had to do these things in any sort of order or if time is limited make a choice based upon what is more disturbing. How remiss of me 😉
Actually, I don’t have anything to say about those images, so won’t.
LR,
the Steve Bell cartoon had Cameron dressed as a fox hunter, after having been blooded, i.e. having taken part in his first successful hunt. I took this to be partly a reference to what Lance Price wrote in ‘A Spin-Doctor’s Diary’ about Blair, and was told to redact:
‘That Blair appeared privately to “relish” sending British troops to war in Iraq as his “first blooding”, while publicly claiming he did it “with a heavy heart”.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-362725/Blair-relished-sending-British-forces-war.html
TT
“Calling him ‘an unarmed and dazed old man’ is correct. He was a man, he was unarmed, he was dazed and he was 69 years old.”
Sounds jolly sympathetic to me, or is this your idea of excoriating a murderer?
And:
“The question is; should a captured, unarmed wounded prisoner be shot out of hand? The answer must surely be ‘no’.”
I can only assume you wanted him to be given a trial and be sentenced by a court of law. So he didn’t get justice then? I will presume you are not advocating he should have been set free by the rebels and sent on his way with an admonition to do better next time…
As to being shamed, seems it does bother you considering your intemperate response, n’est-ce que pas?
AWM,
I said:
“Calling him ‘an unarmed and dazed old man’ is correct. He was a man, he was unarmed, he was dazed and he was 69 years old.”
Which part of this are you disputing? Are you saying he was a young man? Okay, I guess that depends on how old you are. Are you saying he was armed? If so, you’re the first person to do so. Are you saying he wasn’t dazed? From the pictures, I think he looked dazed. In any case, all of these statements are objective and there is no implication of sympathy, unless simply to call him a man constitutes sympathy. I would still argue it is objectively true.
I said:
“The question is; should a captured, unarmed wounded prisoner be shot out of hand? The answer must surely be ‘no’.”
You say:
“I can only assume you wanted him to be given a trial and be sentenced by a court of law.”
I suppose that’s a fair assumption, but you cut short what I said, to conceal that I was speaking on the general point, not the specific case, because I continued:
“How we feel with regard to the dead prisoner or the perpetrators in any particular case is a separate matter. Those who say they don’t care, cos he had it coming, I am not going to argue with, I only point out the general rule, i.e. my answer ‘no’ above.”
This is why I said @31; “you seem incapable of distinguishing between the various points under discussion here.”
As for being bothered or not, je vous assure, je m’en fous. 😉
But there is no evidence of relish following a first blood at a hunt. At the time that he made his statement outside Downing Street, very little was actually known about circumstances on the ground, other than that Gadaffi was dead.
As I’ve said all along, I was opposed to intervention, but this one was nothing like the Iraq or Afghanistan wars as coalition troops were not on the ground; merely providing air cover for the local fighters.
So, yeah, I got the reference, but typical of Steve Bell it was misplaced. He might just as well write “I hate the Tories” and be done with it. It would be just as topical, funny and clever and he just about has the drawing skills to manage it.
Gadaffi’s age, state of health and state of mind are completely and utterly irrelevant here.
Gadaffi ruled the Libyan people with an iron fist. The Libayn people decided enough was enough and rose up against Gaddafi and his government. He met his end in the same violent way that he treated thousands of his dtractors over the past 40 years – no trail, just summary execution. Does that make the Libyan people better or worse than Gaddafi? Who cares? He got exactly what he deserved.
Should Hitler have been treated with kid gloves at the end of WW2 had he been captured? After all he was getting on a bit and suffered from Parkinson’s Disease.
If you rule over people with brutaility, then do not be surprised if your own demise is just as brutal. I’ll bet there isn’t a single Libyan who doesn’t wish that it was he or she that pulled the trigger.