Gaddafi’s Death

 Politics  No Responses »
Oct 242011
 

Our old friend Gaddafi was killed sometime on the 20th October, and due to doubts over how he died, there are some who are concerned with how the future of Libya will suffer because he was potentially lynched. These concerns are ridiculous.

Of course we can agree that a lynching (or a summary execution … or whatever it was) is bad, and that a properly conducted trial would be better. But it will hardly have a great effect on the future of Libya. However Gaddafi was killed, it would seem that if the killing was done by the militia in an inappropriate way, it was almost certainly done against the wishes of the NTC.

And even if it were the case that the NTC let it be known they wouldn’t be too upset if Gaddafi kept falling down steps until he was no longer able to get up again, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Or even a sign that Libya is going to slip into a barbarous disregard for human rights.

Gaddafi was a special case – there are many Libyans with a personal reason to celebrate at Gaddafi’s death. Enough so that the percentage of those of us who believe that taking justice into our own hands is justified would cover enough people that it was pretty likely that Gaddafi would have met a bullet in the back of the head. That is not a good thing of course.

But as far as I can see, Libya does not appear to be going through the kind of convulsions that happen when neighbour starts lynching neighbour. There are plenty of people in Libya who supported the old regime, and it does not seem to be a widespread activity to put said people up against a wall. Which is a good sign – no matter what happened to Gaddafi, it would seem that Libyans want the kind of society where justice takes precedence over lynch mobs.

Western Intelligence Services Doing Business With Gaddafi’s Libya

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Sep 032011
 

Today (or perhaps yesterday) the news was out that the various western intelligence services – MI6, CIA, and the French Intelligence organisation – were all “doing business” with Gaddafi’s regime in Libya. My first reaction is to say: “And so they should”.

Intelligence services are funded for a reason, and that reason is to gather intelligence on various aspects of world affairs. And that includes doing business with repugnant regimes in order to gather intelligence on them, and to collect information they have that they are prepared to share. Given Gaddafi’s instability (look at his latest pronouncements which seem to indicate that he has lost touch with reality), and propensity to stir up trouble beyond the borders of Libya, the chief of any intelligence agency not doing business in Libya would be guilty of gross negligence and deserves the sack.

When you look into the details of what the intelligence agencies were up to, it becomes clear that the CIA at the very least was going a little too far in abducting suspects, dropping them off in Libya for torture, and popping by a little later for the answers to the questions they asked.

As in all things, if you sup with the Devil, you need to use a very long spoon and the CIA would appear to have become too close to the Libyan regime.