Two minutes and twenty-eight seconds. That was the length of the Gaddafi death video I saw today. Bloody, gory, sickening, and inhumane on many levels. We all knew he had to go and we all were too familiar with his 42 years of dictatorship in Libya. But was this our place to intervene?
As the headlines of his death blasted my social media sites this morning, I smiled for the people of Libya and felt like we are moving closer towards a just world. This is the man that has been killing his own innocent people and carelessly committed crimes without punishment. He is no angel but in today’s politics, who is? I was interested in the story and how Gaddafi was captured but as my day went on I continued to question it.
Did NATO have a right to interfere in Libyan affairs and kill Gaddafi? How come we never arrested and prosecuted George Bush when he arrived in Canada in October, 2011? Amnesty International has clearly laid out Bush’s crimes in a public document that outline his crimes of torture. Why is it that the ex-President of the US is above the law yet we avert our attention and kill people like Gaddafi? I do not agree nor disagree with this action, however I believe the game needs to be played fairly. Do we prefer an undercover criminal like Bush or a blatant one like Gaddafi?
The death of one man is never going to solve the problems of millions. Killing has never solved any problems and we should have recognized this lesson from Gaddafi and showed what a fair game looks like. I repeat, killing does not, will not and has not fixed anything. Removing, capturing and punishing does. What are we promoting here? Death equals democracy? Does one person’s death equal change? The idea that the death of one person is supposed to rebirth the rights of others seems fishy and contradictory. I do not believe the death of Gaddafi was about protecting civilians, I believe there is more to this story that we are not hearing.
I pray for the Libyan people and hope that they can collectively reform and direct their revolution into a positive and effective government that works to serve its people. This revolution, I hope will be created and sustained by the Libyan people.
What are your thoughts on the future of Libya? Was killing Gaddafi the best way to handle Libyan affairs? It seems that we prefer to drop bombs rather than establish diplomacy. Did we take the easy way out?
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