My Take on the end of Gadhafi and Libya's future

Good Morning (or afternoon, or evening, or night, whichever time you’re dropping by), hope you’re doing well….. I’m feeling in a good mood today, something that actually does happen every once in a while despite the intelligence bulletins, the economic, political, and world headlines that fill my inbox each morning. Well, ‘ol Gadhafi is dead and the world is a little better place this morning. I just thought I’d blog about my take on all this before I get the inevitable questions –not that it will do any good because many of my friends read my blogs once a week and then ask questions about something I wrote a week ago, by which time my short-term memory has erased it from my mind in an attempt to let me deny it and escape responsibility for having written it.

Gadhafi is dead –a phrase a lot of people have been waiting a long time to hear, too long. And it is s very good thing. If he had slithered out of Sirte undetected he would undoubtedly have continued in a nasty guerilla type war and the killing could have gone on for years (he reportedly has stashed enough money in the form of gold and enough weaponry to keep it up for a long time). There is still a chance that will happen under one of his sons. Saif (one of the meanest and bloodiest of Gadhafi’s sons) was reported dead yesterday but last night Reuters ran a piece saying an NTC (Libya’s National Transitional Council) official said he was seen fleeing towards Niger.

Gadhafi was apparently wounded and initially taken alive. Then some one put a bullet in his head. At first they tried to say he resisted, but a cell phone video that got out clearly shows him still alive and being manhandled by an angry bunch of rebels one moment and then being thrown in the back of a pickup, dead with a bullet hole in his forehead the next – Sic semper tyrannis.

Already the UN has called for an investigation. Baloney. Who needs one? What happened is entirely understandable and it is time to just move on. Libya has too many challenges in front of it to waste time on an investigation that will waste time and money to uncover what we already know. Gadhafi should be grateful he was not torn limb from limb and dragged back to Tripoli behind that pickup –or put in a cage only to be tried and hanged like Saddam. A quick bullet in the head was actually showing him far more mercy then he deserved.

The real question is what will happen in Libya now that the tyrant is dead. Can the NTC control the many tribes, militias and political groups that until now were working together to overthrow Gadhafi? I don’t know but I have serious doubts. This is a country which has not known freedom in a very long time, has never known democracy, and is armed to the teeth. I have a feeling they will work together until they find out that in a democracy some people or groups get voted down and don’t get their way. When that realization sinks in the temptation to use those weapons will be too strong and we will see one or more insurgencies start up. And that is without taking into consideration the fact that there are a lot of people who would very much like to see turmoil in the region and are ready to support insurgent groups (hello Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, al Qaeda….).

Then–forget the politics, there is the matter of all that oil. A lot of people will be quite willing to kill to control Libya’s oil. How many wars, civil wars and insurgencies have been fought claiming to be in the name of liberating the people when, in actuality, they were to control the oil? No, I am afraid Libya’s immediate future is a grim one. Now that Gadhafi is dead their problems may be just starting. I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think so.

O.K., I’ll stop with all the ‘doom and gloom’. I promise to talk about something less dreary tomorrow….

Live Long and Prosper....