Well this wasn’t exactly the news I was expecting to wake up to this morning. Various news outlets have been reporting over the last several hours that Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi has been killed. If confirmed, this would bring an end to forty + years of head games with the international community.
Qaddafi was one of the most colorful world leaders on the global stage from his cadre of Eastern European female bodyguards to his bizarre rambling commentaries like claiming that Obama was his son during one of his last appearances before the United Nations. For all his theatrics and rhetorical grenades, there was another very dark side to Qaddafi.
He was a state sponsor of terrorism, most notably the Pan Am Flight 103 attack over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988. Various sources also linked him to a deal with the AQ Khan Nuclear Network based in Pakistan that would’ve given Libya nuclear materials. These actions suggest that Qaddafi understood a basic axiom of international politics: A small state can be made big through force of action.
Domestically, Qaddafi terrorized his people, killing untold numbers of individuals who dared stand against him, in the most brutal ways known to mankind. To say, I won’t mourn his death is an understatement, but one certainly can’t deny there won’t be another like Muammar Qaddafi .
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