STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
Public Spectacle of Gaddafi's Death Signal for Expanded War?
By Staff News & Analysis - October 26, 2011

Killing Gaddafi not such a good idea after all … The greatest punishment for the Libyan dictator would have been incarceration and humiliation … The late Libyan leader may have been rotten through, not to mention bordering on mad, but his barbaric execution doesn't bode well for Libya's future. The whole point of a revolution is change; hopefully change for the better. – Gulf News

Dominant Social Theme: The butcher of Libya is dead. "We came, we saw, he died," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Free-Market Analysis: Perhaps the most disturbing element of the death of Muammar Gaddafi was its public spectacle. So many shaky videos of the 60-year-old straggly-haired Gaddafi being punched, shoved, bloodied and even "sodomized" have emerged that we long ago gave up keeping track.

Why is the deliberate public spectacle of Gaddafi's death and Hillary's triumphant reaction to it more important than the deliberate destabilization of Libya itself and the deaths of thousands of innocents? Because it seems to us – as meme watchers – that the Anglosphere power elite is setting us up for increased violence the world over, maybe a radical, terrible expansion. We covered this in several articles yesterday: "Obama's Re-Election Model Is FDR" and "NATO Preps for World War?"

We have generally noticed the coarsening of the public dialogue over the past decades. People are routinely referred to now as "perverts" and the use of this pejorative dehumanizes the individual and makes it much easier for the state to impose whatever damages it chooses. This supports such travesties of justice as when adults were accused of molesting toddlers in Massachusetts and incarcerated on trumped-up charges. There are many other instances. Labels dehumanize and make injustice tolerable and even celebrated.

As regards this sort of rhetoric, the biggest change we have noticed, currently anyway, is in the way that the Anglosphere treats its enemies. There was once, in the 20th century, a good deal of vituperation aimed at the USSR and its top men, with justification. But in the past decade or so the same sort of rhetoric has been aimed at Islam and at small-time Middle Eastern dictators.

While no doubt leaders like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi were terrible to certain people in their country, the remedies have seemingly proven far more destructive than anything done by these two. Iraq was shattered by a nearly decade-long war. Libya's main cities have been shattered in a much shorter time period, mostly by a tremendous rain of NATO bombs.

This article, excerpted above, is one of the few we have read that provides a more balanced view of what just happened in Libya. There is no doubt that Gaddafi could be a merciless foe who meted out inhumane punishments to those who opposed him. But he also provided Libya with what was ultimately a high living standard for the Middle East and Africa, and as dictators go he was, perhaps, not so bad as certain other rulers that the US and NATO have backed with enthusiasm. Here's some more from the article:

Summary executions, torture and beatings were the way Gaddafi and his brood handled their foes, which is why the Libyan people have rightly rejected the weird man and his cruel, egotistical, bigspending clan … Gaddafi's capture was supposed to signify a new day, a new dawn; an era of democracy and the rule of law. The National Transitional Council (NTC) wants Libya to take its rightful place within the international community sans the stench of the rogue state the country once was.

Frankly, it was sickening to watch the footage of Gaddafi, bloodied and dazed, being hauled off the bonnet of a vehicle before being dragged through the streets, clearly very much alive if not very well. As the video proves, he was then bundled into an ambulance en route to Misrata and was seen to be fully conscious. From there on the picture becomes murky. Initial reports from the NTC indicated that he was caught in the crossfire when a bullet entered his head, inside an ambulance! Forensic experts say he was executed at close range.

It's worrying that one of the NTC's senior members, Mohammad Sayeh, said, "Even if he was killed intentionally, I think he deserves this." He should be setting an example. It's one thing for fighters to take revenge in the atmosphere of war and quite another for a political figure to bless such barbarity … By resorting to the same low methods as your enemy you risk becoming the very enemy you're battling.

These are good points, we think, though we disagree with the idea that Gaddafi should have been tried by an international court. The only reason he wasn't probably was because he knew a good deal too much about Western leaders and the way the world really works. Gaddafi is dead now and that knowledge died with him.

The Libyan "war" was evidently waged for several reasons, and probably had to do with oil and with ensuring that Gaddafi did not begin to use gold rather than dollars as the main currency for Libyan oil. Additionally Gaddafi was trying to set up an African Union that would use its own currency and oppose the West on numerous economic and socio-political issues.

The biggest reason from our point of view may be that the West is secretly working to set up an Islamic crescent of countries in the Middle East and Africa that may provide a pretext for war. Most of the countries that the West is destabilizing will end up with Islamic rulership to some degree, or so it seems. Libya is no exception.

It seems to us that there may be war on the horizon – big war – and Western citizens are now to be desensitized to it, and to the enemies of the West generally. This has happened with such Western enemies as the USSR – the "Red Menace" and the German "Huns," the Japanese "Nips" and the Vietnamese "Gooks. "

Gaddafi death videos are still circulating on the Internet, each one more gruesome and graphic than the last. These videos circulate throughout the world – and especially throughout the Anglosphere at a time when YouTube denies viewers the sight of a breast or female nipple because it might cause offense. Such images are stashed behind a firewall.

Edited day after post.

After Thoughts

But when it comes to videos of Gaddafi being killed or assaulted with blood dripping down his face, we have a full menu of gory items to choose from. We can watch all we want. The images circulate unimpeded. The US Secretary of State laughs and releases her celebratory clip for all the world to see. What does this portend?

Posted in STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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