Gaddafi Dead: A Spectacle of Double Standards

By Southwest Nationalist. Well, it seems official, Gaddafi is dead. Indeed, by all reports he appears to have been executed, with some sources suggesting his own gold plated revolver was used to do it.

There’s probably a few sighs of relief from various quarters, more than a few are probably glad that he’ll never get a chance of a trial where he might air some dirty laundry.

Judging from the gleeful press coverage, all is well, it’s brilliant news.

But, whilst not mourning his passing, isn’t it all a bit hypocritical? Isn’t putting a gun to Gaddafi’s head and blowing his brains out without a trial just the sort of thing the press were screaming their indignation at when it was pro Gaddafi forces apparently executing people.

Weren’t such summary killings by Gaddafi forces – atrocities as they are normally called – one of the reasons Western leaders were so eager to topple Gaddafi in the first place? They certainly told us that was one of the reasons.

Is it not a case of very double standards that the world is so jubilant that the ‘mad dog is put down’ as the Star trumpets in its headline.

Wouldn’t it be headlines of hideous brutality, war crimes, an evil dictator and so on, if Gaddafi’s forces had won and started blowing the brains out of the rebel leaders. With or without a trial you know it would have been.

Since we were at war with Libya, would it have been morally acceptable if some Gaddafi supporters got hold of Dave Cameron and put a gun to his head in the street?

David Cameron made a thinly veiled reference with a “celebrating the death of a devil” remark at a Number 10 Diwali reception.

An interesting comment, wouldn’t an execution without a trial constitute a war crime?

Isn’t military forces parading a enemies corpse through the streets also a crime under international law?

But, it’s okay and politicians in the West ‘celebrate’ it because it happens to be a tyrant they didn’t like. We’ll not mention the number of tyrants they do like, and continue to do business with.

Surely it sends a message that summary execution is acceptable, and something to be celebrated – if it’s the ‘right’ person getting a gun to a head and their body dragged through the streets to show it off.

Isn’t it all a bit morally bankrupt of politicians, and their reaction a clear statement that internationally accepted standards will only apply when we deem them applicable, in other circumstances we’ll celebrate the outcome and ignore the means?

And, whose death will we be celebrating next? Syria and President Bashar al-Assad have been getting a fair bit of press coverage, the drumbeat of the march to war is getting a little louder.

Perhaps Syria is next for the warplanes of the West, and al-Assad next to get his bloodied corpse plastered all over our newspapers?

That Gaddafi was a monster and tyrant no doubt, but the way this whole thing has unfolded, a swift gun to the head execution, gloating voyeurism as his bloodied corpse is plastered all over the newspapers, and the politicians celebratory reaction, leaves a very bitter taste.

Not to mention, now our problems in Libya really begin. What regime we get, just how friendly it will be now it has grabbed power, and how long we’ll be propping it up in one way or another, that’s what we’ll find out in the months and years to come. Neither the people of the West, nor most likely the Libyan people, will like the answers we’ll discover to those questions.

But, a tyrant is dead, his corpse is on the front pages. Cameron alludes to the death of a devil – evil as Gaddafi may have been, have the actions and reactions of the West given us any right to claim the moral high ground or is there really much hypocrisy involved?