Best Served Cold
I can't get too worked up about the way in which Colonel Muammar Gaddafi finally met his end.
The deluded dictator was dragged from a storm drain and killed by his captors - he didn't go down in a hail of bullets - in the manner of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
No his last moments were grisly and horrible to watch - as he pled for his life - from the very people whom he had promised to hunt down like rats.
Some have deplored the fact that Gaddafi was not brought to justice - and put on trial by the authorities in Libya - or the international criminal court court in the Hague.
But what would this have achieved - since both Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic were taken down these respective paths.
Yet the civilised treatment of these two tyrants - it seems to me - provided no better 'closure' to their many victims - or insight into their terrible crimes.
The Italian dictator - Benito Mussolini - faced summary justice following his capture at the end of the second world war - so too did Nicolae Ceausescu after the Romanian people overthrew his brutal regime in 1989.
Had Gaddafi surrendered - which he had ample opportunity to do - things would have turned out differently - but he chose a different path.
Revenge is a dish best served cold - so they say.
Ironically Colonel Gaddafi illustrates the point perfectly - and literally as well.
As he lies completely humiliated - in a refrigerated storage unit in the Libyan city of Misrata - whose freedom fighters finally ran the Mad Dog to ground.
The deluded dictator was dragged from a storm drain and killed by his captors - he didn't go down in a hail of bullets - in the manner of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
No his last moments were grisly and horrible to watch - as he pled for his life - from the very people whom he had promised to hunt down like rats.
Some have deplored the fact that Gaddafi was not brought to justice - and put on trial by the authorities in Libya - or the international criminal court court in the Hague.
But what would this have achieved - since both Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic were taken down these respective paths.
Yet the civilised treatment of these two tyrants - it seems to me - provided no better 'closure' to their many victims - or insight into their terrible crimes.
The Italian dictator - Benito Mussolini - faced summary justice following his capture at the end of the second world war - so too did Nicolae Ceausescu after the Romanian people overthrew his brutal regime in 1989.
Had Gaddafi surrendered - which he had ample opportunity to do - things would have turned out differently - but he chose a different path.
Revenge is a dish best served cold - so they say.
Ironically Colonel Gaddafi illustrates the point perfectly - and literally as well.
As he lies completely humiliated - in a refrigerated storage unit in the Libyan city of Misrata - whose freedom fighters finally ran the Mad Dog to ground.
