Colonel Momar Khadafi is Dead

[kryss_labryn]

...Libya is free.

Details are still sketchy, but his death has been confirmed by the Libyan Prime Minister. The rumours are that he was fleeing in a convoy that was attacked by NATO planes. NATO has confirmed their activity in the area this morning.

Khadafi has been in power longer than I've been alive. The oppression the Libyan people lived under is

Comments

[winterlion]

An official answer from earlier this year about why he stayed so long:

Because the worst Libyan madman is still preferable to foreign rule.

There's a lot of places that believe that - and even given this "worst kind of example" I'm not sure I disagree with the concept.

[kryss_labryn]

I can kind of understand that attitude, especially given the reputation that America has in that area of the world (and Britain's colonial period didn't help either).

But also, if a regime is opressive enough, it's very hard to organize any kind of actual resistance (let alone one that has any realistic chance of overthrowing the leadership) simply because one needs to find kindred spirits and organize in order to have any chance of success, and if someone (and usually their families as well, the way these things usually work) simply disappears, or is violently seized and everyone knows how lingering and painful their death was, then, well, as bad as things are, if one simply keeps one's head down and shuts up, he's bound to at least die of old age at some point, right? And meanwhile perhaps one's family will survive long enough to see the day. Whereas if one does step up and speak out and try to change things, well, everyone knows how very bad things will get for that person and their family. So that makes things very hard