Libyan leader Moamad Khaddaffi was killed this morning, fighting to the last as his final stronghold in Sirte was taken by the rebels.He'd been in power for 44 years.
National Transitional Council (NTC) Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril announced the death at a news conference this morning in Tripoli.
Jibril said NTC forces were now pursuing Saif al-Islam, Col Khaddaffi's most prominent son, who fled Sirte in a convoy before Sirte fell. He's probably the last major Khaddaffi loyalist still at large.
Jibril also called for neighboring Algeria to turn over the members of KHaddaffi's family who fled there in August to revolutionary justice. Two of KHaddaffi's younger sons, his daughter and his wife are in the country.
"A new Libya is born today," Mahmoud Shammam, the chief spokesman of the Transitional National Council, said today in a statement. "This is the day of real liberation. We were serious about giving him a fair trial. It seems Allah has some other wish."
Apparently so.
British and French leaders hailed the of Khaddaffi's death and the preservation of those lucrative oil contracts they signed with the rebel forces.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the death a major step forward for the people of Libya and urged the pursuit of democratic reforms.
"The disappearance of Moamer Kadhaffi is a major step forward in the battle fought for more than eight months by the Libyan people to liberate themselves from the dictatorial and violent regime imposed on them for more than 40 years."
William Hague, Britain's Foreign Secretary said: "When the uprising began, we didn't know how long this would take. I think we feel vindicated all along as the country is now free to become a free and fair democracy. We are very pleased that with Khaddaffi has been removed. There is work to be now to stabilise Libya and bring together separate militias under the control of one governemnt. Once the liberation is declared then there's 30 days to form a transitional government. We should be on the optimistic side, but should not rule out further problems.
It could be a long job for the UK and our allies, but not so much a military job now. Tripoli is not Baghdad."
In other words, count on a lot more of your tax dollars going for nation building before the nature of Libya's new government is actually known.Actually, the odds on an Arab state being established in Libya that's actually free and democratic are incredibly long ones, but the oil will start flowing,which is all the British and French ever were concerned about in the first place.
After all, they didn't care a fig about 'democracy' when they were actively dealing with the Khaddaffi for the oil during his reign, and they were even able to happily ignore the Brother Leader's involvement in the Lockerbie Bombing. What they cared about was that black gold underneath Libya's sands.
The British and French only dumped Khaddaffi during the initial surge of the rebellion, when it looked like he was finished, and their response was to abandon Khaddaffi and rush to sign new oil deals with the rebels. When Khaddaffi rallied and pushed the rebels back to their final stronghold in Benghazi, the Brits and the French realized that they were going to be left out in the cold. And that's when NATO suddenly became involved and western military action against Khaddaffi's forces was launched to turn the tide.
I remind you of this not to defend Khaddaffi, but to give you a little realistic perspective on the matter, so no one's disappointed when the West pours billions into a Libyan rathole only to have it turn out as something different than 'free and democratic'. If the West's leaders were really all that fired up about freedom of democracy, they would have put Khaddaffi in the jar a long time ago.
All the pious nonsense about 'establishing freedom and democracy' or 'protecting the rights of the Libyan people' needs to be seen as exactly that. This was nineteenth century imperialism writ large, and it was always about the oil.
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