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Reuters Reports Death of Gaddafi In Libyan City of Sirte
syngularyx writes with a snippet from Reuters' report that "Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya's interim rulers said. His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen." An anonymous reader links to the news as reported by Al Jazeera (citing confirmation from the military spokesman of the National Transition Council). Time reports that many Libyans were celebrating even preliminary reports of Gaddafi's death.
Well judging by the fact the BBC just posted a still from a live feed from Al Jazeera which shows someone who looks pretty much like Gaddafi being dragged through the street I'd say it's pretty much more reliable. It's further bolstered by the fact the kid who supposedly found him was shown waving round a gold plated desert eagle or similar. I doubt that's the type of expensive custom side arm that's just left lying around.
Unless Gaddafi is capable of coming back from the dead I think there's a fair chance he's gone.
Kamis is long dead, even Gaddafi's own Syrian based TV station accepted that.
arab spring seems to be a shitty operation by u.s. to topple unfriendly governments to install their own islamist supporters and to oblige the countries to financial system.
Right. Which explains why one of the first governments that was overthrown in the "Arab Spring" was Egypt... a staunch US ally that the US had poured many billions of dollars into. Congratulations. You managed to set a new record for cluelessness.
In the words of the MB spokesman:
"We believe that the political reform is the true and natural gateway for all other kinds of reform. We have announced our acceptance of democracy that acknowledges political pluralism, the peaceful rotation of power and the fact that the nation is the source of all powers. As we see it, political reform includes the termination of the state of emergency, restoring public freedoms, including the right to establish political parties, whatever their tendencies may be, and the freedom of the press, freedom of criticism and thought, freedom of peaceful demonstrations, freedom of assembly, etc. It also includes the dismantling of all exceptional courts and the annulment of all exceptional laws, establishing the independence of the judiciary, enabling the judiciary to fully and truly supervise general elections so as to ensure that they authentically express people's will, removing all obstacles that restrict the functioning of civil society organizations, etc."
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Look, Gaddafi was a complex and strange man, and there can be no doubt that he did some things for his own people and others that other, more straightforwardly venal Arab dictators, did not do. But: an entire nation was scared to criticise him for 42 years; he killed thousands of his own people in the most vicious and terrible ways; and he punished entire cities and regions whose support he thought he did not have fully. Net net, he was a vile and terrible dictator.