ANOTHER DICK, DEAD

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne

“Every time a murdering son-of-a-bitch dictator dies, an angel gets his wings.” - Elisson



Moammar Qaddafi, the self-styled King of Kings of Africa and the absolute ruler of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (AKA Libya), is now worm fodder. I, for one, will not weep for him. He was, after all, a colossal Dick.

Yes, I’m familiar with John Donne’s thoughts on the death of any man. However, I believe that there are plenty of people walking the planet whose existence diminishes us all. Qaddafi was one such man; there’s a whole laundry list of others. Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot... there are plenty of people both living and defunct without whom the world is, or would be, a better place.

[Ask the families of the victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing what they think of Qaddafi’s demise. I suspect they won’t be shedding a lot of tears... unless they are tears of joy.]

I have no idea what the new revolutionary government of Libya will be like. If it follows the usual pattern, the idealists who won the struggle will shortly be replaced by yet another group of bloodthirsty pragmatists who know how to Run Things, and a new strongman will shortly hold the reins of power. Absent the imminent arrival of the Messiah, I expect no big surprises from the new Libya. They will give lip service to their new-found freedom while continuing to suppress dissent, along with making life miserable for anyone who is not a male Muslim.

But give ’em credit... they booted out Qaddafi.

I wonder whether Saddam Hussein would have met a similar fate at the hands of his own countrymen had the United States not chosen a more direct intervention path back in 2002. I wonder whether the Syrians will eventually do the same with Bashar al-Assad: give him the old Ceauşescu treatment. Not that the replacements will be much better.

Egypt provides the template for the fruits of the Arab Spring. They’ll still harbor an irrational hatred of the Zionist Entity; they’ll still oppose the values of Western civilization; they will be as grains of sand in the eyes of the Crusader Nations; they will make no effective contribution to the general health and welfare of mankind. But, as in the land formerly known as Yugoslavia, they’ll be able to operate without the restraints formerly imposed upon them by their tyrannical leaders... whether those restraints served a useful purpose or not.

Hey, that’s democracy, folks!

Meanwhile, an entire industry of cockamamie costume creators has been thrown out of work. For if Qaddafi was good at something, it surely was at playing dress-up... whether in an Africanesque dashiki-like affair or a military strongman’s uniform, complete with medals, badges, and Scrambled Eggs. He was the very model of a Cartoonish Crackpot Tinhorn Dictator - it would have been amusing except for all the people he murdered.

Houston Steve likes to say, What Goes Around, Comes Around. Indeed... and now, another angel is sporting a set of wings.