The Murders of Two Murderers - a Comparison

[steepholm]

I've been away from the internet for a whole day and a half - did I miss anything?

I didn't see much news, either, but I did hear that amongst the people calling for a full investigation of Gaddafi's death is Hillary Clinton:

"I would strongly support both a U.N. investigation that has been called for and the investigation that the Transitional National Council said they will conduct," Clinton told the NBC program "Meet the Press," referring to Libya's interim rulers.

"You know, I think it's important that this new government, this effort to have a democratic Libya, start with the rule of law, start with accountability," she said.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay has called for an investigation into the killing.

There is growing international disquiet about the chaotic scenes surrounding Gaddafi's apparent summary execution following the fall of his hometown of Sirte Thursday.

I don't much like people being shot in cold blood either - or hot. Even when the person is responsible for tens of thousands of murders, a trial has got to be preferable.

But here's what I don't understand. Gaddafi is killed after a chaotic battlefield capture, by people whose families and friends he has been robbing, killing and oppressing all their lives. Result? The UN and others, including the US and UK governments, wag their fingers and call for an investigation and say it would have been better if he'd been allowed to stand trial. But sending a group of assassins halfway round the world specifically to murder an unarmed man and then dump his body in the sea? That's just fine! At least, I don't remember the UN, the Brits, or Hillary Clinton asking for a full investigation into the killing of Bin Laden.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Political hypocrisy, because it would be bad form to gloat and say, Ha ha, sucks to be you, Gaddafi! I bet they know nobody is going to bother investigating . . . unless there is political hay to be made.

Meanwhile, I wonder what life insurance rates are for 'job description: dictator'?

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Too true, neither do I. Maybe they kept the investigation ...secret?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ordinary Joes can't be allowed to kill important people like Gaddafi. Think what a bad precedent it sets.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I suspect this has a lot to do with it. A lot of wars and innocent deaths could be prevented with a timely assassination or two (as More's Utopians long ago pointed out), but those in power have a curious penchant for letting other people die in their quarrels.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they consider a military operation to be something akin to the rule of law...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Perhaps - although certainly not the law of the country where it was carried out, whose government knew nothing about it. And then of course the battle for Sirte was also a military operation. The Navy Seals do have smarter uniforms, though.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Venue problem, sort of? Gadaffi, his crimes, his killers were all internal to Libya. It would just be a question of which Libyan party would have got to execute him eventually.

US raiding Pakistan for bin Laden because he had sent Saudi's to attack New York -- would have been an international circus. Was Pakistan an innocent victim of trespass -- or an accessory to bin Laden? Etc.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether you're arguing about whether there should have been a trial, or about whether there should have been an investigation of the events that made a trial impossible. Assuming the latter, I think you're right - what happened in Libya, in general terms, is already pretty obvious: some fighters got hold of Gadaffi and one or more of them shot him, in what was clearly a pretty febrile situation. One reason they would never hold an investigation of the Bin Laden killing is that it might actually discover something we don't already know.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Pacifist though I am, like many people in the real world, my withers remain entirely unwrung in this case- this is the man who cintinued to exort his people to murder others of his people right up to the bitter end. I am also, after all, a military historian and what you say about battlefield chaos is bang on!

[(Anonymous)]

I also remember Hilary Clinton as being the only one in the room with a look of frank horror on her face as the assembled big wigs of the USA watched live footage of Bin Laden's bloody demise.

One regrets the outcome of the competition for the Democratic candidacy.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Regrettable, yes.