Coach's Thoughts on Qaddafi

Both fought rebels. Even if one was a fox in green tights. I'm just sayin.

I've been following the coverage of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's demise from a distance over the past week. I try not to give the tabloid national news outlets too much of my viewership business, but I was interested in how they would tackle this topic. I'll leave my scathing rebuke of biased leanings of the three giants in reporting this topic for another day. Subsequently, I wanted to see how those in my circle reacted after the response to Osama's similar fate a few months ago.

It's understandable to see the US and the world express a sense of relief that this man is not an international problem anymore. I can't dispute that. I feel that way myself. After forty years of the WORST kind of "leadership" for ole Gaddafi it was time for a permanent siesta.

But I also believe such celebration should be tempered down a bit for a couple reasons.


First, I've always been uneasy of any death being celebrated because it is human life being canceled by other humans. Whether it is the death penalty in our nation's prisons, murder of innocent citizens on our streets, or a cruel dictator being brought to "justice," I just cannot get with taking life unless its in self defense.

If you saw the (NSFW) video of the rebels taking him captive and eventually killing him, regardless of your viewpoint about his killing, its still hard to watch someone realizing their death is at hand while in the midst of their captors. Many will find flaw in my opinion there but that objection is one of personal opinion.

My second and more important cautionary warning about throwing ticker-tape parades for Gaddafi's death revolves around the notion that many will jump to the conclusion that through the death of this man is birthed democracy, or the American way in Libya or anywhere else in the Middle East.

This doesn't end the multi-thousand year Guiding Light soap opera that has pitted many different factions, all with justifiable and sometimes stupid claims against each other in the least bit. It just adds another chapter to it, as things like this always do.

As Jelani Cobb, Professor of History at Spelman College, stated a few days ago, "...given the fact that Osama Bin Laden was still alive when the US & Co. went after Qaddafi [One of Bin Laden's biggest enemies]. Raises questions about what these "rebels" believe."

As Americans, we have to get to the point where we can look at a dispute and say it's not always (rarely even) good guys vs bad guys. Often, both sides can be the bad guys. Some disputes abroad aren't about democracy or freedom.

Often, these deadly quarrels are birthed of tribal rivalries that date back centuries before British and American imperials began to look at their nations through their own political and ideological prisms. It's why Americans are always perplexed when our forces "bring democracy" to a place and it doesn't seem to solve anything. Regardless of political system or philosophy, dispute like those will not end until one side is completely gone. And because that will never happen, each side will take power, lose power, take it back, and lose it, ad infinitum.

Further, the guys who brought evil Gaddafi to justice could just as easily be the same people we'll be fighting soon. You never know. Foreign issues are never as simple as domestic politicians make them.

Be careful letting news outlets or friends' opinions frame your outlook on issues like this. Our solutions to problems aren't always applicable overseas. Just be happy that your nation's leader, regardless of where you stand on domestic issues, or him as a person, isn't this type of cruel man. That's one fact that everybody can agree on.