Libya – A New Era Begins

My son Sam, who is 8, knows a lot about flags.  He can recognize most of them from around the world, sometimes from some pretty obscure countries.  So, I was watching the news last night from Libya and he said “That’s not the Libyan flag.”  So, I got to explain that that was the new flag

World's Most Wanted Fugitive

and the old one was the one they were burning and stomping on.  Which is kind of a shame, because that was one of the positive  things about the Gaddafi regime – they had a cool flag.  The only national flag in the world which was a simple, solid color.  I always thought green was a weird choice, however, for a country with so little green.

Anyway, it appears to be over, more or less, I think…although you still hear about pockets of resistance, and Gaddafi’s whereabouts are unknown.

Does that matter?  I think it does, in a couple of ways.  First, I think it’s rather slimy of him to rant and rave for the last 6 months about how “We will defend Libya to the last man, we are prepared to be martyrs, blah, blah, blah” but of course he didn’t mean himself, personally.  A lot of his soldiers got killed, a few close family members, it seems at least one of his sons, but he managed to get away, which means he had an escape route planned all along.  Slimy bastard.

Also, it would be good for Libya, and for the world, if he was captured and put on trial.  That is the way these things should be done, that is a model for democracy going forward.  If he just never surfaces again, it saves a bit of time, money and trouble but it leaves nagging doubts, an open sore.  Is he like Hitler, who killed himself in the bunker but left little enough evidence of that that there were lots of rumors, and films, about  how he survived.  Will he be like Jimmy Hoffa or Elvis?

Also, how can someone as distinctive looking as Moammar Gadaffi stay hidden?

I think it’s worth noting how different this is to Iraq, and therefore how different Obama is from Bush.  It’s worth noting because they’re not really noting that on CNN, and I’m sure they’re not on Fox.

Senator McCain went so far as to say  “we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our air power.”  Some people are just never satisfied.