Gadhafi: Death of a Vile Man

Before Moammar Gadhafi died, the photo showing him fatally wounded streamed across the world. No doubt, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator who is currently drowning rebellion in his own country in a sea of blood, saw it as well. He must have been unpleasantly shocked. Does a similar fate await him as well? Probably — sooner or later.

Gadhafi must have been aware that the end was near when the first NATO bombs fell on his army. He might have known even earlier, when the protesters took up arms against his regime. He might have realized it earlier still, when he saw a photo of a bearded, disheveled Saddam Hussein, pulled out of a hole near Tikrit by American soldiers.

Gadhafi might have been aware of his violent downfall much earlier: When he tortured his political opponents, when he killed young people in the La Belle disco and when he condemned the passengers of a Pan Am flight from London to New York to a violent death over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie.

Gadhafi must have known then. Tyrants lacking any resemblance of a moral compass usually do not die of old age, in their own bed, surrounded by posterity.

Rather, they usually die in the same vile fashion they lived in.