Reports from Libya today indicate that the former dictator, Gadhaffi, has been killed by the combined efforts of a U.S. armed drone and revolutionary soldiers on the ground. Gadhaffi was traveling in a convoy when it was struck by the drone; Gadhaffi crawled into a nearby gutter pipe and was dragged out by revolutionaries and shot.
On the surface, this seems like good news for the world; Gadhaffi was a brutal dictator and terrorist leader for the past four decades. The uncertainty, however, of the future of Libya remains of grave concern. Gadhaffi himself came to power through violent revolution and the question remains as to who will now come to power in Libya and will they be able to actual govern the hundreds of tribes which exist in that country.
In other regions of the world, brutal dictators continue to support terrorism, but Libya garnered U.S. intervention because of the oil resources located there. One might wonder whether that should, in fact, be the criteria for U.S. military involvement. Many question whether using that criteria defines the U.S. as a nation motivated by self-interest and greed. President Obama insists that U.S. military action was taken for 'humanitarian' reasons; that Gadhaffi's troops were killing civilians. This argument seems a little too convenient given that troops in nearby Syria are doing the same thing and neither the President nor Secretary of State Clinton have much to say about those violations of human rights.
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