N o vem b er 2, 2011
3^ortlanà (Observer
Page 2 1
A Murderous Tyrant’s Grim End
An ending that
justified
intervention
place in a sewer pipe, spread-eagled on
the hood of a truck and pummeled by an
angry mob of his victims while beg
ging for mercy. As far as we know, he
was then executed w-ithout ceremony.
But his final humiliation wasn't yet
by D onald K aul
complete. His corpse was taken from
Like any good liberal I
place to place so that the people he'd
thought that Muammar
oppressed for more than 42 years
Gaddafi, after being cap
could see, at long last, that their nem
tured by rebel forces,
esis was truly dead. There were sto
should have been read his Miranda rights ries of Libyans punching the body as
and taken directly to jail to await trial by they filed past, even bouncing his head
a jury of his peers. After being indicted, up and down where he lay.
of course.
That is Shakespearean in its dramatic
As a human being, however, I didn't irony.
recoil from the images of his terrible
It reminded me of a picture I saw
death. There's something deeply, and more than 65 years ago. The vividness I
almost atavistically satisfying, in seeing a carry with me even today.
murderous tyrant meet the end he de
It was a grainy newspaper photo of
serves.
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, along
I recall pictures of his fellow miscre with his mistress and several henchmen,
ants Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak hanging upside down, their arms reach
in court looking meek and frail. You ing toward the ground at a gas station
almost felt sorry for them.
near Milan. As Italy fell, they had been
There was none of that with Gaddafi. captured by partisans and thus dis
In a scene almost too Hollywood to be patched. It was at once horrible and
true, he was dragged from his hiding fascinating.
Although it goes against the grain of
my enlightened liberalism, I can’t rid
myself of the notion that there are cer
tain crimes — mainly war crimes — that
are so heinous, so incomprehensibly cruel
and irredeemably evil, that justice isn't
enough. Vengeance is demanded.
I was a skeptic about our intervention
in Libya at the beginning, simply on the
basis of our sorry track record in the
Middle East. Involvement in yet another
endless war wasn't called for.
I changed my mind when it became
apparent that we weren't putting troops
at risk. I think this ending justifies Presi
dent Barack Obama's decision.
Not everyone feels that w ay. Som e
R epublicans (w ho w o uldn't cred it
O bam a if he sin g le-h an d ed ly found
a cure for can cer) still say that the
w ar didn't involve our national in te r
est, and we should have stay ed out
o f it, and the h u m an itarian crisis be
dam ned.
Gaddafi was a financier of terrorism
throughout the world. He engineered the
killing of U.S. citizens in the Lockerbie
bombing as well as other terrorist at-
tacks. He offered handsome cash awards
to the families of suicide bombers all
over the world. Getting rid of him wasn't
in our national interest? Gimme a break.
There's a legitim ate question as to
w hether G addafi's death will lead to a
more dem ocratic Libya, one that is a
force for peace in the region.
I tend to be of the persuasion that
nothing that happens in the Middle East
makes things better. But Gaddafi’s death
may be an exception.
Besides being a tyrant, Gaddafi was
also a benevolent dictator, one who pro
vided health care, education, and other
benefits to his people. They are well
placed to begin to govern themselves.
It's a shot. When you get a chance to
have one less Gaddafi in the world, you
should take it.
If I were President Obama, I'd have
a picture of Q addafi’s last moments
blown up to poster size and sent to
B ashar al-A ssad o f S yria and Ali
Abdullah Saleh of Yemen. As a friendly
rem inder.
OtherWords columnist Donald Kaul
lives in Ann Arbor, Mich.
A Big Debt of Gratitude to Our Troops
Ending the quagmire
of war in Iraq
M arc H. M orial
Last month, President Obama
announced that the remaining 39,000
U.S. service men and women in
Iraq will be back on U.S. soil by the
end of the year. This essentially
brings to a close a nearly decade
long war that the President opposed from the start and
vowed to end. This is welcome news for our troops and
their families who have sacrificed so much in what has
been increasingly viewed as an ill-advised and costly
military mistake.
The nation owes a big debt of gratitude to the more*
than one million Americans who have been deployed
to Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003. This
includes more than 4,480 who died on the battlefield
and more than 32,000 who were wounded. Now that
the war is ending, we must do everything in our power
to ensure that the support our returning vets need to
by
• JJortlanb (Dbsvrtier
rebuild their lives, and the jobs they need to support
their families, are waiting for them when they come
home.
In addition to the human toll, the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan have also been a drain on the U.S.
economy.
At a cost of more than $800 billion, including billions
lost, unaccounted for or stolen, the Iraq War has been
a major contributor to the nation ’ s ballooning debt and
deficit. It has also diverted funding that could have
been used to create jobs and repair America’s crum
bling infrastructure. As the President said, "Over the
past decade, we spent a trillion dollars on war, bor
rowed heavily from overseas, and invested too little in
the greatest source of our national strength - our own
people. Now, the nation we need to build is our own."
’* We could not agree more. In addition to withdraw
ing our troops, we should also accelerate Iraq’s eco
nomic independence. Iraq is an oil-rich nation that has
traditionally stifled the growth of small businesses and
a vibrant middle class due to a culture of rampant
corruption and bueaurecratic red-tape. It is clear that
if Iraq wants to move forward, it must change that
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culture from within, and not on the backs of the
American taxpayer.
The money we have wasted in the war and in
rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure could be better spent
here in America, rebuilding schools, roads, bridges,
community centers, libraries and equipping our young
people and returning veterans with the skills they need
to enter the world of work.
It is unconscionable that any man or woman who
goes abroad to fight our wars has to come home and
fight for a job. But sadly that is the case. While overall
unemployment remains unacceptably high at 9.1 per
cent, post-9/11 veterans suffer from a jobless rate of
nearly 13 percent. That is why the President’s Ameri
can Jobs Act includes a $5,600 tax credit for busi
nesses that hire veterans who have been unemployed
for six months or longer.
The President deserves our thanks for ensuring that
our troops will be home for the holidays. Now it is up to
Congress to honor their service and every American who
wants to work by passing the American Jobs Act now.
Marc H. Morial is president and chief executive
officer o f the National Urban League.
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