MUAMMAR GADDAFI DEFEATED

Of course it's great news (though the lynching was unpleasant), I certainly hope the best for Libya's future, but I've always been wary of the excessive intervention of the occidental powers (hope(???) they'll know how to stop when they have to = now).

But Obama says otherwise so we should listen to him.

I think time will tell how Libya fares under the NTC, but I think things are looking good.

I'm sure this is what everyone's really hoping for, but personally I am skeptical of the NTC.

This latest bout of conflicting reports on how Gaddafi died, ranging from official statements of him being killed in a crossfire, to video footage of him apparently being executed by a mob after he was captured, certainly isn't good for the NTC's already shaky reputation. A good call by the UN for once on calling for an investigation.

Allow me to give you some Cliff's Notes about the Libyan war situation. I've been following it since it began.

For the past ~40 years, Ghaddafi was the official head of the state of Libya more than he was the actual Boss of Libya. He was the one who went to UN conventions and 'represented' Libya on the international stage. Handshakes, photo-ops and deal signings.
In reality, Libya is made up of fractionalized tribes. Ghaddafi had substantial influence through deals he made with Western powers but he wasn't the defacto border-to-border leader everybody makes him out to be.
Though an autocratic leader in name, he was more of the benevolent monarch type. A populist dictator like Julius Caesar. Rather than using Libya's natural resource revenues to support an army and suppress everybody like most of Africa's idiot bosses, he spent it on infrastructure construction and eventually built one of the (if not the) most modern cities on the African continent. For evidence, go google image Tripoli.
If you study him in depth, you'll see that he had all kinds of grand visions for the future like a United States of Africa and a gold-backed single currency bloc. Pie-in-the-sky stuff given the global political situation, but his heart was in the right place.
So where do the "revolutionaries" come in? Like I said, Libya is composed of tribes that are always having beef with each other. While Ghaddafi was building his part of Libya into prosperity and extending an open invitation to the rest of the country, the rival tribal leaders are all ass-backwards savages who would rather condemn their tribes to mud huts and foraging just to avoid ceding what piddly power they had left. The actual tribespeople were compartmentalised by their leaders and told that Ghaddafi would have them killed, would rob them, would rape their women, etc. Most of the Libyan internal anti-Ghaddafi sentiment comes from the propoganda.
In steps NATO.
The motives are clear or unclear, depending on when you're willing to accept something as "truth". Some people are intuitive and can figure it out based on existing facts and rational thought. Others need authoritative figures to tell them. Anyway...
There were street protests, but they didn't cause a ruckus like in Egypt or Syria. The "revolution" didn't really begin until NATO airstrikes started it. Only then did Ghaddafi's enemies band together, get into their Seige Pickup Trucks, and drive around shooting RPGs into the desert for the cameras. NATO airstrikes did most of the work. Now I don't know about you, but if my country were in the midst of a governmental transition, I wouldn't want foreign powers aiding or abetting in any way.

This war has been interesting to watch. A lot of tragedy came out of it. The obvious loss of life that seems to escape western media's headlines, destruction of hospitals and schools, as well as such individual acts as NATO bombing the great man-made river that supplies most of the Libyan people with water, followed by a bombing of the factory that produces it's replacement pipes.
On the bright side, there was comedy too. Many of the revolutionaries, our allies, are former Al Qaeda militants. Didn't they do something to us? Also, these illustrious defenders of freedom and democracy were (are?) going around cutting heads off P.O.W.s and posting videos of it on youtube.
And the ultimate laugh and a half, the revolutionaries must have been given a blank Call Airstrike cheque. The tribes, not only do they hate Ghaddafi, but they also hate each other, and they were actually calling in airstrikes on one another >xD It first appeared in the news as friendly fire mistakes, but eventually nope, they were actually bombing each other.

Anyway, Libya will descend into civil war. The transitional government might stay stable long enough for this war to fade from NATO country's citizens' memories, but you can't keep a good violent tribesman down.

R.I.P. Muammar Ghaddafi and his family.

zzzzz "the truth" bla bla bla yeah I never buy this stuff sorry


I think the worst part about the killing of such dictators is how people have sympathy for them. "You shouldn't celebrate a man's death ooh how horrible" Yeah, in normal circumstances that'd be true but consider how you'd feel about someone responsible for the deaths of many of those closest to you.

He's dead, that's good amen.

Dyhalto, your notes are spot on, excluding the fact that the US may have funded them like they did egypt in the past as well. The states has a bad trend to fund one side and let them fight it out.

However, The river bombing is terrible, and there should be some repercussions for that action, not that I see that happening.

My grandfathers brother was in Libya fighting Brits.