The Desecration of Moammar Gadhafi

I am also saddened by the murder of Moammar Gadhafi. Another scape goat exploited, betrayed, slandered and murdered. We recently heard news that Moammar Gadhafi has been murdered. In fact in today's Vancouver Province we read three completely different versions of how he died.

"Gadhafi was in a jeep when rebels opened fire on it. He got out and tried to flee, taking shelter in a sewage pipe," an NTC field commander, Mohammed Leith, said.

NTC fighters "opened fire again and he came out carrying a Kalashnikov in one hand and a pistol in the other," he said. Gadhafi "looked left and right and asked what was happening. Rebels opened fire again, wounding his leg and shoulder. He died after that," according to Leith.

But according to Jibril, Gadhafi was shot in the head "in crossfire" between his supporters and new regime fighters after his capture. "When he was found, he was in good health, carrying a gun," Jibril told a news conference in Tripoli. Gadhafi was transferred from the pipe to a pickup truck, at which point he was shot in the right hand.

"When the vehicle started moving, it was caught in crossfire between Gadhafi fighters and the revolutionaries, and he was shot in the head," according to Jibril. Those are two completely different versions of events. This is the third in the same article:

French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet revealed that a French Mirage-2000 fired a warning shot at a column of up to 80 vehicles trying to flee Sirte early Thursday. Libyan fighters then intervened, destroying the vehicles, from which "they took out Col. Gadhafi," he added.

Then a fourth version of events emerged: Fresh witness accounts of Gadhafi's capture suggested he tried to reason with the rebels, demanding his legal rights to fair treatment and asked them: "Do you know right from wrong?" Consequently the United Nations human rights office called on Friday for a full investigation into the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and voiced concerns that he may have been executed.

Moammar Gadhafi was a Socialist. I am not. Yet I do denounce his murder and the murder of his children. Pastor Niemoeller wrote a profound poem about the war in Germany.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

France did business with Libya for years. Gadhafi contributed to Sarkozy's political campaign and Sarkozy completely screwed Gadhafi. Sarkozy is in my opinion, a dirty dog. He is untrustworthy. Incidentally, the article the Province ran today originally came from France.

Gadhafi was captured after taking fire from a French fighter jet. He demanded his right to a lawyer and asked his captors if they knew the difference between right and wrong. Evidently not.

The whole Libyan mission was tainted from day one. Gadhafi wasn't firing on peaceful protesters like they were in Saudi and Syria. The protesters in Libya took up arms against him. As I said before, if I took an angry mob to Ottawa and started firing on Stephen Harper, I guarantee you the police would return fire. The mission in Libya was about oil just like it was in Iraq.

The right to a fair and speedy trial, the need to be charged with an offence to be arrested and the right to legal representation are fundamental rights in a democracy. These are the first inherent rights we violate when we create off shore prison camps like Guantanamo Bay.

What's even more distressing is the murder of Gadhafi's children. Leith, the NTC commander, said one of Gadhafi's sons, Mutassim, was also killed in Sirte. "We found him dead. We put his body and that of [ex-defence minister] Abu Bakr Yunis Jabar in an ambulance to take them to Misrata." It is unlikely we will ever get a truthful record of how his son was murdered.

However, this isn't his only son that was murdered. Gadhafi had another son and three grandchildren that were murdered by allied bombing. He also had an adopted daughter who was killed in a 1986 U.S. airstrike.

Despite denials from Western leaders that the air raid on the Gadhafi compound was an assassination attempt, it has provoked renewed debate on whether the British and French-led strikes are exceeding the United Nations' mandate to protect civilians. Indeed. Remember when I said the mission in Libya was tainted from the beginning? We sent planes in to enforce a cease fire. Instead, we start bombing one side so the rebels could take over an oil town and end up murdering him and his children. That was not enforcing a cease fire.

Let us not forget that we don't know who the rebels are. Other than the fact that they are aligned with the Taliban and that they executed their leader and his first officer. This tainted mission was shameful and the desecration of Moammar Gadhafi has diminished all of us.



There is no need to do an autopsy. Return the body to the family immediately. We all rightfully complain about how outrageous it is when Neo Nazi's desecrate Jewish graves. That is offensively disrespectful. You've already murdered him. Don't you dare desecrate his grave by denying his family their right to a proper Muslim burial. Don't you dare bury him at sea. Doing so because you are afraid his supporters will turn his grave into a shrine is shockingly deranged. Let the family bury their dead according to their own religious traditions. Anything less than that is wrong.