Oh, and the big story

[sabotabby]

Forgot to post about Gadhafi being dead. My first reaction was "good riddance," my second was worry that whoever replaces him is likely to be just as bad but friendlier to Western interests.

Still. One less dictator is nothing to sneeze at.

Comments

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Yeah, an actual democracy, truth and reconciliation and formal charges would have been much better, but I can't bring myself to miss him either.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

A friend (well, friendly acquaintance) from childhood and college lost his father in the bombing over Lockerbie. More than anything, the news made me think about him.

[sabotabby]

Best response.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Heh - flip that around and then you have my reaction.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it is impossible to rule out the next guy being just as bad. But given how much trouble the Colonel caused everywhere, and for how long, it would be difficult for anyone else to match up. Personally, I'm optimistic, which is not something I get to say often while talking about politics.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

I'd be a bit more optimistic than that. Libya's going to have a whole shedload of problems, but I'd put either another dictatorship or all-out civil conflict pretty low on the scale of probabilities.

Probably the biggest danger is the large number of armed militia that need to be somehow disarmed/integrated into a new national army. But on the plus side, from the random interviews AJ have been doing with fighters, an awful lot of them actually want nothing more than to go back to civilian life as soon as possible.