I find hilarious the apparently naive belief that putting Gaddafi in the Hague would have revealed information about the atrocities he committed. That information, if it’s available, will come from files stashed away somewhere in Tripoli, not from the mouth of a deluded tyrant who, like Milošević, would take the opportunity to grandstand, rant about not recognising the jurisdiction of the court, and probably sneeze, forcing an adjournment.
Sure, it would have been better if he had been taken alive and put on trial, but in the context of his own society, i.e. in the society which actually suffered at his hands. Ultimately, a Ceaușescu style trial would have sufficed, given indisputable evidence that he murdered 30,000 of his own people.
It looks, however, that somebody who suffered at his hands (and possibly lost family members) decided, in the context of a civil war – that’s right – a civil war – to mete out their own justice.
And it’s all too easy for some people in the comfort of our somewhat complacent democracy, hard won through the lives of our forefathers, and, yes, in bloody conflicts, to condemn.
It may not have been justice, but it was most certainly deserved.