Thus Ever to Tyrants

"Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword."  Matthew 26:52

Hearing the news of Osama Bin Laden's death was satisfying.  More edifying would have been seeing the photos of his corpse, seeing as how we witnessed on television World Trade Center vicitms plunging to their deaths.  Seeing Saddam Hussein brought to justice and put on trial was also satisfying, even if watching him swing was somewhat – 19^th Century.  In the old days, Americans used to have picnics before hangings.

Seeing Gaddafi’s bloody corpse, first on the front page of the London Times, and later in the day, on the front pages of our newspapers and media, didn’t give the same sense of satisfaction.  While there’s no doubt he was a brutal dictator, not to mention a lunatic, and that he probably deserved what he got (Pan Am Flight 103), what his gruesome death accomplished is unclear.

For the Middle East, it’s not just the 19^th Century; it’s the 7^th Century, every day.  This is their notion of justice.  His death, in this manner, means that whoever takes over is no better than he was.  What can we expect of the “new” Libya except more of the same?  What can we expect from any of the countries in the “new” Middle East except more of the same violence they’ve been committing for 14 centuries?  Beating women, mutilating girls, burning churches of other faiths, murdering anyone who doesn’t hold with the Islamic faith, bigotry, terror, and enslavement.

Generally, American papers don’t publish pictures like that because the Media, heretofore, was generally responsible enough not to encourage violence, the riots of the Sixties and the Vietnam War being the exceptions, when it was useful to them to frighten the American public.

There are revolutions and there are revolutions.  Why on earth are even some Conservative pundits giving credence to Occupy Wall Street, when the knuckleheads in Zuccotti Park took their inspiration from the Middle East riots?  Why has the Media downplayed the violence in these bloody revolutions, only to wag this picture of gore in our faces?  What else does it tell us but that violence works and the law does not?

Well, now they’ve gotten Gaddafi, and certainly no one will (or should) weep for him.  However, the photos of his demise are a dismaying, fearful sight and an ill omen for the civilized world.