Muammar Gaddafi is dead. While the State Department and the White House haven't confirmed as of this writing, it's almost certain. You might remember that official confirmation from the US government took a while when Bin Laden was killed, as well. 100% certainty takes some time.While everyone is saying that the dictator's death is a positive, it pays to remember that under the Bush administration, Muammar Gaddafi was officially rehabbed, taken off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and generally hailed as a good guy. This despite the fact that, prior to 9/11, the Lockerbie bombing of a Pan Am airliner resulted in the largest American civilian death toll from a terrorist attack.
Bush's reasoning for putting Gaddafi back on the good guys list was his agreement to dismantle his WMD program and renounce terrorism. Of course, his WMD program turned out to be underfunded and largely notional, rendering that part of the reasoning nonsensical. And renouncing terrorism is easy. You don't even have to actually quit. Especially when the US made no effort to prove anything. Libya would turn over a few terrorists for trial and that would be that.
The real reason for normalizing relations with Gaddafi was almost cartoonishly simple and stereotypically neocon. Libya has oil...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
