He who sleeps with dogs, will get fleas

The villain is dead! Muammar Gaddafi was murdered by Libya’s liberators while begging for mercy and pleading for his life. For the whole world to see, major news channels aired his last moments, like a second rate peepshow fit for only the most perverted voyeurs.

“God is great” were the euphoric calls from his henchmen and gone were the virtuous intentions to judge Gaddafi in a properly constituted court of law and gone was all form of dignity in this just cause for the liberation of Libya.

One ought to remember that until recently Muammar Gaddafi was rubbing shoulders with the heavy weights of Western society although he has been known to be a villain long before the Arab Spring. He has been a megalomaniac despot for some time and former US President Ronald Reagan, as early as 1986, referred to him as “the mad dog in the Middle East”.
Western Governments and their Leaders, like any one else, have known that he was directly and personally responsible for the downing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie and the death of 270 innocent people in 1988.
Half hearted sanctions lasted for a number of years and yet when it became politically expedient in the fight against terrorism, western politicians felt no shame to befriend this outcast and welcoming him back into the club of civilised world leaders, burying the past and pretending it never happened.
The membership fee he was asked to pay was a meagre 2.7 Billion US dollars, 10 Million US dollars per family who lost a loved one, as compensation for the deaths at Lockerbie.
A real bargain, one would think, and to make the membership more attractive to the Libyan Brother Leader, a few personal friendships were thrown in at no extra cost. Among others; a warm brotherly embrace from Prime Minister Berlusconi, a patronising pat on the shoulder from Prime Minister Blair and a fake smile from French President Sarkozy demonstrate ultimate cynicism.

To ignore or accept this cynicism is practically the same as to support the notion that moral values are available for sale to the highest bidder and no matter what; there is always a way out of hell. It is tantamount to showing contempt for dignity and basic human decency. It demonstrates the absence of true vision and leadership in Europe and raises the question why leaders in the developing world should consider western values as their benchmark. The chances are they heard the English saying: “If you sleep with dogs, you will get fleas.”