Freddie DeBoer isn't celebrating Qaddafi's death:
Here is what I know more than anything else: no one who cares for Libyans themselves could see this turn of events as an ending, a conclusion, or a victory. The future is Libya could not be more unsettled, more dangerous, more precarious. What happens next is what is important, in the next month, the next six, the next year, the next five. Will a new flowering of democracy and freedom take hold? Will a new reigning military junta take hold, as appears to have happened in Egypt? Will a newly repressive Islamist state develop? Nobody knows. Nobody will know, for a long time. Those declaring victory today are doing it because they have achieved what they wanted, which is a justification for limitless American military aggression, and support for Barack Obama, one of the most unapologetic militarists in American political history.
Oh, please. "Limitless" American military aggression is the lesson of the Libya war? Obama is an "unapologetic militarist"? Chill. But yes, as we noted earlier today, there are some truly worrying straws in the wind right now, as Brian Ulrich explains:
I do not regret the fall of Qadhafi, but the road ahead remains difficult, far more difficult than in Tunisia or Egypt. Libya is divided and without strong institutions that can manage the transition. If under Qadhafi the west was favored, the TNC is drawn mainly from the east, and the patronage connections are sure to bring about an uncomfortable reallocation of national resources in that direction. Right now there is celebration and giddy proclamations about the future, but for Libya's sake, national reconciliation needs to be around the corner.
(Photo: Libyans celebrate outside the Libyan embassy in Knightsbridge on October 20, 2011 in London, England. News emerged today that the former Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi was killed after an assault on his home town of Sirte in Libya. By Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
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