BBC and professionalism you can forget

Is this the man that Crowley was thinking of? 

I went to www.bbc.com and what I saw would have made me laugh if it didn’t make me puke first.  I’ve been posting something new on this blog almost every day and usually before noon.  No, I haven’t been vomiting all day, for the world is not Libya and there are better things to do that be glued to updates from the likes of BBC aka The World According to Uncle Sam. 

Muammar Gaddafi was meant to die.  Barack Obama too is meant to die.  You and I are not immortal either.  In Gaddafi’s case, this was expected to happen a few months ago but few would have wasted time wondering if he would escape. 

Libyans (some, as least) are celebrating, we are told.  Gaddafi was no saint and I am pretty sure that he was tyrannical enough to warrant some cheers on account of departure, never mind that he gave backbone and goodies to his people in strength and volume, respectively, that no other Middle Eastern leader has been able to deliver despite unimaginable wealth.  I am not sure who the ‘Libyan people’ really are, since there are all kinds of ‘people’ these days in Libya. Heck, one of these days someone might be as confused about the USA considering how the politico-corporate tyranny in that country has been robbing the citizenry, and bashing and jailing objectors. 

Anyway, whether we like his or not, whether he was the bugaboo the likes of BBC made him out to be or not, whether he was the world’s worst dictator or just one of a big pack or relatively benign compared to the bugaboo-pals that NATO is defending against the oppressed millions, the man is dead. 

And he’s to be buried in secret (shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!), BBC says, ‘following his capture and death’.      Oh dear, Gaddafi has DIED  now, and he’s to be buried, whether in secret or in public being of academic interest.  ‘Dead,’ as in ‘he died of malaria’ or ‘he died of AIDS’ or ‘he died of old age’. Something like that. 

How can we take issue with BBC when it quotes a former US Assistant Secretary of State, P.J. Crowley, who opines that ‘the chilling photos of the deceased dictator send a compelling message to other leaders who continue to confront demands for change’?

‘Deceased’.  Was but not any more. Something like that.  As though there was a sudden puff of smoke and he vanished into thin air. Just like that.  Disappeared.  Ceased to exist. 

Well, the man was captured, this is true.  He did not die.  He was shot dead in cold blood. No due process. No trial.  No ‘innocent until proven guilty’. No civilization. No decency.  Murdered. Executed. Summarily executed.  Just like that.   

I really don’t know what will happen next in Libya. We can have more of Iraq in Libya or more of Iraq and Afghanistan in Libya.  Then there’s oil too, how much I don’t know.  But there are things I do know.   

I know that a man was butchered in Libya and whether or not he was a butcher himself is irrelevant to the issue.  I know that a man called P.J. Crowley has just said that the president of his country, a man called Barack Obama, a butcher if there ever was one, might suffer the same fate.  I am not sure how BBC would report such an eventuality, but let me try.

‘US authorities plan a secret burial for ousted leader Barack Obama, following his capture and death.  Meanwhile, a former Minister of Defence in Somalia states, “The chilling photos of the deceased dictator send a compelling message to other leaders who continue to confront demands for change”. ‘

I don’t think I’ll laugh but there will be someone laughing somewhere and that laugh will be the longest laugh laughed in many centuries.  I am pretty sure of this.