Turbanned Beasts

Moammar Gadhafi was known to be a funder of terrorism. As long as the acts of terror took place against the West. He was more kindly disposed to the African nations he was part of. His passing was mourned by those African countries whom his oil largesse aided, and there were many. The West felt that his generosity had a purpose; to buy loyalty. It did that. But it was also inspired far more likely, to a sense of kinship he felt with other African nations.

Aside from which, he spent money to help them tamp down the rising flood of Islamists. He had no wish to see Libya become infiltrated and infected by fanatical Islamists. And he knew that to prevent that from happening he would have to involve himself in the fortunes of the countries around his own, beset by the incursion and growing influence of Islamists whom he saw as a threat to the region's stability.

Bamako, Mali

His death inspired deep mourning for Africa's "King of Kings". During his 42-year-rule of Libya he poured billions into other African countries, building schools and mosques and funding militaries. He was known as a generous benefactor, and especially loved in Bamako, Mali. One man, interviewed after the Libyan ruler's death, standing nearby a Libyan funded hotel said: "Gadhafi's death has touched every Malian, every single one of us. We're all upset."


He had used $150-billion of Libya's oil profits for foreign aid going to impoverished African nations. He was a good neighbour by those accounts. Things have fared ill for Malians on his death. The mercenaries whom he had trained and armed to protect Libya found themselves attacked by the Libyan tribal militias that had turned against their dictator. Among them the very Islamists that Gadhafi feared and warned against.


Those former mercenaries fled for their lives, back to Mali, taking with them their arms, and armaments pilfered from storage depots no longer guarded by the regime's military, busy fighting a rearguard action against both the rebel forces and the NATO air assaults that had been mounted to give cover to the rebels, when the West decided they would surrender Gadhafi to his fate, no longer useful to them.


Now, the first country to denounce Gadhafi and persuade NATO and the UN to back the rebels and defeat Gadhafi giving him his just due as a mass murderer and tyrant, is itself fighting the result of unleashing weapons from Libya, and unemployed mercenaries back to Mali. This time France doesn't have the backup of NATO, merely the insipid assistance of the U.S., Britain and Canada in providing heavy-lift capabilities.


"With the arms depots being thrown open, it was an excellent opportunity for these [jihad] groups to arm themselves to the teeth with everything from Kalashnikovs to SA7s (ground to air missiles). We've seen weapons from Libya now all over the region. We've seen them in Tunisia, flowing into other parts of Algeria, even into parts of Gaza", said Scott Stewart, vice-president of analysis at Stratfor Global Intelligence.


He forgot to mention Syria. Although there has been no direct Western intervention in the revolt taking place in Syria, with the Syrian dictator doing precisely what the Libyan dictator had done before him; using his regime's military to mercilessly attack civilians supportive of the rebels, the scenario is identical in nature. Behind the rebels lurk the rabidly violent jihadists, Islamists eager to match atrocity for atrocity.


Libya's war is over, its tyrant tortured to death by those he feared. But stability and peace has not overtaken Libya. The rebel militias have not acceded to a democratic government and the government is too weak to challenge the rebel militias. Who have among them al-Qaeda-affiliated groups whose greatest triumph since the cessation of hostilities was to torch the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, kill the American ambassador and two other Americans.


Some of those Libyan terrorists have filtered into Syria to fight on the side of the Free Syrian Army militias. Some of those Libyan Islamists have filtered into Mali to fight among the Taureg rebels and the associated al-Qaeda-sourced militias that captured northern Mali and routed the Malian military, and where that same military is fighting alongside French forces on the ground to retake Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.


Removing brutal dictators from office has not brought democracy, peace and stability to Islamic countries of north Africa and the Middle East (Mali's democratic president was removed by an army coup a year ago). In Tunisia and in Egypt autocracies were replaced by Islamist dictatorships. And as much as President al-Assad of Syria is a violent brute he has warned of the al-Qaeda-sponsored terrors that would result with his removal from office in Syria.

Much as Muammar Gadhafi did, when he stood in the United Nations giving a speech before the General Assembly, declaring that if his regime fell it would take little time before jihadists would subjugate northern Africa. In their wake inflicting violence and terror. "Al-Qaeda considers all the people to be infidels. They deem all people their enemies. They know nothing but killing. These are beasts with turbans."