This evening I revisited my blog “Chris Stevens a diplomat or spy” written as back as on September 12, 2012. My point was, killing of the US Ambassador in Libya and his portrayal as friend of ‘freedom’ fighters raises a question, was he a diplomat or an ace CIA operator? In the recent past many countries have been alleging that spies have become an integral part of the US diplomatic core.
I also managed to pick the following lines from Wikipedia on the killing of Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya.
He was captured and killed on October 20, 2011 after the Battle of Sirte. Gaddafi was found west of Sirte after his convoys were attacked by NATO aircraft. He was then captured by National Transitional Council (NTC) forces and was killed shortly afterwards.
The NTC initially claimed Gaddafi died from injuries sustained in a shootout when loyalist forces attempted to free him, although a graphic video of his last moments shows rebel fighters beating him and one of them sodomizing him with a bayonet before he was shot several times.
The killing of Gaddafi was criticized as a violation of international law. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called for an independent autopsy and an investigation into how Gaddafi died.
Moments after it was reported that Gaddafi was killed, Fox News published an article titled "US Drone Involved in Final Qaddafi Strike, as Obama Heralds Regime's 'End'", noting that a US Predator drone was involved in the airstrike on Gaddafi's convoy in the moments before his death. An anonymous US official subsequently described their policy in hindsight as "leading from behind".
Because Libyan rebels had consistently told American government officials that they did not want overt foreign military assistance in toppling Gaddafi, covert military assistance was used (including arms shipments to opposition). The plan following Gaddafi's death was to immediately begin flowing humanitarian assistance to eastern Libya and later western Libya, as the symbolism would be critically important. US sources stressed it as important that they would "not allow Turkey, Italy and others to steal a march on it".
Many Western leaders and foreign ministers in Australia, Canada, the European Union, and the United States made statements hailing Gaddafi's death as a positive development for Libya. The city-state of Vatican City responded to the event by declaring it recognized the National Transitional Council as Libya's legitimate government. World leaders such as Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and Australian prime minister Julia Gillard suggested that the death of Gaddafi meant the Libyan Civil War was over. Some officials, such as UK foreign secretary William Hague, expressed disappointment that Gaddafi was not brought back alive and allowed to stand trial. In a candid moment while filming a TV interview, Hillary Clinton, at the time the United States' secretary of state, laughingly stated "We came. We saw. He died." — a variant of a Roman phrase alluding to the swift military victory.
Reactions from the governments of countries including Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were negative. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez described the former Libyan leader's death as an "assassination" and an "outrage", and Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega later called Gaddafi's killing a "crime" during his inauguration on 10 January 2012. Government officials and politicians in Iran showed considerably diverse reactions
The video reportedly left a particularly strong and consequential impression on Russian head of state Vladimir Putin. A senior diplomat who had served at the US embassy in Moscow under the Obama administration reportedly claimed that "Putin had been appalled by Gaddafi's fate" to the extent that "Putin had watched a video of Gaddafi’s savage death three times, a video that shows him being sodomised with a bayonet."
Referring to the US coalition's lobbying efforts for the airstrikes at the United Nations, the US diplomat was quoted as saying that a later US intelligence assessment concluded that "Putin blamed himself for letting Gaddafi go, for not playing a strong role behind the scenes" and that the video may have even influenced Putin's decision to support Syrian president Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian Civil War since "Putin believed that unless he got engaged Bashar would suffer the same fate – mutilated – and he'd see the destruction of his allies in Syria."
Putin also lashed out at the US for what he perceived as the illegal killing of Gaddafi and asked "They showed to the whole world how he (Gaddafi) was killed; there was blood all over. Is that what they call a democracy?"
