Is it just me or is the world a really confusing place?
Yesterday, the news came in of Gaddafi having been found. I was in our London office at the time, and was eating a sandwich watching a muted TV screen showing Sky News. I went off to a meeting, and by the time I came out of that meeting, the news had changed to say that he had been killed.
The exact manner of his death will no doubt remain a mystery and we will never know the whole truth, but I wonder if the best guess is simply that the mob found him cowering in that storm drain, and in their jubilation, in their celebration of his capture, in his humiliation, someone in the crowd just couldn't resist the temptation, and put a bullet into his head.
The reaction to his death seems to be pretty universal celebration, from Libya to London, and across the Atlantic to the White House. And, there is much to be happy and to be hopeful about as a whole country looks like it might move from dictatorship to democracy. No-one can argue that the Colonel was most likely the driving force behind some terrible crimes, the worst of which probably took place inside his own borders, but we think particularly of a police officer shot outside an embassy in London, and a plane full of passengers blown up in the air over Scotland.
However, and it is a big however, whilst there is much to hope for, should we be celebrating this particular event? Capture - yes, but summary execution (if that is what it was) - I'm not so sure. I heard a report earlier today in which one of the family members of a Lockerbie victim was being interviewed. I can't remember their exact words, but the message I got from them was that they felt that they had been denied justice. Justice would have been for Gaddafi to be captured and brought before a court to answer for his crimes. That can never happen now.
I mean no disrespect to the many families of people who suffered terribly as a result of his regime in saying this, and I can fully understand why yesterday was for them a day of great joy. It may be all too easy for me to sit here cosily and pontificate about justice. Turn the tables, swap places, and who knows how I might feel about the situation.
As I say, the world is a confusing place.