The time approaches when Gaddafi might be joining his Serbian and Rwandan colleagues-in-political-crime. This comes about by becoming a full room and board guest of an international tribunal. The prediction hinges on a pre-condition. Primarily, it involves not so much “The Guide’s” ability to hold on to power – regardless of intermittent tactical successes- that appears to be increasingly unlikely. His paid goons have contracted to serve in a machinery of oppression directed against defenseless victims. To serve in that function, the quality demanded of them is the willingness to kill people to which they feel no kinship. What the deal did not include was a sincerely meant commitment to fight heroically a lost battle against insurmountable odds. Going down as the heroes of a “Götterdämmerung” in the last bunker on the side of a “Leader” might look good in a history book. However, such a role is not attractive to folks who rent themselves out on a thousand-dollars-a-day basis. In this respect, Gaddafi’s praetorians differ from the SS. A tidbit to illustrate the ideological commitment that Gaddafi does not enjoy. The last Iron Cross/Ritterkreuz of the Nazi régime was awarded during the siege of Berlin. The recipient was a French member of the Waffen SS.

Collective suicide in “Reichskanzlei-style” being as unlikely as negotiated exile, the probable endplay is less edifying. To save their own skin, second-tier members of the inner circle could be moved to massacre the ruling clan. The next alternative, which postulates that Gaddafi survives his detention by the rebels, is not a convincing scenario. In case of his capture, Gaddafi is likely to share Mussolini’s end. Ironically, that is the man who, in a twist of history, had been Libya’s colonial conqueror. The “Duce” ended hung from a bridge with his sex organ stuffed in his mouth. If none of these end games materializes then we will witness a very long trial. In its boring course, it will be alleged that no one has ordered any of the atrocities, which, in any case, did not happen. And anyhow, the opposition intended to do the same thing. The story will not be terminated with a period ending the sentence, the chapter and the book. There will be a slowly petering out smear beginning with a life sentence. Much later, the smudge will mute into the release of a forgotten old and weird man. He will be put in the care of his sons that, being lesser villains, had been discharged earlier. These will, thanks to their remaining assets, be operating a thriving business. Evil, if managed by the right financial advisors, has its backhanded rewards.

The foregoing has much to do with the fact that, in general, the advanced countries of the modern world have an ambivalent relationship to wrongdoing. A consequence is an unfolding trend that shows that crime grows and that in doing so it invalidates some earlier theories. The curve that shows the rise of criminality and the one that represents society’s material prosperity, climb together. The old theory, which continues to be applied by “certain circles”, is that crime is the product of poverty and lack of social-political rights. This assumption is more than merely erroneous. Since we know better, the theory is not a postulate but a lie.

Being bashful regarding domestic crime and shunning the ways to deal with it is, for certain political participants, an ideologically supported paying proposition. The “understanding” attitude of the policies of denial and of the practice to project the blame upon society, earn the good will of an electoral block. A characteristic of such associations is that, enticed by their apologists, they are taught to regard repressive action against criminality as a “racist” attack on their members. Moreover, the aforementioned rising curves have a third one that tracks them. As the GDP rises, social allotments, support payments and the like grow in volume and proliferate if we count the new areas that are buttressed. Furthermore, as the size of the handouts grows, the lines of recipients queuing to get their rightfully due share lengthen. This is taken as proof of the expanding “needs” of the “destitute” and of “growing poverty”. This condition then, serves as an argument to increase allotments and practice leniency in response to the “misery” of the downtrodden.

The ideologically fueled unwillingness to face the causes of domestic crime and the reluctance to apply appropriate measures to combat it, are paralleled by the way crime is handled in the international arena. This effort to discuss some aspects of this has been provoked by a revealing case with a domestic venue that has shocked your correspondent.

Recently, somewhere in Germany, an incident occurred that cannot be filed away to be forgotten as an everyday outrage. A father called his divorced wife that he wishes to take out their child of three for ice cream. Thereafter he picked up the kid and drove it to a forest. There he took a chainsaw and decapitated the child. Subsequently he killed himself. Those who play through in their mind the details of this atrocity will understand why the event is difficult to forget.

The only positive aspect of the crime is that it ended with the suicide of the killer. Had he survived one can easily imagine the judicial consequences. Little fantasy is needed to predict that following his arrest the impostor would have been subjected to a psychological examination. Brilliantly, the expert would have concluded that most people do not kill in such a way. Therefore, the killer is not normal. Not being normal, the man cannot be said to have had control over his actions. Besides, obviously he had been a sad and angry person that “lashed out” in the only way he knew against the injustices that determined his life. The plea’s result would have been an assignment to prolonged and obligatory therapy. In time, a psychologist will find that the profession, needing further assignments, needs to demonstrate that therapy brings benefits. A new diagnosis would have declared the rehabilitation and “resocialization” of the patient. Perhaps at that juncture, serving  a life sentence would have entered the picture. With the abolishment of the death penalty, “life” does not mean what it says. After a few years, pleas for mercy for a “changed person” would have followed. Not having repeated his past “mistake” the man, grayed and obese, would have been released.

One is made to wonder what the context might be that allows such blood curling events to occur. Some aspects of our politics suggest that we have lost our ability to be outraged, or, as the reactions to piracy show, to do something about it. Not only the victims of normal criminality but also our political life suffers from that torpor. Then there is “relativism”. It had started eons ago with the originally useful questioning and examining of our private and communal ways and institutions. Then, regardless of the original rationality of the approach, questioning, followed by skepticism had been allowed to mute into permissiveness.

By our new standards, nothing, unless it is safely in the burial grounds of history, is absolutely wrong and as such unthinkable, inexcusable and impermissible. People that are taught, that if it feels good one has a right to do it, exhibit the consequences of value-free conduct. Those affected by this way of thinking do not shun of their own volition, irrespective of written laws and external enforcement, certain patterns of behavior. The increasing brutality of criminals that often admit that they have acted out of “boredom” and just “to have fun” are a consequence. Perpetrators know that ultimately responsibility is not regarded as being personal but is shared by the victim and by “society”. Such persons cannot feel fully guilty in their own eyes and they are often formally excused by the justice system. Shared responsibility means partial innocence. Those that become convinced of the thesis that backs this up are individuals that lack the self-imposed barriers of decency, which provide the internal controls which prevent crime. Without the internal controls rooted in absolute values, the resulting moral void will short circuit the conscience that can stop someone who gets in the mood “to do his thing”.