He ran, but in the end he could not hide.
The Libyan rebel forces stormed and surrounded Sirte, the 42-year dictator's home town and final stronghold.
In crossfire, he was hit twice, in the head and the chest.
Video footage of his demise was recorded, released for all the world to see.
He was an evil man; he deserved to die, yet he posed less of a threat to the United States than Osama bin Laden or the al-Qaeda network, which Gadhafi openly opposed.
I have mixed feelings about the demise of the flamboyant Arab leaders, once self-styled to the point of self-parody, who paraded the greatness of his second-tier petrol kleptocracy.
Delusional to the world, no doubt he was eaten away with fearful despair, even to his last dying moments.
Then there is the shock and awe of witnessing his body dragged through the streets, mixed with the shared joy of millions. At last, they seem to cry out, we are free.
In truth though, one could compare this ending with the French Revolution. Yes, the masses have toppled another autocrat, but at what cost to the people? To the world?
Do we want to live in a world where the mob unleashes vigilante justice every time it does not get its way? Let us not forget the Anti-Zionist propaganda that swept the barren Libyan countryside during the rebels ongoing assaults against their "dear Leader." One more Arab strongman has been taken out, this time mortally; one more cold and calculating ruler who respected the state of Israel is gone, to be replaced by a convoluted rabble with little political experience and suspected ties to Islamic radicals.
Gadhafi was an evil man.
Gadhafi deserved to die for the evil he perpetrated against the Libyan people and the world.
But to see him bloodied and beaten and displayed on international TV like another war trophy invites a more troubling comparison than witnessed in Iraq 2003. More like H.G. Wells "Island of Dr. Moreau", in which the monsters have killed the mad scientist.
Now who will run the island? And what dangers will we have to prepare to face in the near future?
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