The Goat Pen

Everyone knows teens live with abandon online—exposing their secrets, likes, dislikes, sexual preferences, home addresses, phone numbers, and so on—in ways their parents can’t understand.

In September, 2009, Qaddafi made his first appearance at the U.N. General Assembly. He rambled and ranted for ninety-six minutes, blasting the U.S. for its history of foreign intervention, calling for new investigations into the assassinations of J.F.K. and Martin Luther King, Jr., and speculating that swine flu had been developed as a biological weapon. It was embarrassing behavior, but, given Qaddafi’s reputation for eccentricity—and his perceived usefulness as an ally against Muslim extremists—it did little damage to his international image, and the American government made no comment. At home, his hold on power seemed secure.

El Lagi said to me, “With all due respect to the Americans, they are liars. . . . The Americans go around talking about human rights, but they hosted him—they didn’t arrest him. He pitched his tent on Donald Trump’s land!” Qaddafi, meanwhile, took every opportunity to taunt the West, often in ways that Western observers didn’t understand. El Lagi said, “At the U.N., ...when Tony Blair came, Qaddafi showed him the sole of his shoe; this was a sign of disrespect, and was shown on YouTube all over Libya. When Condi Rice came, he refused to shake her hand, and later, during their talk, he handed her a Libyan guitar, as if to tell her to sing. She should have left the minute he refused to shake her hand, but she didn’t. The interests of the American companies prevailed. All these gestures were deeply disappointing to Libyans, because we knew it meant he could buy anyone.”

Qaddafi always insisted that he would fight and die in Libya, and he was true to his word. [O]n October 20th, on the western edge of his home town of Surt, he and his last remaining forces, a bodyguard of a hundred or so men, were finally encircled by N.T.C. fighters. Travelling fast, in a convoy of several dozen battlewagons, they escaped to a traffic circle two miles outside Surt, and there they came under fire. As they turned to fight, in a trash-strewn field, a French warplane and an American Predator drone flew overhead and bombed them where they stood; twenty-one vehicles were incinerated and at least ninety-five men were killed. Qaddafi and a few loyalists made it into a pair of drainpipes buried in the earthen berm of a road.

They were tracked down by a group of fighters from the Misurata unit. After an exchange of fire, one of Qaddafi’s men emerged from the pipe to plead for help: “My master is here, my master is here. Muammar Qaddafi is here, and he is wounded.”

Qaddafi, his hair unkempt, bleeding from a wound on the left side of his head, is hustled up the dirt embankment. On the way, a fighter comes up from behind and appears to violently thrust a metal rod into his anus. On the road, the rebels pin Qaddafi down on the hood of a Toyota truck. A throng of screaming men clamor to see him, insult him, hurt him. One strikes him with his shoes, saying, “This is for Misurata, you dog.” Qaddafi is hauled to his feet, bleeding more heavily, and weakly tries to defend himself as rebels reach in to strike at him. The video devolves into chaos: someone saying, “Keep him alive,” a hand holding a pistol, boots, a baying scream of “Allahu akbar! ” He is yanked by his hair. We hear the firing of a gun.