President Barack Obama declared that 'justice has been done' when he announced to the world on 1 May that America's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, had been killed.
There's no doubt he was echoing popular sentiment in his own country. That's what politicians do. But it wasn't true. Justice had not been done. Indeed the chance that bin Laden might one day face justice in a court of international law was lost with his assassination by US agents in Abbottabad.
Early Friday morning Australian time, Obama gave the corresponding speech for the death of the Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi. To the extent that the two deaths are comparable, the Gaddafi speech was more truthful than the bin Laden one. Obama did not so much as mention the word justice.
His matter of fact message was simply that Gaddafi is dead, and his death 'marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya, who now have the opportunity to determine their own destiny in a new and democratic Libya.'
The sombre tone was appropriate, as was his implicit distinction between the Gaddafi regime and Gaddafi the man. The regime was odious, while the man undoubtedly suffered from some form of mental illness that had unspeakably tragic consequences for the people of Libya.
He was human and deserved a degree of compassion. Obama did not spell this out but made it clear that he was welcoming the demise of the regime rather than that of the human being behind it.
What is worrying is the jubilation of Libyans themselves. It is understandable, but it leaves no room for compassion for the man, whose state of mental torture caused so much pain. On Friday morning Al Jazeera was reporting that Gaddafi had been further humiliated when his lifeless and bloodied body was dragged along a road. Over the weekend it only got worse as we read that his body was on display in a commercial freezer at a shopping centre.
The celebratory nature of the response bodes ill for the future of national unity, in that Gaddafi supporters will continue to feel antagonised rather than included.
United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon was resigned to the reality that 'In the coming days, we will witness scenes of celebration as well as grief for those who lost so much'. But he stressed it is the time for all Libyans to come together because 'Libyans can only realise the