Thursday, October 20, 2011

THE WORLD'S INFAMOUS DICTATORS... AND THEIR VIOLENT FATE

A lesson history always shows us is that all heartless dictators die lonely and sorrowful deaths....those who live by the sword die by the way of the sword. A look at some of those that have gone down this dark road is provided below:


Benito Mussolini
Apprehended as he headed for Switzerland with his mistress Clara Petacci on April 27, 1945. He was shot the following day, and his body was taken to Milan and strung up in public.

Adolf Hitler
 

As the Russian army closed in on Berlin, Hitler took to his bunker with Eva Braun and other Nazi leaders. As he realsied his situation was hopeless he shot himself with his 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol on April 30, 1945.

Nicolae Ceaușescu
 
As Communism started to crumble at the end of 1989, Ceaușescu attempted to flee Romania. On Christmas Day 1989, he and his wife were tried in a brief show-trial and sentenced to death by a military court on charges ranging from illegal gathering of wealth to genocide. After the trial they had their hands tied behind their backs and were led outside to be executed by a firing squad consisting of elite paratroop regiment soldiers

 Saddam Hussein

In April 2003, after the fall of Baghdad Saddam's whereabouts remained in question. He was eventually captured in December of that year. On November 5, 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. On December, 30, 2006, he was hanged.

Ion Antonescu
In May 1946, Romania's war-time leader Ion Antonescu was prosecuted at the first in a series of tribunals, on charges of war crimes, crimes against the peace, and treason. Despite two appeals he was executed by a military firing squad on June 1, 1946.

Rafael Trujillo
The man who ruled the Dominican Republic with an iron fist from 1930 to 1961. Known as El Jefe (The Boss) he was gunned down in his car on May 30, 1961.

AND THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY...

Joseph Stalin
The Russian ruler died in his bed on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74. Through purges, famine and gulags he is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 20million.

How the End Comes for Tyrants: Gaddafi killed in hometown


Wounded, weakened and covered in blood and dirt, the bedraggled fallen dictator was hauled from a truck to meet his unceremonious end. In front of a baying mob and amid gun-waving chaotic scenes, Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader, begged the revolutionary soldiers for his life. Becoming increasingly desperate, he asked one rebel fighter: 'What did I ever do to you?'
But his pleas fell on deaf ears. The deposed despot was thrown onto another truck and taken away - to be mercilessly shot to death.
His spilt blood heralded the end of a terrible 42-year epoch in Libyan history. These gruesome pictures are taken from a video that has emerged of the tyrant's final moments after he was captured earlier today. After weeks of speculation as to his whereabouts, Gaddafi was finally tracked down and killed in Sirte, his final stronghold and the town of his birth. Like Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi's last hiding place was no more than a hole in the ground, a storm drain near to where his last few loyalists had staged their last stand
As news of his death swept through the country and across the world, bloody images of the 69-year-old tyrant slumped across the legs of a revolutionary fighter emerged. Libya's prime minister Mahmoud Jibril this afternoon confirmed the former dictator was dead.
Gaddafi's eldest son Saif was yesterday said to have been shot in the leg during a firefight and taken to hospital - with some, as yet unconfirmed, reports suggesting he has since died. His other son Mutassim has been confirmed to have died in today's battle.
'We have been waiting for this moment for a long time,' said Jibril. 'Muammar Gaddafi has been killed'. The news was also welcomed by Prime Minister David Cameron who said he was 'proud' of the role Britain had played in protecting Libyan civilians. And U.S. President Barack Obama hailed Gaddafi's death as a 'momentous day' in the history of Libya but warned of 'difficult days ahead' on the road to full democracy in the country. He urged the Libyan people to respect the human rights of those they had detained and said the Nato mission in Libya would soon come to an end. He said: 'This 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. 'For four decades the Gaddafi regime ruled the Libyan people with an iron fist. Basic human rights were denied, innocent civilians were detained, beaten and killed and Libya's wealth was squandered, enormous potential of Libyan people was held back and terror was used as a political weapon.
'Today we can definitively say that the Gaddafi regime has come to an end. This is a momentous day in the history of Libya.
'The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted and with this enormous promise the Libyan people now have a great responsibility to build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic Libya that stands as the ultimate rebuke to Gaddafi's dictatorship.
'We call on our Libya friends to continue to work with the international community to secure dangerous materials and to respect the human rights of all Libyans, including those who have been detained. 'We are under no illusions. Libya will travel a long and winding road to full democracy. There will be difficult days ahead. But the United States, together with the international community, is committed to the Libyan people.' Gaddafi is the first leader to be killed in the Arab Spring wave of popular uprisings that swept the Middle East. It is believed he will be given a secret burial.

The revolutionary offensive began around 8am local time and progressed quickly into the town centre.

Gaddafi had been barricaded in with his heavily armed loyalists in the last few buildings they held west of the central Green Square.

Nato airstrikes and revolutionary ground forces concentrated on a compound in that area of the town.

National Transitional Council (NTC) soldiers said that a convoy of at least five vehicles tried to leave the town in the early morning, but it came under sustained fire - first from a Hellfire missile and then from French fighters jets which were part of the Nato force.

The vehicles were forced to return to the loyalist-controlled area as battle continued. Gaddaffi, already injured, was found a short time later in a large storm-water drain. Fighter Mohammed Al Bibi told reporters that the toppled tyrant had pleaded 'Don't shoot, don't shoot' as he attempted to surrender. He had been wounded in the legs. NTC official Abdel Majid Mlegta said: 'He [Gaddafi] was also hit in his head. There was a lot of firing against his group and he died.'

Mobile phone footage, released shortly after the news of his capture broke, showed a bloodied Gaddafi being manhandled.

Al Jazeera also showed footage of what appeared to be Gaddafi's shirtless and lifeless body being dragged along the ground.

The body was then taken to the nearby city of Misrata, which Gaddafi's forces were besieged for months in one of the bloodiest fronts of the civil war. Al-Arabiya TV showed footage of Gaddafi's bloodied body carried on the top of a vehicle surrounded by a large crowd chanting: 'The blood of the martyrs will not go in vain.' Rebels said he had been armed with a golden handgun when he was found and was wearing a khaki uniform. Later images showed young revolutionary soldiers cheering and holding a golden handgun.

Other soldiers say they slapped the dead Gaddafi's face with a shoe to express their disgust and lack of respect.

The reports of Gaddafi's capture came on the same day that revolutionary forces said that they had taken control of Sirte - the leader's home town.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

The Convergence of Science and Religion on the ‘God-being’

It is another Sunday and people have gone to church...i didn’t go but as I usually do when in solitude, I meditated upon the essence of my subliminal existence in the mysterious expanse of the cosmos. What keeps striking me is the disparity between the accounts of science and those of my Christian religion concerning the origins of the universe. I’m a learned individual and also intrinsically religious albeit spiritual in my disposition and perspectives. This thus creates an enigmatic conflict in comprehending or seeking explanations to my existence as a man. However, today while engrossed in retrospection, I came upon an impromptu resolution of the divergence between science and religion. This has been my 'holy grail' in my quest to resolve this philosophical paradox akin to Einstein’s quest to find a solution for the Unified Field Theory. I was so excited when it dawned upon me that science and religion are one and the same and none of both are exclusive of one another. Eureka!!
       Now let me elucidate my resolution for the accounts of science and religion concerning the beginning of the universe.  In the biblical account of Genesis 1, it says "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". That statement implies that God was in existence before the creation of the earth....hmmmm. Now a look at the scientific perspective shows that the universe came to existence in the BIG BANG and that the universe was once extremely compact, dense, and hot. Some original event, a cosmic explosion called the big bang, occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, and the universe has since been expanding and cooling. Thus both accounts never tell about the true origin of God or the origin of the particles that sparked the Big Bang. This therefore creates a void for us.
        However, scientists also allude to the existence of a hypothetical fundamental particle known as the "higgs boson" which collided to form the matter of the Universe. This matter is referred to as the "God particle". This particle is thus what led to the beginning of the universe. When I thought about the God Particle, my mind lit up because I now came to the hypothetical conclusion that the God particle is what Christianity refers to in John chapter 1 as the "WORD". In John 1:1-5 it reads "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind". Thus if the God particle was the Word and the Word was God then we now have a resolution as to who or what led to the beginning of existence God. Thus we see that science and religion say the same thing via the use of different perspectives.
       Interestingly, science explains that the God particle interacts on the subliminal level of matter and dark matter. This is in parallel to the explanation of the bible that God is constantly interacting with the universe.  A look at this science-religion convergence is seen in the account of creation where Genesis 1 says the earth was created in 7 days while science maintains that the earth and its inherent life evolved over millions of years. Nevertheless, these two accounts are one and the same since the book of Isaiah 55:8 says “my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways” and Psalm 90:4 says “ in your sight a thousand years are like a day”. This implies that those millions of years could be like 7 days to God and interestingly, the book of genesis was written from the revelation of a superior being not from the account of a mortal man. So once more you see that science and religion say the same thing and acquire verification from each other.
        On a concluding note, I would like to state that the supreme question still lingers as to the origin of the God Particle or God which I shall now term the "God-being" as a resolution of both accounts. This shall now become the fundamental question for science and religion but it is my opinion that God delineated the obligations of religion and science for the rational comprehension of man. Religion is the conduit for the revelations of God while science is the apparatus for explaining or decoding this revelation for practical application based on the command of Genesis 1:28 that man should conquer and subdue the universe.  Science is constantly learning and I am sure a time shall come when the origins of the God-being shall be explained.