My son's friend from High School was over visiting my son and I last night. He has been busy making documentaries in Libya during the past two years. I think he has been there at least 8 months to a year of the last 2 years there in Benghazi and the surrounding area. He was telling us how the two militias were disarmed in Libya who were thought to have killed U.S. Ambassador Stevens. What isn't widely known in the news is that 11 Benghazi civilians were killed trying to defend Ambassador Stevens from the Militias with Rocket propelled Grenades and Kalashnikov- AK47-s
A group of Benghazis really irate over the killing of Ambassador Stevens and other Americans as well as 11 Benghazi civilians and multiple wounded Benghazis went to the headquarters of both militias responsible for Ambassador Stevens death and drove them out of town and burned both their headquarters and told them never to come back.
This is actually how the two militias were disarmed.
During transition governments of new democracies it is important to expect a lot of "Vigilante Justice and Law" being demonstrated by mobs of angry people. This was also how our nation got started especially in legends and the actuality of the wild west in the U.S. The same is now true and even my sons friend calls Libya like the Wild West right now. This is both a good thing and a bad thing at the same time if you have seen any Westerns. But this is a growing stage that all new democracies and governments have to go through while increasing their levels of justice and equality for all if that is possible in that new democracy. The same is true of the new democracy in Egypt. Time will tell whether that new democracy just like Libya is a friend or foe or neutral to the U.S. and Europe or more likely going through a variety of different experimental phases.
Even when I was in Dharamshala, India in the Himalayas of Himachal Pradesh State of India.
At the base of the mountain range that Dharamshala is built on as a city on the top from around 5000 feet elevation to 6000 feet elevation was the Indian Army then in 1986 in January and February while my family and I were there. Often, morning and night the army would be test firing machine guns which we could often hear in Dharamshala then. The idea was that the Indian government did not want China or any other adversarial nation or group to the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Government in Exile to go there and assassinate the Dalai Lama or other Tibetan Leaders at that time. Also, while I was there an extremist Sikh in a Mercedes tried to kidnap my stepson who was traveling with about 20 Tibetan Boys his age who were around 12 to 14 years of age. When the extremist Sikh pulled his pistol to kidnap my stepson the Tibetan Boys all pulled their knives to defend him. The man simply got into his car and drove away because he was outgunned by all the knives of all those boys ready to use them. Because in the country almost everyone then who was male carried a knife something like a folding and locking Buck Knife for protection, even Tibetan Lamas while traveling carried a knife then for protection in India. Though I felt safe in India, being Tibetan and living there might not always have been as safe as I felt as a White American with my family then there in India. I felt generally safer in India than I do in some parts of the U.S. where there are gangs living there. The reason for this is that at that time most people then in India believed in Karma. So, though they might go to extreme measures to talk you out of your money on one crazy idea or another (including thousands begging me personally to take them back to the U.S. with me) they usually because they believed in Karma were no threat to me or my family. So, most of the time I actually felt safer in India than in many places in the U.S.
Also, in regard to Sikhs, just like about 99% of any group there or here in the U.S. I found to be very respectful to me and my family. Also, generally Sikhs are more like Americans than most groups in India tend to be except for the Upper Class who are educated and have a lifestyle similar to Americans as well. I think one reason you see so many successful Sikh communities in the U.S. is because of how similar in some ways they are to Americans in philosophy regarding government, freedom of Religion (Sikhs basically believe in all religions to a greater or lesser degree). So, when people believe Sikhs are a form of Muslims this is not entirely correct. The Sikh religion was started as a way to create peace between Hindus and Muslims and eventually spread to encompass all religions including Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism.
So, in the end Vigilante Justice from Syria to Tunisia to India and even to Bangladesh is something we should all get used to more as governments change to become more democratic and they learn to create democratic institutions to stabilize their governments on into the future. The other side benefit of countries going democratic is that they will grow the world wide middle class.
We are presently in a worldwide economic contraction that no one has really experienced before. How the world deals with this contraction as individual nations, companies, families and individuals will decide what the future brings for us all as a now world civilization here on earth.
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