The outcome is that the people responsible for Lockerbie Were Put In Power.

Do you see the irony or do you not care?

I guess our difference is in political philosophy.
I’m 90% Realpolitik/10% idealism. That means I’m willing to do something to “make a statement” once in a while, but generally I support actions that advance the American agenda…even if that means supporting a dictator to keep the jihadis at bay.
It also means conveniently “forgetting” about previous transgressions sometimes. This part is absolutely necessary when dealing with regions that have a long history of violence. Without that ability there would never be any movement in the Palestinian question, and the IRA thing would never have been resolved.
So yeah, that would be letting Quadaffi get away with murder.
I can live with that.

We can debate about direct or indirect responsibility, but Qadaffi’s removal from power clearly made Americans less safe in Libya, and may well be making them less safe throughout the world – including in our own country.

Will Hillary pull out the same old “what difference at this point does it make?” meme if American lives are lost down the road as a result of terrorist activities by AQ or other groups that are now gaining a foothold in Libya? She certainly didn’t waste the opportunity to brag about Qadaffi’s death.

Mubarak didn’t have American blood on his hands (neither does Assad, explicitly anyway, for that matter).

“prepare accordingly for it” means assume that Libya will descend into chaos and brace for it rather than assume a magical transformation into a peaceful democracy. Qaddafi killed hundreds of Americans. He deserved the death penalty. He got it. Libya suffers the consequences. So be it.

I’d love for there to be justice in the world, too. But reality often doesn’t give you easy choices.
Qaddafi was responsible for Lockerbie, that’s a fact. But after the Iraq invasion (coincidental timing, no?), he gave up his chemical weapons and looked to be cooling his trouble-making. He was keeping a lid on the jihadis…he said that right before we deposed him, but nobody was listening.
Almost the same arguments could be made regarding Mubarak. We know how that turned out.

In both situations, it seems as if the only thing keeping down ruthless killers were other (slightly less?) ruthless killers. Unless the US were willing to use the same tactics, how could we “prepare accordingly for it?”
I’m skeptical of our ability to shape events in the Middle East while still retaining the moral high ground.

Obama and his admiinstration are totally at fault for not understanding what overthrowing him would mean and preparing accordingly for it, but Qaddafi deserved death for Lockerbie and the Berlin bombing.