Some people have been making fun of the deathbed words of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela. According to a general who was present, Chavez said: “I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die.”
The general believes Chavez said those words because he loved Venezuela, but some people are contrasting Chavez’s swaggering, strongman image with the last words and suggesting that Chavez really wasn’t so courageous after all.
I’m no fan of Chavez — who I thought was just another bullying, egotistical Latin American control freak who glorified himself at the expense of his people — but such comments seem awfully mean-spirited to me. I doubt that Chavez was thinking of Venezuela when he expressed a desire to live; instead, like so many of us, he was simply afraid of what lay ahead. Maybe he was worried about being judged for what he has done, maybe he was fearful of being consigned to hell, maybe he was terrified of the yawning void — or maybe he just enjoyed his time on Earth and wanted to make it last as long as possible.
How many people face impending death with courage and serenity? I’d guess not many, and I doubt that I’ll be among the few when my time inevitably comes. Hugo Chavez should be judged by what he did, not by what he said when death lay dead ahead.
It’s interesting that, even as they talk about gender equality, our world leaders still cling to old-fashioned, sex-specific forms of greetings. Angela Merkel leads an economic powerhouse that props up countries like Greece and is supposed to figure out a way to bring fiscal sanity to the Eurozone, yet every time she goes to a summit meeting she’s got to put up with getting smacked on the cheek by every head of state in attendance, like she’s their favorite granddaughter.
Today 
The reality is that urging “tough” United Nations resolutions doesn’t mean much in the face of guns and mercenaries. And saying that a foreign leader should leave doesn’t mean much, either. The days when pronouncements of American presidents left people quaking in their boots are long since over. If there is no resolve to take actions, words ring hollow — but even meaningless words and lack of action nevertheless can have negative consequences.
We can fairly conclude that something is happening, because Gaddafi’s kid gave a bizarre, finger-wagging, fight-to-the-last-bullet speech. You wouldn’t expect that kind of diatribe unless circumstances were dire — although trying to assess the conduct of the Gaddafis by applying the standards of normal, rational behavior is probably doomed to failure. From the speech, it sounds like Gaddafi Junior is a chip off the old block in the weirdness department.
