In the pornography that is Moammar Gadhafi’s final minutes we see the Colonel led by militia men as he is kicked, punched and photographed then mounted on the hood of a truck before his body is delivered to a rabid mob. It is a horrific montage, made more so for its jerky cubist assembly. Of the versions I have clicked on, all are derived from at least three still and moving sources.

Gadhafi’s final minutes brought to mind the capture of other recent newsmakers, such as a Saddam Hussein, who we first meet outside his "spider hole” before his clean-shaven court appearances and a final walk to the gallows. As for Osama bin Laden, the closest we get to his demise is watching it on the faces of Barack Obama and his advisers, who in turn watched it via the helmet cam of a U.S. Navy SEAL.

While Hussein and bin Laden were captured by U.S. armed forces, Gadhafi was given the Sebastian Venable treatment, perhaps for no other reason than to advertise to the world that the new Libya is in need of a taming only Big Oil and her host nations can provide. Heaven help anyone with crude in their pockets.