Shakespeare wrote in "Julius Caesar," "The evil that men do lives after them ... ."
So it is today after the violent death of longtime Libyan dictator and international terrorist Moammar Gadhafi.
Gadhafi's removal from power is welcome, but it is uncertain whether the understandably enraged rebels who are now rising to power in Libya will be an improvement on his rule -- or if they will adopt his despotic evil themselves.
The final end of Gadhafi's 42-year, brutal regime came ignominiously on Thursday. Though reports are conflicting, he evidently was found hiding in a drainage pipe in the Libyan city of Sirte. Despite his reported plea of "Don't kill me, my sons," he was dragged out, beaten, shot and paraded on the hood of a truck. One of his sons was killed, and another was wounded and showed signs of torture, The Associated Press reported.
Gadhafi was not the first dictator whose terrorized people have exacted revenge, and he likely will not be the last.
But of greater concern than the specific treatment of Gadhafi is the question of whether the rebels will constrain their urge to take vengeance on ordinary Libyans who supported -- or are suspected of having supported -- Gadhafi. And of greater concern still is whether the end of Gadhafi's reign will translate into freedom and representative government, or into repression by a new group of leaders.
Those are questions that ought to have been asked before the United States began supporting -- and at times leading -- aerial attacks in support of the rebels.
No one -- the United States least of all -- should be upset that Gadhafi no longer rules Libya. After all, his regime was behind the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed nearly 200 Americans.
But today, our nation and the rest of the world are left in the position of having to hope that the new leaders in Libya will promote justice, individual liberty and human rights.
Even if they have the finest of motives, their challenge will be great. Many of them have never known anything but tyranny. So their first instinct when troubles or disagreements arise may be to revert to what they know -- and to suppress dissent, perhaps violently.
Already there have been numerous revenge attacks against suspected Gadhafi supporters. Some of the rebels are accused by outside human rights groups of war crimes, and there have been signs of the al-Qaida terrorist network in their ranks. Also, a strong vein of anti-Semitism was revealed when a long-exiled Jewish man went to Libya and tried to restore the synagogue in Tripoli. He was ultimately forced back out of the country, even though he had supported the rebellion against Gadhafi.
Libya's oil reserves may help provide money for the country to rebuild, but that money will also make the nation a target for unscrupulous "leaders" more interested in lining their pockets than in modernizing their country, making it free and increasing the standard of living enjoyed by its long-oppressed people.
We hope that Libya will move in the direction of personal liberty and respect for basic rights. Everyone should hope for that. But getting rid of a tyrant such as Gadhafi is no guarantee that his evil won't "live after him."