The Sri Lankan forces understood the situation better than any. The leadership of the LTTE had an almost religious standing. Seeing him dead is like seeing the Imperial Emperor of Japan surrendering.

There didn’t seem to be any unconditional surrender even at that last hour. There were three conditions. So it wasn’t accepted.

And no one in their right mind after fighting a decades long insurgency war against a god figure will let the god figure get away.

And I agree with Wretchard. The West has shown itself utterly useless. Reminds me of a picture a friend took 6 months before the Balkans blew up in the 90′s. A group of Croatians gathered with a long banner saying ‘UN PLEASE HELP US’. They might as well have saved their breath.

And even worse in this situation, the West supported and funded the god figure.

A friend’s father, Dutch, went into Indonesia in 1946 as part of a Dutch contingent to root out Japanese holdouts. Nasty ugly war with many dead, but of course forgotten and probably not even known by many. He returned home to a country that didn’t want to acknowledge his existence. There have been a couple fire bombings in Toronto already possibly by Tamils. I wonder if anyone is going to chase down the hold out Tamils? Right now the canadian Liberal party is currying the Tamil favor to get their votes.

I’m sorry, but I have utterly no sympathy for anyone who supported even notionally suicide bombers.

Derek