I previously offered some operational ideas for Doing Something about Libya.

One of them was this:

expert support for opening of all Libyan regime secret police and other archives asap – let the dirty chips lie where they fall (mainly in Moscow?) 

The more I think about it, the more superb this idea becomes.

Consider the web of corruption and wickedness which Gaddafi’s oil money has spread round the planet in forty years.

The support for terrorism, including the PanAm bombing and the explosives sent to the IRA. The propping up of dirty regimes and so-called liberation movements across Africa. The illicit arms deals and sanctions-busting activities.

The bribes paid to other Arab leaders. The furtive links with KGB Moscow and Maoist Beijing, not to forget our good European chums in Paris and Rome and Sarajevo.

The infiltration of Islamist movements. The Libyan WMD programmes and the murky efforts made over many years to assemble them.

The sheer looting of the state’s oil treasure to fund all this trash.

What a prize it would be to get that lot out in the open. Not to ignore the education value for Libyans of seeing exposed the gory innards of the regime and the way it brutalised them for so long.

So, HMG, go for it.

Make a programme for publishing the secret police archives a priority and public part of our support for the post-Gaddafi government. Force the issue into the open! Cut a messy deal with Assange/Wikileaks if necessary to let him loose on the problem.

Sure, there will be some documents which are awkward for HMG. But be bold. Think about the veritable sand-dunes of papers exquisitely embarrassing almost everyone on the planet who dislikes us and despises freedom. 

Of course it’s unlikely to get anywhere much. Too many people and interests will be determined to thwart it, whatever the cost.

But remember. These vile archives take on a new life of their own if they stay closed. And give comfort to our and the Libyan people’s worst enemies.

As the former Yugoslavia constantly reminds us:

Once again Europe’s former communists – even those feted as democrats in the EU – close ranks to hide evidence of their former dirty deeds.

This is why Stalinism is ‘worse’ than Nazism. Because it lives on and pollutes the European political moral atmosphere in an insidious way.

And because Europe’s real democratic leaders shamefully sniff the putrid air and turn away, chattering in bright loud voices about any other subject that comes along, pretending the stench isn’t there.

Try to do a bit better this time round?