After losing control of two-thirds of his country to anti-government protesters and suffering condemnation worldwide for bloody human rights abuses, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is still refusing to go quietly into the night. As Libya descended into violence and chaos, in a rambling 73-minute television broadcast a defiant Gaddafi called himself a “Bedouin warrior’ and said he would stay and “fight until the last drop of my blood” and die as “a martyr.”
The broadcast was made from a damaged building in Tripoli, Libya’s capital, which American forces under President Ronald Reagan had bombed in 1986 as a reprisal for Libyan-sponsored terrorist attacks. The “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution,” as Gaddafi is called in Libyan publications, had deliberately left the building in a state of disrepair as a monument to “American perfidy.”
“Muammar Gaddafi is not a president and not the kind of person, against whom one can conduct demonstrations,” the Libyan leader told his countrymen, who had already proven him wrong by successfully taking to the streets against him. Anti-government protesters had seized eastern Libya, including the cities of Benghazi and Tobruk, where they flew the banned flag of Libya’s pre-Gaddafi royal regime. About half of Libya’s 1,000 mile Mediterranean coast is now in anti-government hands. Gaddafi has since promised the demonstrators the death penalty.
Libya is the third North African country this year, in which the people have risen in popular revolt against unbearable economic conditions and long-standing oppression. Successful in Tunisia and Egypt, whose leaders were pushed from power with little bloodshed, Gaddafi is proving a harder nut to crack. Like the Romanian dictator Nikolai Ceausescu, who also refused to step down when communist regimes fell like dominoes in Eastern Europe in 1989, his African counterpart is putting up a bloody resistance.
More than 300 people are reported to have died in the fighting so far that has seen tanks and warplanes used against the demonstrators. Tripoli’s violence-scarred streets are described as resembling a war zone. Gaddafi is also employing mercenaries from Chad and Sudan who are reported to have fired indiscriminately on protesters.
As Gaddafi digs in his heels, the civil strife will definitely deepen, since the reason behind his determination to use force to remain in power is fear. For him and his clan, the Libyan leader, who came into power 42 years ago at age 27 in his own revolution that deposed 80-year old King Idris, knows defeating the revolt is an all or nothing proposition. Most Westerners are unfamiliar with the concept of tribalism, which strongly defines Libya, the Arab world’s most tribal society east of Saudi Arabia. They are probably even more unfamiliar with the tribal code of revenge for perceived wrongs. And Gaddafi has given some Libyan tribes, as well as individual Libyans, enough cause in his four decades in power to hold deadly grudges against him, the consequences of which would also spill over on to his clan.
In the French newspaper, Le Figaro, analyst Olivier Pliez cites the recent defection of the large and powerful al-Warfulla tribe as an example of this tribal code of revenge in action. One of the tribe’s leaders, Akram al-Warfulla, announced on national television the withdrawal of his tribe’s support for the regime. Unreported in many Western media outlets is the fact that the al-Warfulla tribe, as Pliez relates, had been involved in a military coup d’etat against Gaddafi in 1993, in which a hundred of its members were killed. Afterwards, the tribe was “repressed and marginalised”, and now sees in the current disturbances the opportunity “to settle accounts.”
“We declare to brother Muammar Gaddafi that he is no longer a brother. We tell him to leave the country,” Akram al-Warfulla ominously warned in the broadcast.
More like Africa's version of Bozo the Clown
I would not say that Ceausescu is the most demonised of
great Socialist leaders. No Socialist leader is more demonised than Stalin and Mao. But undoubtedly Ceausescu is high on the list.
I was very encouraged to find this site. I wanted to thank you for this special read. I definitely savored every little bit of it.
Holistic Healing
Wasn't too long ago ….when four AMerican citizens would be kidnapped and murdered by pirates, the President would have sent in the Marines. America is hardly recognizable any longer. In case you politicians don't know what to do, Here's the plan: Send in the jets and DESTROY all the pirate boats, buildings, shanties, warehouses, piers, vehicles and luxury homes…..DESTROY all of it and let the vermin pirates learn what the price is for killing innocent US citizens. Why hasn't this been done already?????
because he's a coward…
The prates are Africoons, and the President is their brutha.
We bombed Tripoli during the 1700's for the same violent piracy. Perhaps, it is time to do the same.
It’s not the Somali Pirate’s fault, they all live in poverty, despair, and hopelessness as a result of a combination of a systematic failure of capitalism coupled with American imperialism. Hence, it is not their fault; they have no other choice but to turn to piracy. Indeed, that’s the mindset prevalent that pervades throughout our leftwing hijacked and co-opted federal government today.
If Reagan were alive and the President today, the Pirates would have been quickly obliterated a long time ago and the 4 innocent Americans that were murdered yesterday would still be alive today.
One note: I was told today that one reason military action has not been taken: there are many hostages being held by the Somali vermin….and attacking them might result in hostages being killed or injured.
Oh, by the way….Kaddaffi is the Dark Side, in case you didn't know it.
Yes, but so are his opponents. The Muslim world is where revolution means take your pick of one infidel-hating regime over another.
AiiIIIII, he is now truly damned, namely, our brother a) is NOT our brother ! b) He is been ´fatwad´, meaning he CANNot seek asylum in the favourite islamic despotic hiding refuge, namely Saudi Arabia! What a shame… Now he is faced with a little dilemma-is it better to be blown, stabbed and raped, not necessarily in this order or decimated by a missile, a frag granade, and NOT raped? Briefly, there is no escape for him and his paranoic sons, and he still does not realize that !!!
Uh, I'll take door number one Anti. The blowing.
we had a chance to take finish off (and bin Laden too),
but our "leaders" chickened out….
Maybe now we'll stop sending $$ to terrorists and start drilling here, ending unemployment?
Anybody listening and thinking in Washington??? ANYBODY?????
I'm with you Alex. If we are not going to "take them out" at least stop sending them money to take us out.
I meant: to take him or to finish him off
"DRILL HERE DRILL NOW?" Depending on countries like Libya and the Suez in Egypt, on top of the same oil dictators in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, the protests in the U.S. should be for OBAMA to wake up and end the drilling moratorium in our Gulf! IT SEEMS HE'S HAPPY THESE GULF DISASTERS AND MIDDLE EAST PROBLEMS ARE HAPPENING SO HE CAN PUSH HIS "DESTROY CAPITALIST AMERICA" AGENDA! His support for high speed rail is also part of his conspiracy. (Here in New Mexico, Bill Richardson approved the Railrunner, a train between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It was $400 million OVER BUDGET and it takes millions every year to keep it running since VERY FEW PEOPLE RIDE IT. A man video taped a run and FOUR PEOPLE WERE ON IT and he proved it on local talk radio where the hosts saw the video!) OBAMA DOESN'T CARE HOW MUCH THE PRICE OF GAS GOES UP! HE'S HAPPY! AL GORE IS HAPPY! WHILE 99% OF AMERICANS SUFFER, OBAMA AND HIS CIRCLE ARE LAUGHING!!! THEY'RE MILLIONAIRES!!!
OBAMA'S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE is holding him back from protecting American, and our allies, interests! That's the reason they gave it to him before he even did anything to deserve it! We were already in Iraq and Afghanistan so that didn't hurt his winning the prize. IT'S FOR THE SITUATIONS WE SEE NOW! HE WON'T DO A THING except throw our allies under the bus and remain silent on the countries and leaders that are our enemies!
Olympic medals, pageant crowns, trophies, Grammy's, money settlements, etc… ARE TAKEN AWAY for various reasons so OBAMA DOESN'T WANT HIS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TAKEN AWAY EITHER SO HE'LL LET ANYONE, ANY COUNTRY TO RUN ALL OVER OUR INTERESTS!!!
OBAMA WILL THREATEN ISRAEL THOUGH and he'll do it LIVE. "I demand that Israel not attack or provoke IRAN, and their warships which are free to travel anywhere in International waters! Any attack on the mainland of IRAN will lead to regional war and the price of OIL WILL SKYROCKET AND RUIN OUR ECONOMIC RECOVERY WHICH WAS ALREADY ON THE BRINK OF A DEPRESSION BUT thankfully we are on our way AND ISRAEL'S PROVOCATIONS WILL MAKE US GO BACKWARDS! They also have to remember that their obstacles to peaceful coexistence are the reasons we are in the problems the whole Middle East is in today!"
OBAMA HOPES ALL THESE PROBLEMS TODAY LEAD EVENTUALLY TO THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL!! HE GREW UP WITH THIS HATRED AND WENT TO A CHURCH FOR TWENTY YEARS HEARING THE SAME THING! ALL OF HIS CZARS AND CIRCLE OF FRIENDS THINK THE SAME!!! HE IS THE ENEMY WITHIN!!!
Here, hear Steve! (I never know which "hear" to use) But, most of us get it. You don't have to yell at us with CAPS.
If somebody expects BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA to order any action against the
Somali pirates, he has another thing coming…
I know GWB was not remarkable but compared to OBAMA and his policies, he
was actually a genius, considering whom's doing was the financial dissaster
and still counting…!!!
I guess OBAMA & Co. policiesare a classic example of suffering of a worst case
of HOOF IN MOUNTH disease and it is a damned shame the Republican party
made the disgraceful choice of McCAIN for President, as definitely ROMNEY or
HUCKABEE would have swept the floor in the TV debates with whom has
proven to be a worseparachutist than JIMMY WHO, knowing piddly squat of
anything besides his "socialism" and rotten Chicago poliitics and of course,
his blank congressional record, save for his opposition to McCain's proposal
of reining in Freddies and Fannies abuses, because he was on the take from
both…or wasn't he ???
But what is inexplicable is what are the warships of all these nations doing
in those waters, as pirates go about their regular business unmolested
Gadaffi will fall soon but, that won't even be the start of the bloodshed. To repeat, it's a tribal thing. It is not a leap of logic to expect the whole al-Gaddadfa tribe to be eliminated. That's just what tribes tend to do.
If Qadaffi wants to be a martyr,I say let him. He's been a plague of that country for far too many years.
We will pay at the pump. It does seem like whenever an Arab leader sneezed back in 2008 the price went up overnight. Now that Arab countries are in compltete tumult and unsteady at best, the price is nervously holding beneath that American breaking point. I wonder why….
exceptional solutions you’ve contributed in this case. This has been