Back in the 80s, the reigning Evil Overlord, what with the Russians becoming nice and Hussein not yet having set his sights on greater things, was Muammar Khaddafi (however you want to spell it). Since I was pretty young at the time, my knowledge of this guy is shady at best.
First of all, what was it he did to attract global hatred? I remember something about supporting and/or harboring terrorists. What terrorists?
Second of all, what has he been up to lately? Is he seen as a threat? I understand he’s still the head dude in Libya, but he’s been remarkably silent the last decade or so. What are things like in Libya, if anyone knows?
Searching for stuff about him is pretty much a lost cause given that no two people ever agree on how his name is spelled.
He was supposed to have terrorist training camps in the desert for groups like the IRA. Libya was also involved in the Lockerbie bombing.
I’m not sure what he has been up to lately. As an public enemy Gaddafi doesn’t seem to feature any more. I believe Libya is trying to take a more involved role in the world around it, attending various African and Arab conferences etc. Libya recently voted for a motion condemning the war in Iraq for example.
I haven’t got a clue what things are like in Libya at the moment, but i did live in Tripoli in the eighties. Back then it seemed a fairly sleepy society, and although it isn’t a democracy, people weren’t too dissatisfied as its socialist - the government does try to take care of its citizens. The weird thing is the the shops. You might go into the shop one week and they’d only be selling 10 kilo bags of rice. Then the next week they’d be selling kilo tins of milk powder. I think it just depended on the cargo of the ship which had just docked at the harbor basically!
One reason he’s purportedly got out of the Evil Overlord business was an American air raid on Tripoli that resulted in the death of his daughter. The US launched the raid ostensibly as retaliation for a terrorist bombing of a German disco that killed and wounded several American soldiers.
He certainly provided arms and explosives for the IRA, we intercepted a shipment, but some got through. They still have most of the semtex (about a ton I believe), although that may be about to be given up.
A policewoman was shot and killed from within the libyan embassy, leading to a stand off/seige.
And of course the Pan Am flight landed on the scottish town of Lockerbie, killing many people.
He’s not silent. He’s been very active in African policies (in particular in the African Union) and in various conflicts there during the recent years.
Well, since later evidence surfaced that it probably WASN’T Libya that did the disco bombing (later evidence pointed at Syria, IIRC), I can’t say as there is any grudge to hold.
The New York Times magazine did an article on him in the past few months with the same question of how he didn’t make it on the ‘top three’ axis of evil.
It seems he’s actually been behaving himself over the past decade (with only a few lapses here and there). He’s backed off tight fisted and repressive control of his own country, and he’s backed out of international rogueishness.
In fact, he’s become something of a regional leader for African nations, especially the (sub-)Saharan ones.
Although, look for a bit of licit mischief as Libya heads the UN’s Human Rights Commission (or whatever its name). The U.S. has been locked out of the commission this election cycle, thanks to W.'s ranckling of the nations (namely, his anti-Kyotoism and the breaking of the AMB treaties). And so, Libya, and other infamous rights abusers are going to rake the U.S. over the coals for every human rights violation we’ve been party to (whether real or imagined). Libya got onto the commission because of all the real help its been offering to other African nations, who rewarded Kadaffy by choosing Libya to represent them on the commission.
It really pissed off W. when it happened.
Peace.
First, Albania backs the U.S., and now Libya’s being a helpful nation. Did I fall through an interdimensional doorway into bizarro world?
Beside, at this time the french army and airforce were facing lybian forces in the Chad war. It wasn’t exactly the best moment to further damage the relationship between France and Lybia (I can’t remember any support from the USA during this war, by the way )
I’m not well versed in African policies, so I can’t tell what kind of evil Lybia could be involved in (perhaps someone could tell who exactly Lybia is supporting in which conflict. As for the goals, it seems that Lybia’s leader has decided to gain influence in Africa (including sub-saharian Africa) rather than being too much involved in arab and middle-east issues.
So did Spain. Americans exactly didn’t have worldwide support for that raid. Even if there had been real evidence of terrorist attacks it still was overreacting. But Chernobyl got world’s attention soon afterwards, and Libya got forgotten.
And another thing…why can’t Colonel Gaddafi get a promotion to general or some fancier title? Doesn’t he know people that could help? It would make his mother proud.
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