What is Qaddafi good for?
Identifying the really world class creeps and jerks. As Michael Totten informs us. So, we find that:
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said Tuesday that the unrest may be a pretext for a NATO invasion of Libya, while Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offered support for Gadhafi, saying he had telephoned to express solidarity.
Qaddafi has warm relations with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (hence rumours he has/is/will flee there). While Turkey's Islamist PM says he is keeping his Qaddafi award for human rights. Well, if you accepted such a ghastly thing in the first place, you would, wouldn't you?
Totten explains, in a piece in The New Republic, why Qaddafi actually matters more than overthrowing Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt. (You can see some classic Qaddafi rant here.) Totten's article on visiting Libya back in 2004 gives the flavour of the megalomaniac totalitarian social wilderness that has been Libya. Victor Davis Hanson has some similar, if much briefer, observations from his visit.
Qaddafi's regime has been cultivating Western academics. Compare Stephen Walt's description of his trip to Libya with Totten's and Hanson's and ask yourself which reads better now? But Walt is part of a pattern of Western academics and journalists swallowing (and regurgitating) what the Qaddafi regime wanted them to say.
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said Tuesday that the unrest may be a pretext for a NATO invasion of Libya, while Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offered support for Gadhafi, saying he had telephoned to express solidarity.
Qaddafi has warm relations with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (hence rumours he has/is/will flee there). While Turkey's Islamist PM says he is keeping his Qaddafi award for human rights. Well, if you accepted such a ghastly thing in the first place, you would, wouldn't you?
Totten explains, in a piece in The New Republic, why Qaddafi actually matters more than overthrowing Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt. (You can see some classic Qaddafi rant here.) Totten's article on visiting Libya back in 2004 gives the flavour of the megalomaniac totalitarian social wilderness that has been Libya. Victor Davis Hanson has some similar, if much briefer, observations from his visit.
Qaddafi's regime has been cultivating Western academics. Compare Stephen Walt's description of his trip to Libya with Totten's and Hanson's and ask yourself which reads better now? But Walt is part of a pattern of Western academics and journalists swallowing (and regurgitating) what the Qaddafi regime wanted them to say.