POWER FAIL
Good riddance to Gaddafi
Paul Barry
Friday, 21 October 2011
The Great Survivor is gone at last.
Bedouin-born Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was the Middle East's longest-lasting despot, and one of the most absurd, crowning himself "King of Kings" and "Leader of the Arab leaders". Yet he survived for more than four decades, after seizing power in 1969 in a bloodless coup against Libya's King Idris.
Gaddafi imprisoned, tortured and killed his political opponents, squandered the nation's oil wealth, exposed Libya to US bombs and economic sanctions, and finally waged war on his fellow countrymen in a desperate bid to stay in power. All along he claimed—and perhaps believed—that Libyans loved him.
Dubbed "mad dog of the Middle East" by President Ronald Reagan, Gaddafi sponsored violent Palestinian terrorism, funded African revolutionary movements, and supplied arms to the IRA. His regime also financed the Black September movement (which carried out the attack on the Munich Olympics in 1972) and was behind the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, which killed all 259 passengers and crew on Pan Am 103.
Yet in spite of all that, he briefly managed to transform himself from pariah to statesman. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Gaddafi abandoned his support for terrorism, paid compensation for Lockerbie and allowed nuclear weapons inspectors into Libya. The West welcomed him into the fold, with Tony Blair flying to Tripoli to shake his hand and induct him into the War on Terror.
Thereafter, Blair had at least six meetings with the wily dictator. But Britain and France eventually played a key part in bringing him down.
When Libyans rose up against Gaddafi's regime in February, as part of the Arab Spring, he could have fled to Venezuela, Cuba or Zimbabwe, whose loopy leaders supported him to the end. But he chose to fight instead. It was a decision that has cost some
25,000 lives, including his own and
at least three of his seven sons. A fourth son and would-be heir, Saif al Islam, is reported to have been captured yesterday and to be now in hospital. Wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, he may face trial for war crimes, if he survives.
Gaddafi's stolen fortune has been estimated at "several billion dollars", but no one really knows what he stashed away. Back in June the Swiss authorities said they had frozen US$415 million of his assets. But it's likely that there is more elsewhere. Not that Gaddafi will now be around to spend it.
http://www.thepowerindex.com.a...iddance-to-gaddafi/20111020596
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