Gaddafi has been masquerading as a revolutionary, intellectual, world leader and anti-imperialist for decades, but underneath it all is a man in love with his ego and power. I am the State, L'Etat c'est moi, he rants in so many bombastic, paranoid and disconcerted words and phrases. Far from believing in the will of the people, he only believes in the IDEA of the people, which concept serves as a blue screen to act out his self-inflating melodramas upon. In a primitive sense he has become a crude imitation of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor, as Ivan explained him to Aloysha in The Brothers Karamazov :
Toward the end of his life he becomes convinced that it is only by following the advice of the great and terrible spirit that the fate of these millions of weak rebels, these 'half-finished samples of humanity created in mockery' can be made tolerable. And once convinced of it, he sees as clearly that to achieve that object, one must follow blindly the guidance of the wise spirit, the fearful spirit of death and destruction, hence accept a system of lies and deception and lead humanity consciously this time toward death and destruction, and moreover, be deceiving them all the while in order to prevent them from realizing where they are being led, and so force the miserable blind men to feel happy, at least while here on earth.
Unlike the Grand Inquisitor, no Jesus is going to kiss him on the lips, so Muammar al-Gaddafi is left with only hatred and violence in his heart, taking offense at every legitimate cry against his oppressiveness, since his ego now knows no sense of boundary between his over-reach and other's rights, striking out wildly with the still formidable forces of destruction at his command. And for every evil act he perpetrates, ordering combat planes and hunt-and-kill teams into action against protesters, importing God knows how many degenerate mercenaries into Tripoli and elsewhere to savage his own population, for every act of destruction he now perpetrates, his personality dissolves into greater evil to the point where, a Kabbalist would say, he will become possessed by the Qlippoth, the demonic forces of chaos and evil vibrating through the astral planes.
Perhaps several thousand Libyan citizens have already been slaughtered, many more thousands beaten, imprisoned, wounded or exiled. It is really a race against time now to defang Gaddhafi before he can do maximum harm to the world, for he is already talking about blowing up oil facilities and spreading far more chaos.
His megalomania has, however, created profound revolution throughout Libya and growing national and international solidarity, so Godspeed Libyans' efforts to liberate their country, with, hopefully, as little bloodshed as possible. The new Libya must begin on moral high ground, not in vast pools of blood. And thank you, no, Western powers, keep your invasion forces out of this struggle. Solidarity, boycott, diplomatic pressure and prosecution of war crimes yes, boots on the ground no. Oppressed Libyans must win their own victories, not be confronted with a revived colonial presence.
Here are some of the latest videos from around the world on the Libyan crisis and analysis of the historical and geopolitical forces that have led up to this moment, not the least being Western duplicity in arming Gaddafi to the teeth.
