Fidel Castro and Muammar Al Gaddafi have distinction of being the two world leaders whose non-royal governments survived the longest. Their continual presence testifies to the inadequacy of United States foreign policy -- years of economic sanctions, military attacks, intensive propaganda and threats did not displace the two most outspoken critics of U.S. actions -- only Castro's illness and the effects on Gaddafi by the domino rebellions in North Africa have separated these leaders from their people.
U.S. policies during the years strengthened its antagonists and shaped them into massive figures. By not responding with their own deeds to offset Gaddafi' promises to help the oppressed and replace the oligarchic Arab regimes, western nations displayed a callousness and hypocrisy that energized his initiatives. More significant than how fast Gaddafi fell from grace is how long he stayed in power. Attacks on Gaddafi and the Libyan people enabled the leader of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to rationalize repression and convince his people of threats to their nation's sovereignty and that only he could protect them .
The Colonel, who never became a General, held a tight grip on his people and a loose grip on the world. After years of confrontations with almost everyone he encountered, Gaddafi relaxed, lost his grips and his usefulness to rebel movements. A tunnel vision and unique belief in his grandiose mission to form a society of oppressed to counter the oppressors disturbed the world and discomforted the Libyan people, who resented use of their oil wealth for their leader's aggrandizement and its transfer to foreign peoples. As a flamboyant revolutionist, he exhibited meaning and glamour, the characteristics he strived to portray. After retiring from the international scene, Gaddafi's image faded, and he no longer needed the absolute control he exercised. Recent charges by an official close to him, that he ordered terrorist attacks, adds to his separation from even his previous admirers. The man needs retirement and his people need democracy. But that's not the entire lesson from the latest Arab march to freedom. There are lessons for the western world -- its own hypocrisy, two-faced actions, contradictions, self-righteousness, double standards and dubious representations. Muammar Gaddafi's failure to move the world's powers to recognize its misdeeds parallels western nation failures to act against injustice and oppression.
If Muammar Al Gaddafi behaved paranoidly, it was for good reason. It wasn't long after he reached the age of 27 and led a small group of junior military officers in a bloodless coup d'Ã ©tat against Libyan King Idris on September 1, 1969, that threats to his power and life emerged - from monarchists, Israeli Mossad, Palestinian disaffections, Saudi security, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL), the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (NCLO ), British intelligence, United States antagonism and, in 1995, the most serious of all, Al Qaeda-like Libyan Islamic fighting group, known as Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya. The Colonel reacted brutally, by either expelling or killing those he feared were against him. To him, the world was one big conspiracy and he trusted only his persona and his he ability to combat.
Attempts on his life occurred often. U.S. 'surgical strikes' on Tripoli, in 1986, clearly aimed to kill the Libyan leader. Not well publicized is the alleged assassination attempt by British Intelligence, revealed in an Observer article, by Martin Bright on November 10, 2002 .
"British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The allegations have emerged in the book Forbidden Truth, published in America by two French intelligence experts who reveal that the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in March 1998.
According to journalist Guillaume Dasquià © and Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac, British and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had come from Libya and played down the threat. Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania ."
The United States policy to contain Gaddafi, exhibited growl, punishment, and insult.
President Ronald Reagan exemplified a churlish attitude towards the Libyan leader. Note his answer on April 9, 1986 to Helen Thomas' question: "Mr. President, I know you must have given it a lot of thought, but what do you think is the real reason that Americans are the prime target of terrorism? Could it be our policies? "
Reagan: "Well, we know that this mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution. Moslem fundamentalist revolution, which is targeted on many of his own Arab compatriots ."
By seeing himself as the vanguard of the world's oppressed, Gaddafi inflated his international role. Nevertheless, is it proper for one president to call another leader a "mad dog of the Middle East ?" Can a leader of a miniscule nation promote world revolution? Not even the USSR could do that. Was Gaddafi ever a fundamentalist Muslim? His greatest enemies were fundamentalist insurgents and fundamentalist Saudi Arabia.
These words came from the same Ronald Reagan who committed maddening adventures. Reagan sent U.S. forces to Lebanon and these forces shelled the Lebanese Shouf Mountains , killed innocents and caused a reprisal that resulted in the bombing of a marine barracks and assassination of 241 American military. His government promoted the illegal assistance to the Contras in their war against the Sandinista government, and, as president, he would not admit his involvement in the affairs. The tit-for-tat operations with Libya resulted in killings on both sides and led to the 1986 U.S. bombing attacks on Libya , which The United Nations condemned.
"By a vote of 79 in favor to 28 against with 33 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 41/38 which "condemns the (U.S.) military attack perpetrated against the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on 15 April 1986, which constitutes a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law."
Gaddafi 's domestic polices can only be evaluated by the Libyan people. Aside from oil, Libya has not much to offer, except desert and scarce arable land. The country is mostly a nation that trades oil for food and some other products. Its $15,000 capita GDP is mostly due to oil production and it is unknown how this superior GDP /capita is distributed throughout the population. Nevertheless, the Socialist word in his country's name has some significance.
Libya has universal education, a literacy rate of 90%, an infant mortality rate of 18/1000 live births, life expectancy of 77 for women and 72 for men, and 94 telephone subscribers/100 inhabitants(2008), a 100% increase in only three years.
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