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Col Muammar Gaddafi
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So, another one bites the dust. The bad guy is dead, long live the bad guy.
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Too bad, he was one of my favourites, he used chicks as bodyguards, thats what I call a real man. And he was not afraid of America, no sir.
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He also had 0 Debt. And made his government as self sufficient as possible.
Considering all the embargoes, internal strife, and other issues he faced over the years… that’s not half bad.
IN contrast, the debt to GDP ratio in the United States is almost 90%. That means if you guys JUST paid your interest with your GDP… you’d only have 10% of your GDP left.
Something to think about.
We might be laughing now… but suffering makes it’s round. As a member of western society, I hate to say it, -our turn’s a coming.
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Politics hopefully aside, I am thinking it is going to be an excuse for Americans to drink.
GG
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The interest on the US dept is not 90% of the US GDP. The accumulated dept is 90%. Interest rates are low, it only takes a few % of GDP to pay the interest. Of course a few % of 10+ trillion starts to look like real money….
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Of all of them he was my favorite
Now who or what will replace him.
I bet there are some places in the middle East where the flag is at half mast
Who’s next on the list -
A cruel dictator responsible for the death of thousands, a supporter of international terrorism for decades…. he should have been arrested, but I for one say the world’s a better place without this guy.
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@Herr:
A cruel dictator responsible for the death of thousands, a supporter of international terrorism for decades…. he should have been arrested, but I for one say the world’s a better place without this guy.
People tend to avoid judiciary recourse when it comes to revolutions.
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Well the secret to every revolution, and the primary objective, should be to kill the people currently in power. If it’s come to revolution and you want to be the man at the top, you’ve got to make a void… a power vacuum! CUT THE HEAD OFF OF THE SNAKE.
Usually this is most effective because the rebels get what they want, which is often anything but what they already have.
Quiet revolutions… “can” work, but never as effectively.
Gaddafi got “Justice”. A trial would have ended in the same result, and been a mockery of lawfulness anyways, like Saddam Hussien’s, Milosovic, or the Nuremburg trials (Jodl particularily! Executed and then exhorenated as innocent 8 years later- YAY!).
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Hard to believe Gaddafi stayed in power as long as he did. Curious how the Middle East and North Africa will progress with these despots out of power.
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Curious how the Middle East and North Africa will progress with these despots out of power.
I think you mean DEGRESS. Culturally only the most ruthless, and cunning survive for any length of term in power in the region.
IMO The whole region lacks the cultural capability to rise above warlords and despotism - with VERY limited exception. The bottom line is that it’s a series of tribalistic states, this is well documented, and has seen much fanfare since Lawrence of Arabia. The civilized world needs to realize this, and leave these kind of places ALONE to “progress” without interference.
What has the Arab Spring accomplished? Other than bloodshed? Oh let me see here… a military regime in Egypt? Nice…
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Egypt has been a military regime since Nasser. The area needs a few generations to catch up to where the west spent a few centuries achieving.
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Egypt has been a military regime since Nasser. The area needs a few generations to catch up to where the west spent a few centuries achieving.
I’m concerned since Nasser left power, the growing attacks on the large Christian populations in Egypt.
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very nice, thank you for sahring these
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Nasser didn’t actually leave, he died while still in power….41 years ago. My point was that Egypt has been a military regime since Nasser and the military took power roughly 60 years ago. 3 ‘Presidents’ Nasser a military officer, next was his friend Sadat, a military officer and last Mubarak a military officer. Now its one thing to serve in the military, retire, then seek office. It’s another to be an active military officer while at the same time being president.
Turkey was a military regime, so was Greece, South Korea and many other functioning (or semi-functioning in the case of Greece). Turkey is now being led by a Muslim government, kinda like the Christian democrats in Germany. Turkey is kicking ass economically and stands as a model for places like Egypt, Libya etc.
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This Col was among the majority who condemned the 9-11 attacks.
I recall the media then highlighting 5 political leaders in the minority who praised that same attack on the USA.
Yasser Arafat (died )
Kim Jong Il (still leading N Korea)
Mohammad Khatami (lost the 2004 Iranian elections to the Khamenei hard liners)
Fidel Castro (his brother leads Cuba now)
Saddam Hussien (executed)The USA also removed the Taliban from power after condemning the 9-11 attacks.
That was for them harboring OBL.The USA normalized relations w Germany and Japan soon after WWII, but it took 40 yrs for our society to catch up to the government reality.
Hitler was dead. Hirohito was still alive.The USA was normalizing relations w Col G’s Libyan goverrnment as of 2006.
Somehow the bad blood of over 30 yrs ago was not good enough when BHO took our white house and the media came in to vilify this foreign leader after his citizens started a protest…The USA already bombed them back for the 1986 (Berlin discoteque) attack.
Libya also paid compensation to the victims’ families of the 1988 Pan AM flight bombing.George Washington himself warned against involvement of foreign wars.
While I do not personally like this guy, I would rather our armed service members keep to fighting wars truly in our National interest.
From my own limited viewpoint, USA military involvement in Col G’s downfall was due to our media bias.
My own bias would be very different if he was among those praising 9-11, instead of condemning it as our media reported a decade ago.
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Careful about anything that can be remotely connected to politics. I know merely commenting on what NATO does was enough to get a topic closed by moderators for talking ‘NATO=politics’ so we must be treading close to the line now.
One can look at it this way. The US (rightly or wrongly) is considered to be the puppet master in that area. That area produced Al-Qaeda as a way to overthrow the alleged “puppets of the US government”. One could easily argue that having actual free and fair elections that produced a moderate Islamic government would take the wind out of the sails of terrorist recruiters. I could easily see a successful argument showing the modest investment the US spent be being actually invited by the powers that be in Libya now will be paid back many many fold in the coming years.
I don’t think a blanket catch all policy of “Thou shall NEVER get involved in foreign adventures” can be applied with success. That would mean had Hitler never declared war on the US that the US would stand by and let the Nazis take over Europe.
There exists the right balance of standing back and getting involved. I don’t like violence, but if I see some adult beating the piss out of some kid with a baseball bat……there is going to be some violence that involves me.
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Did the thousands of shoulder fired Surface-to-Air missles that were missing ever turn up in Lybia?
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Good question. Some of the articles I’ve read mention or allude to the fact there are ‘Western’ teams on the ground looking for these weapons. I suspect we will have an exceedingly hard time determining how many of these weapons there were which also means we will never know how many got out into the wild. I’m not sure how long those weapons can last without maintenance. I/R seekers used to require a lot of maintenance and batteries have to be replaced. Probably not beyond the abilities of top tier bad guys.
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