Arab unrest: perspectives -X

If the first two words of Frank Schoenberner's quote "his rebellion is the bitter, sardonic laughter of all great satirists" are replaced with "Qadhafi's" and "defiance", respectively, whatever emerges can be termed a highly interesting remark on the following two comments (reproduced verbatim) which were labelled as "highest rated comments" on Youtube in response to Libyan leader Colonel Qadhafi's interview by ABC News' Christiane Amanpour a couple of weeks ago:
-- We all know he is a dictator but
-- Who does Americans think they are..
-- Telling this leader to step down another to remain in power,
-- What do u think u are, the Romans of the new era,
-- Go clean Ur streets from criminals and take the weapons from criminals shooting at students and infants...
-- Go put Goldman Sachs Thieves in jail and retrieve Ur billions and the world billions from them before going and policing the world.
-- ZiadH1000
1. don't wear sunglasses to an indoor interview - you look like a egotistical ass.
2. don't dress like a cartoon character - people will not take you seriously.
3. don't tilt your head back and squint- you look like you are planning assinations.
4. don't deny what we've already seen - it proves you're a lier.
5. when someone is asking you a very serious question that involves the lives of an entire country - NEVER laugh.
6. do the world a favour and get the **** out of libya!!
Kittykatdancing
The sheer depth of Libya crisis characterising some latest developments, which include Western leaders' decision to ponder military options with France becoming the first country to recognise Libyan rebels as the country's legitimate government against EU policy which normally grants recognition to states, not governments, seems to have provided an embattled Qadhafi an opportunity to play directly to "anti-colonialist" sentiments.
"Al-shabab [the youth] the colonialist countries are hatching plot to humiliate the Libyan people, reduce them to slavery and control the oil. Get ready to defend Libya, get ready to defend the oil, get ready to defend dignity, independence, and glory. Answer them. Let them be ashamed and degraded," Qadhafi has been widely reported as saying.
Noted Middle East expert Robert Fisk has observed that dictators do not like or trust each other; but unfortunately they do learn from each other. In a note of warning to the Western countries, he recalls that under UN sanctions, Iraqis were supposed to rise up against Saddam.
"They didn't - because they were too busy trying to keep their families alive without bread or fresh water or money. Saddam lost all but four provinces of Iraq in the 1991 rebellion. But he got them back. Now western Libyans live without bread or fresh water or money. And Gaddafi yesterday spoke in Tripoli's Green Square with the same resolution to "rescue" Benghazi from "terrorists"," Fisk says in an article carried by The Independent.
Following the US embassy bombing in Beirut in 1983, the US and Iraq were exploring the possibility of pooling resources in the fight against Iran, but the US was still reluctant to normalise relations so long as Saddam continued to host Abu Nidal, the founder of Palestinian organisation Fatah, who only previous year had allegedly masterminded the attempted assassination of Israeli ambassador to London. In his book Saddam-The Secret Life, Con Coughlin has recalled that in order for Washington to agree to normalise actions with Baghdad, George Shultz insisted that Saddam must get rid of Abu Nidal.
"The Iraqi leader duly obliged, but in the most bizarre way imaginable. Soon after the [George] Shultz-[Tariq] Aziz meeting the government-owned Iraqi media solemnly announced that Abu Nidal had died of a heart attack. The report was confirmed by "sources" close to the Palestinian terrorist. A month later, just as the report was starting to acquire credence in the intelligence community, Libya's colonel Gadhafi announced that Abu Nidal was alive and living in Tripoli, thereby undermining Saddam's rather ingenious attempt to wash his hand of the Abu Nidal issue," says Coughlin.
This was the second most serious shock that Saddam received from Qadhafi after the latter's decision to come out, along with Syria's Hafez al-Asad, from the Arab world in support of Iran during Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. It is also interesting to note that Qadhafi made "peace" with the West hours after US forces captured Saddam hiding in a hole dug in the floor of a cellar in a farm compound near Tikrit.
Toby Dodge, an Iraq specialist at Queen Mary, University of London, has been quoted by Christian Science Monitor as saying: "We have a similar situation here [in Libya] to 1991 [situation in Iraq], with the international community assuming [Qaddafi] will go very soon." According to him, despite the efforts of opposition fighters the current counterattack by pro-Qadhafi forces "means that he might still consolidate his position and remain in power".
(To be continued)