I may back terror again, says Gaddafi

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/28/wlib28.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/04/28/ixportal.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=33722

The Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi, dented his return from pariah status on his first visit to Europe yesterday in 15 years by warning the European Union that he hoped Libya would never have to go back to supporting terrorism.

In a 45-minute harangue in Brussels, flanked by a group of photogenic women bodyguards, he will have caused anxiety to those who have welcomed him back to the fold.

"I hope that we shall not be prompted or obliged by any evil to go back or to look backwards," he said after defending his past support for militant third world freedom fighters.

"We do hope that we shall not be obliged or forced one day to go back to those days when we bombed our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women so that we will not be searched and not be harassed in our bedrooms and in our homes, as it is taking place now in Iraq and in Palestine."

[Eye and Monkey]

1. Poster-boy for BushCo's success?

[T_i_B]

3. Blair too

Remember Blair's meeting with Gaddafi not too long ago?

[Eye and Monkey]

5. Well, there's BushCo, and there's Blair 'Ho (a wholly-owned subsidiary)

[ze_dscherman]

9. Steve Bells comment on that visit

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1177493,00.html

[Syrinx]

2. Well that's interesting.

[truthisfreedom]

4. gosh. bushco must be thrilled.

they love that terrah stuff... makes their world go 'round.

[Donkeyboy75]

6. Hee hee hee.

I love it when * and his merry band of dipshits get in bed with unpredictable characters...touting their success then it comes back to nip 'em in the ass! :bounce:

[xchrom]

7. politics aside -- i mean totally aside --

ya gotta wonder about gaddafi -- he is the STRANGEST man.
he must have the cleaning ladies in his house a nervous wreck.

[Atlas Mugged]

8. "Photogenic women bodyguards"???

Has he been watching too many Robert Palmer videos?

[frankieT]

10. LOL no i think its a kind a of mix

between James Bond from the 60's, strong feminism et excentric behaviour. tyrants can be funny... sometimes.

[newyawker99]

29. Hi Sailing To Byzantium!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Blasphemer]

30. LOL...

Maybe he thinks would be attackers will be too mesmerized by their beauty to be effective? I hope there is a picture somewhere.

[nodehopper]

11. translated as: Bush, gimme more $$$

[stevedeshazer]

23. *ding*

That's it.

[Muddleoftheroad]

12. Hard to tell

If he's just pandering to the radicals or if he means it. Always hard to tell with him.

[snippy]

13. Another example of the Bush Fecal Midas Touch.

[leesa]

14. Well, if he's working for the Bush Crime Family now, I'm certain he will.

[mumon]

15. You guys are reading this all wrong...

Khaddaffy's crazy like a fox.

Why shouldn't he hold out the possibility of using the same techniques as the Israelies ("targetted killings" are what, prey tell?) if he doesn't get his way?

He "renounced" "terrorism" because he wanted something.

Once he gave it up, he has to at least give the appearance of having an alternative action if he didn't get what he wants, if only for his domestic consumption.

Besides, Buscho and Poodle-boy are masturbating each other just thinking about swallowing Khaddaffi's light, sweet crude, metaphorically speaking.

[ewagner]

18. Crude but most likely true

The only way I can interpret this statement is:

buy me off....or else!

[PATRICK]

19. True

It is the decent folk giving Bush the benefit and willing to bury the hatchet that are giving Bush the rope to hang them. I am afraid Bush has to negotiated with like any tinpot corrupt dictator.

[Guaranteed]

16. Gee, Bush, way to go!

Dealing with terrorists. Real fucking good, buddy.

[Guaranteed]

17. BTW here's an opening for Kerry to attack....nt

[Zero Gravitas]

20. letting this loon out of his box

is monumental stupidity even by Bush's standards. Of course he only did that to try and make his stupidity in Iraq look somehow worthwhile (at least to people who never read a newspaper in the past 10 years.)

[underpants]

21. Geez is there anything they do that they don't get PLAYED on?

The Iraqis now want FULL sovereignty (there realy is no other kind) and now the guy they made a deal with (cutting his expenses and letting him back onto the world stage) so they could trumpet the success of the pre-emptive strike is already turning around on them.

It is quite amazing how horrible they are at this.

[GermanDJ]

22. And I feared ...

... that the Daily Telegraph would forever keep that bad name it earned as a 'journalistic' institution on many occasions before, especially among Democrats and Liberals.
People were saying so nasty things about this 'newspaper'. You know, unfair stuff like it belongs to Hollinger, is via Richard Perle connected to the AEI and works as a right wing propaganda tool, etc.

It's good to see that finally Democrats have realized their previous mistakes and embrace unbiased quality journalism which does not at all serve certain right wing ideological interests.

</sarcasm>

How comes that reports about Qaddafi's visit sound much different in other European newspapers compared to this 'article' in the Telegraph?

For further reference you might wanna check:

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=13804

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,777100,00.html

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1602890.php

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/aboutus/exclusions/general.xml

[T_i_B]

24. Well how is Gaddafi's visit being reported elsewhere?

Links please. :-)

And besides, the Telegraph actually has a higher standard of journalism than the Murdoch owned Times! It may be right wing but just because it has an editorial line that you disagree with is not enough to make it a disreputable source IMHO. It's when you get Murdoch-rag levels of spin that you have to worry.

Here's the Europa link that the Telegraph article links to BTW.

http://europa.eu.int/news/index_en.htm

[GermanDJ]

26. Yeah, it's just that I'm pretty amused

You know, because currently the US military is slaughtering civilians in Falluja, but there is no real outcry in our 'free' press about this. More or less at the same time I learn that John Negroponte will soon be announced as new ambassador to Iraq and seemingly no one remembers that under his supervision as ambassador to Honduras the US has conducted countless terrorist acts against Nicaragua, killing tens of thousands of innocent people. Or US General Kimmit is asked if he isn't bothered that Arabic TV stations document the killing of hundreds innocent civilians (a clear terrorist act by all means, although conducted by the West) and he calmly answers "if you're bothered change the TV channel".

I beg you not to think that this statement of mine is meant to be snotty. It's not. I've seen the same pattern and the same excuses when my own country was involved in illegal bombings of Serbia (attacking TV stations, etc).

But back to my statement from before:

I remember vividly that the Telegraph and especially the Hollinger group was often attacked last year in the run-up to the Iraq war (also an example for a terrorist act which killed several tens of thousands people). People were very aware at that time, that Perle was using his media conglomerate to spread his (the PNAC) point of view.

It's not easy to prove my statement from before, because I was referring to non-english newspapers, but I think I can show you nevertheless some examples:

- The Scotsman: Reports rather unbiased, reports equally about critics and supporters of the Libyan government, mentions criticism of Libya's human rights status as well as the "remarkable progress" in shedding its rogue nation status, including abandoning its nuclear weapons programme and settling the Lockerbie and UTA airliner bombing cases.

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=476572004

- Netherlands Expatica deals with the same subject as the remarkably one-sided Telegraph article: The Expatica article mentions terrorism as well, but puts it in a meaningful context:

"When asked about Libya's past support for organizations generally regarded as terrorist groups he made it clear he had no qualms about his own country's actions.
(...)
"We were in a phase of fighting for emancipation, liberation.... We were accused of being terrorists, but that is the price we had to pay. If that is terrorism, then we are proud to be terrorists because we helped the liberation of the (African) continent", Qaddafi said."

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=48&story_id=7044

- The Bulgarian News Network deals mainly with the case of several Bulgarian medics who are accused of deliberately infecting children with the HIV virus:

"The Libyan leader said he had intervened to ensure the trial of five Bulgarian nurses and one doctor, accused of infecting 426 children, was fair and just. A verdict is due on May 6.
"I have used my moral influence with the judiciary system in Libya for them to call any lawyers and to allow the presence of the ambassador and the government of Bulgaria to be witness to any ruling of the court," Gadhafi said.
"I believe that the world will witness now that this court is public, open and fair and just," he added. Prodi voiced sympathy for the families and children infected at the Benghazi hospital and hinted that Brussels could offer some aid to help close the case."

http://www.bgnewsnet.com/story.php?sid=4768

[T_i_B]

35. The Torygraph article reports comments

which the articles you posted simply did not report. Given the nature of those comments I think the Torygraph article is actually justified in reporting what it did and treating it as they did. it makes reference to the comments he made about Libya's past involvement with terrorism that the other articles report and also reports the following comments.

"I hope that we shall not be prompted or obliged by any evil to go back or to look backwards," he said after defending his past support for militant third world freedom fighters.

"We do hope that we shall not be obliged or forced one day to go back to those days when we bombed our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women so that we will not be searched and not be harassed in our bedrooms and in our homes, as it is taking place now in Iraq and in Palestine."

The only spin in the Telegraph article is the treatment of these comments as a threat. Having read his comments in the articles you posted I also think that there is a small amount of justification for this.

[Mike Daniels]

25. Interesting that he left out "blowing planes out the sky"

in his "we hope not to return to" speach.

Of course since it was that act that led to his house being bombed and his daughter being killed perhaps he realizes that isn't a good route to return to.

Why anyone would even allow this loon access to respectability is beyond me.

[GermanDJ]

27. Libya was probably not responsible for the Lockerbie bombing

This is a re-post of a reply I gave a couple of days ago, it describes what I have learned about this criminal case in which I have invested a little bit time and research. I see it as a case study for propaganda in Western democracies (I learned my share about this matter when our own air force began attacks against Serbia four years ago and our former defense minister unambiguously used propaganda to justify the attacks, which were forbidden by our constitutional law).


The trial in which (only one) of the Libyan suspects was sentenced and which is regarded as 'proof' that Libya was involved in the bombing was rather bizarre, to say the least. At the crime scene in Lockerbie vast amounts of money and drugs were found. None of which were presented at the trial. Probably because this evidence would have pointed in the direction of the real perpetrators: Iran and a radical Palestinian group. The bombing of the PanAm flight was probably a revenge for the shoot down of a civil airplane by US military during the Iran-Iraq war (shortly before Iran stopped hostilities).

You might ask why the real terrorists were not accused? Well, I can answer that: Because there were hostages in the Middle East which would have been endangered if the "wrong" states would be accused.

Some facts regarding Lockerbie and the events which (probably) led to it can be found here:

http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/TerrorInUSA/faq/Libya.asp#lockerbie

http://www.countercurrents.org/chomsky3.htm

http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/chris.holt/home.informal/bar/politics/vincennes.3

http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/prospects_for_peace.htm

[Minstrel Boy]

33. Thanks for posting this.

I too believe Libya was made to take the fall.

Trail of the Octopus is an interesting book detailing Lockerbie's drug connection.

[daleo]

28. Bear in mind, this is the Telegraph

Until recently owned by Conrad Black (I think he has had to sell by now), with Richard Perle on the board. They are not an unbiased news source, by a long shot.

[robertpaulsen]

31. "I may increase the deficit again" says Bush

Gee, whoda thunkit?

[Toucano]

32. Total nut case.

Small wonder he's on the chimp's side now.

Birds of a feather...

[2cents]

34. Symbolically...

...he gave up his manhood to the West. Now, through rhetoric and entourage, he is symbolically trying to salvage what he can.

[CBHagman]

36. And this is our new pal.

Such a proud accomplishment for Bush and Blair. :puke: