My Libya, Your Libya, Our Libya

[tabatha]

I descended 55 steps into the labyrinth of Muammar el-Qaddafi’s mind. The glow of cellphones and a feeble flashlight lit a passage into the darkness. A netherworld unfolded — bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, even saunas — linked by tunnels with six-inch-thick metal doors agape at their mouths. No expense had been spared on this lair.

“You see what the rat planned,” said Farage Mohamed, a manager in an oil pipe company, as he led the way to the base of an escape hatch that emerged deep in the gardens of this sprawling former Qaddafi villa in liberated eastern Libya. “It’s like Hitler’s Berlin bunker.”

So Qaddafi always thought this could happen, even 42 years into his rule. He feared someone might slice away the myths — Arab nationalist, African unifier, all-powerful non-president — and leave him, disrobed, a little man in a vast vault with nowhere left to go. In the twisted mind of the despot now derided here as “the man with the big hair,” his own demise was the tousle-coiffed specter that would not go away.

Strange, then, that the United States and Europe never thought this could happen — not to Qaddafi, or Mubarak, or Ben Ali, or any of the other murderous plunderers, some now gone, others slaughtering their own people, here in Libya, or in Syria, or Yemen. Policy was based on the mistaken belief that these leaders would last forever.

They were paranoid about their fates. We were convinced of their permanence.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01cohen.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[tabatha]

1. Recent Yahoo comment

Most of these countries have been turned into nothing more than OIL SELLING CORPORATIONS. Their leaders are nothing more than corporate board members dictating policy to the citizen-employees below them, often these policies are sadistic.

Most of these nations have abysmal human rights records and allow their women to be treated like cattle/property.

The West has encouraged this behavior by not requiring more of the nations we buy oil from.

Italy buys 400,000 barrels of oil from Libya per day and Italy's leader, Silvio Berlesconi is cozy with Ghadafi and recently signed muliple oil and trade deals with the Libyan dictator, despite Libya having one of the WORST human rights records ON EARTH.

80% of Libya's oil is sold to Europe.

Down with the oil-selling-corporate-countries - Up with the rebels who will improve human rights and treat women better.