Never think for a second that our corporate controlled government wouldn't do the same.

All this talk of Tripoli has got the Marine Hymn stuck in my head.

chuck you're such a douche.

realistically, how long is mugabe going to last? he's 87 - i'd pick the Sauds over Zimbabwe.

I remember that day well, too. I was with college classmates on Crete that day, and learned Libya had threatened to bomb the American base there in retaliation for the US airstrikes. There was a lot of disgust at the US's usual heavy-handed interventionism by Europeans at the time, and I wondered how it played out back in the States.

How much of our constant troubles in the Mideast could have been alleviated if we were not ourselves addicted to trigger-happy cowboy diplomacy? Not all, but surely some.

In addition to the MANY separate incidents over Libya, remember that Ghaddafi's bombing of the 747 over Lockerbie was supposedly in retaliation (out of solidarity) for our shooting a fully-loaded Iranian passenger jet out of the sky, from within Iranian territorial waters, without provocation, based on idiotic "intelligence" (which seems to be another theme) that the Airbus was an F-14. US remorse was so overwhelming that Bush Sr. gave the commander of the boat that shot the missile the Legion of Merit, even though his own fellow commanders said he was a hothead who had no reason to shoot the plane down. He's a "hero". So is Bush Sr.

Ghaddafi's crazy as a bedbug but we're part of the reason why. And we've been happy to work with him we're not bombing him.

I'm still scratching my head over his 2009 NYT editorial:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinio…

(It's linked on his Wikipedia page under the sections "Books and other writings" and "References," if anybody has trouble with the direct link. The title is "The One-State Solution.")

Libya is one of the worst places at this time. I was on a brief visit there only one day before the riots to start visiting a friend. He lives and works from about 7 years in Libya. The situation there has developed very fast during the night of his war, firing almost constantly. We found out that my friend's friend was killed in a Libyan long nights. I was lucky that I managed to get home, the airport in Tripoli was almost destroyed. Stay away

You seem to be interested in African history, Charles. And so to help guide your awakening about the part Gadhafi has played in it, there was a little trouble once in the country of Sierra Leone, as well as neighboring Liberia. Many of the insurgents during that conflict were trained in Libya. Specifically on using children as soldiers, giving them white-powder drugs (cocaine, MDMA) to control them and to warp their sense of right & wrong. They were also trained in the basics: torture, terrorism, etc. Nice guy.

Always thought it was weird he never promoted himself to General.