The Mad Dog of the Middle East
The crackdown in Libya is unspeakable in its cruelty.
Libyan troops have opened fire with machine-guns and large-calibre weapons on anti-government protesters in the second city Benghazi, witnesses say.
An unknown number of people, including children, are said to have been killed.
These reports, it seems, have been phoned in to the Telegraph's correspondent in Cairo:
Witnesses described scenes of chaos as snipers shot from the roofs of buildings and demonstrators fought back against troops on the ground.
Snipers shot protesters, artillery and helicopter gunships were used against crowds of demonstrators, and thugs armed with hammers and swords attacked families in their homes as the Libyan regime sought to crush the uprising. ...
"Women and children were seen jumping off Giuliana Bridge in Benghazi to escape. Many of them were killed by the impact of hitting the water, while others were drowned."
It's been an overwhelming week of news, and journalists the world around are exhausted. I was about to shut down the computer and go to sleep, but then I saw this on Twitter:
And they want you to know that they will never stand down.#Libya
They want you to know that they are frightened. #Libya
They want you to know that the security forces don't seem to care how many they kill. #Libya
Cameras & reporters strengthen demonstrators. Libya is sealed off. Everyone I speak to there says: 'Tell the world.'#Libya
When I read that, I decided I could wait another fifteen minutes to sleep. I am going to try, with whatever limited power I have, to tell the world, because this is unbearable.
And let me tell the world something else. Ronald Reagan described Gaddafi as "the mad dog of the Middle East."
Of all the evils and perils in the world, there is none that galls Reagan more than terrorism. Of all the anti-American thugs who hang out in the back alleys of the Third World, there is none Reagan despises more than Gaddafi. Last week those two hates came together, prompting Reagan to put the Libyan in the sights of the Sixth Fleet.
By contrast, this photo says it all.
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Dec '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
A+
Sep '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
I'd love to wake up tomorrow to hear that he woke up with a hollowpoint migraine that exited his ear canal.
Dec '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
I wonder how Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond feel tonight, having released one mass murderer to pander to another mass murderer.
Sep '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Yes, supporter of wildcat strikes and Gaddafi.
Oct '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Thank you, Claire, for your consistently clear, timely and on-point posts.
May '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Obama is too G-damned dumb to know what he does.
Jul '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Once again I ask, what sort of people bring children to a riot?
Dec '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
If someone considers it to be an honor and a privilege to sacrifice their own life, that would help to explain their having the same attitude regarding the lives of their children.
Edited on February 20, 2011 at 9:42amJul '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Yes, but at least they gave the Locherbee Bomber a nice place to stay for his last 3 months er, 12 months, er 18 months, er...
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Did you not notice the part about "attacked in their homes?"
Aug '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
We see and hear so much about Rumsfeld meeting Saddam decades before the invasion of Iraq, as if that meeting delegitimised all subsequent action against Saddam, no matter how he behaved.Yet Obama has been shaking hands, sometimes grinning (Chavez), sometimes bowing, with all sorts of despots and dictators, who now presumably will be sequentially condemned as they are toppled by their people while Obama cheers the said people on as if he was somehow the catalyst for the spread of freedom (maybe the last bit is a little hyperbolic, but that seems to be the currency of most discourse on these issues).Why, didn't Obama choose poor benighted Cairo to address the Muslim world-did he mention the awful misery Egyptians were enduring under their cruel and corrupt dictator?
Jul '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Did you not notice the part about "attacked in their homes?" · Feb 20 at 2:01am
Well, what were they doing out by that bridge?
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Like the wicked witch of the west fearing someone might drop a house on her, Gaddafi was much better behaved when he feared the US might drop some heavy iron from an F-111 on him. It seems that the much vaunted "Reset Button," has done little more than revitalize our enemies. I thought The Prophet Obama was going to transcend all this.
Sep '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
I still remember that CIA report labelling him a "pill popping pinhead" which had fine alliteration as well as accuracy.
May '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
It's a pity that Ghaddafi escaped the bombing ordered by President Reagan. No thanks to Malta for warning him.
Oct '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
The same should apply to the Chimp, as his own people refer to him, in Iran.
Save guess who gets blamed... U.S. no win situation there....
Dec '10
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Sorry, Libyan civilians... Our President Obama has sent out the word for at least 3 years, and maybe more, that genocide is not a good enough reason for the U.S. military to be out and about:
Obama: Don’t stay in Iraq over genocide
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19862711/ns/politics-decision_08/
And now, with his cool friends at Google, Code Pink, etc., he has set in motion the Sharia forces that he supports. Did you know that over 3,000 people (more than 9/11, an order of 10 times more than what is being reported in Libya) were killed, just in 2010, in Juarez, Mexico, the other half of the city of El Paso, Texas, right over the border. The U.S. government does nada. Genocide and slaughter are not good reasons for interference, he says.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2010/12/15/Juarez-death-toll-is-3000-so-far-in-2010/UPI-42941292417150/
Jan '11
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Jan '11
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
Jan '11
Re: The Mad Dog of the Middle East
There's a worrying tendency among Middle-East/North Africa analysts in my generation, which hardly remembers Lockerbie. It's too easy to laugh at Ghaddafi's cartoonish persona, at the goofy hats, Amazon bodyguards, and ridiculous pomposity, and forget that it hides genuine evil. I've been guilty of it myself. Thank you for reminding me.