The evolution of Qaddafi

[Bucky]

In the beginning, he was Al Pacino. Not "say hello to my leetle friend" Scarface Pacino, but rather a youthful-though-still-jaded Dog Day Afternoon just crazy enough to pull off this coup Pacino, with just a touch of his Godfather Part 1 stylish grooming. This is the Qaddafi of his own legends, a man of hurried destiny.


But the most familiar image of Qaddafi was the Robert Davi Qaddafi--crazed-with-power, but more diabolical than psychotic, more calculating than impulsive. This was Qaddafi at his prime, a man who always kept that one look, but maintained a hundred disguises for his name; you never knew how it was gonna appear next.


But soon we found out that power doesn't just corrupt. Power corrodes as well. This was Qaddafi: the Tyler Perry years. He was done with murdering Italian politicians and blowing up airplanes over Scotland. He just stuck to the basics, funding the PLO, and of course keeping his own people trapped in the 14th Century. This kept him off our radar and even gave him a little room to bargain with the Neocons. With a lot more free time on his hands, he started quietly hitting the discos in Cyprus and enjoying the occasional massage from Heidi his big blonde Ukrainian nurse.


Today we're down to the final stage, the has-been, the wash-out, the pampered freak. This is Steven Seagal Qaddafi--bloated, irrelevant, desperate, like what you'd expect if Elvis had made it to 60--puffy with botox and adulation. Eccentricity doesn't cover the topic, but psychosis alone can't excuse the behavior. He's empowered beyond the point of ambition, for he's not ambitious in the normal sense of the world. He aspires to self gratification and self preservation, but there's no goals anymore, only the bloated habits of an Ottoman potentate, launching SWAT raids on chicken farms or tossing hoards of mercenaries at his subjects, wallowing in his excesses and never hearing, or at least understanding, the growls of discontent.


I'm sorry to hear that it looks like he's going to hang on a while longer now. There will never be justice done to the injustices he's created. He's beyond that. We can only wait for him to go away as soon as possible, even if yesterday was too late.

[Teaser]

1. HE IS A HERO AGAINST AL QAEDA

gaddafi for president!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bucky]

5. I don't think he even holds an official political office in Libya. They just do what he says.

It's crazy... especially once some of them stop doing what he says.

[leveymg]

2. Nice photo montage, but the man started out as a CIA protectorate, and will end up like one.

Discarded when no longer useful. The most dangerous job in the world: an aging CIA-supported despot. Just ask Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein.

Like the others, Mohamar was a "bastard, but at least he's our bastard." (Actually, that was what FDR said about Somoza, Sr.) In 1967, Captain Gadhaffi was the leader of a group of Libyan junior officers who had been sent to England's Sandhurst Military College. Gadhaffi and the other "Free Officers" took control without much violence while King Idris was visiting London. When Idris tried to recruit British mercenaries to overthrow the junta, the CIA stepped in and quashed the counter-revolution. Gadhaffi was judged a reliable anti-communist and someone whom the west could "do business with", as indeed he proved to be.

When Saudi Arabia and most of the rest of the region's oil-producing states fully nationalized the holdings of the Seven Sisters after the 1973 war, Libya allowed the western oil giants to keep a 30 percent stake. No matter how outrageous Libya's activities in support of terrorists were, Britain, France, Italy and the western oil companies never fully stopped doing business with him. He made a lot of people in the west very rich.

Gadhaffi has stayed in power all these years because he's essentially been someone who the west could count on to keep producing and to keep his countrymen quietly under his heel. The real question is: why cancel his show now? What sponsor did he lose?

[Bucky]

3. NB: IIRC, FDR said SOB, FYI

You might want to fit Ronald Reagan bombing Libya in 1986 somewhere in your timeline. We haven't always been in love with him.

[leveymg]

4. Stormy marriage. We were many wives ago.

But, there remained interests in common. Like the kids, and the trust funds . . . even got back together during the Bush-Cheney years, but by then the STDs were acting up on both sides. Son of a Bitch - what is that thing growing there?! Back to separate beds.

Then, a shot in the night. LAPD, all those helicopters. The neighbors won't ever forgive this noise and the unwanted outside attention.

The lawyers will get most of what's left.

[libmom74]

6. That's the same question

I've been asking myself, especially when I heard the Scahill interview with Ed Shultz and Scahill was talking about the CIA getting involved and the possibility of us arming and training what Ed kept calling the freedom fighters, all I could think of was Afghanistan in the late 1970's and how the CIA had armed and trained another group of "freedom fighters" which were called Al Qaeda and the promising, charismatic leader that they put in charge Osama Bin Laden (and we all know how that turned out).

[radhika]

7. Assuming he surivives- is he Brando?

Not in a movie, but those final bloated years in LA. Mourning (supposedly) the death of his daughter and the murder trial/conviction of his son, Christian.