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Muammar al-Gaddafi - Lunch with the FT
Colonel Muammer Gaddafi was rumoured to be fleeing south across the Sahara in a heavily armed convoy when the man whose job it is to guard him emailed me with a date for lunch. I met Colonel Gaddafi at a restaurant which must remain nameless. Muammar looked different from the person who appears in his early photographs; somehow he reminded me of a scary looking Michael Jackson or Anders Breivik...
Was he brainwashed by the British, I asked. He took a mouthful of water and started talking about his bloodless seizure of power in 1969. "The Americans wanted the British puppet King Idris to be toppled," he explained. He said that, like Nasser, he was at first an asset of the CIA, and then an enemy of the CIA...
"The accusation is that your friends became rich while the people in the eastern parts of Libya were neglected." I said.
"I moved Berbers out of their mud-brick towns into modern apartments, with electricity, running water and satellite TV." He smiled.
"Some people blame me for being a socialist," he said.
"Libya now has the best educated people in Africa and the highest GDP per capita in Africa," he continued.
"We had 10 percent growth of GDP in 2010, the highest of any state in Africa."
"In the first 15 years of Green rule, the number of doctors increased sevenfold."
"Infant mortality is the lowest in Africa."
"Our Great Manmade River scheme is the 'Eighth Wonder of the World'"...
I mentioned the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. "After the fall of Saddam", said Muammar, "I got rid of certain weapons. Even before the Iraq War, I wanted good relations with the West. I had to get the sanctions removed."
"I was tough with the oil companies.
"The Shah of Iran copied me. The Shah, of course, was toppled by the CIA."
I pointed out that Libya had been friends with Idi Amin. "Saddam, the Shah, and Idi Amin were all put into power by the West," explained Muammar. "But when they displeased the West, they suddenly were painted by the Western media as being monsters."...
I related that Libya had reportedly trained and supported Charles Taylor of Liberia. "Charles Taylor was put into power by the CIA," said Muammar.
I asked about Slobodan Milosevic. Muammar pointed out that Milosevic was up against the CIA's al Qaeda. I asked about Libya's alleged support for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines.
"They are financed by the CIA," said Muammar.
I asked Muammar about his support for the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). "These organisations were all controlled by the CIA and MI6," said Muammar. "Many of the top people in the IRA are agents of the British security services. And it should not be forgotten that it was the CIA who supplied weapons to the IRA."...
Was Muammar the planner of the Lockerbie Bombing? Muammar said that the CIA brought down PanAm 103 to destroy Major Charles McKee and the evidence he and his team had collected of CIA drug smuggling."
"Originally I too was working for the CIA."
"I was protected. When the SAS wanted to kill me in 1969, the CIA vetoed the plan. "In 1981, when Giscard d'Estaing plotted to kill me, the CIA vetoed the plan."
Originally posted by CaptChaos
Ghaddafi had like ninety five percent approval rating from Libyans. Hmmm. More than DOUBLE that of our own president.
Oh, the "rebels" said all the people hated him. And those "rebels" appear to be mostly foreign mercenaries.
Originally posted by JunoTheGreat
reply to post by tooo many pills
Your still missing the point DUDE! haha
A generation from now, this is what he will be remembered for:
• Expelling all ethnic Italians in 1970.
• Expelling Libya's Jewish population.
• Banning all opposition to his rule.
• Making engaging in political conversations with foreigners punishable by up to three years in prison.
• Making it a capital crime to form political parties.
• Executing political dissidents in public and then rebroadcasting said executions on state television channels.
• Criminalizing homosexuality, with the punishment for homosexuality being up to five years in prison.
• Forcibly Arabizing the Berbers by forbidding parents to give their children Berber names, banning the use of the Berber language in schools, and assigning Arabic names to Berber towns.
• Making theft punishable by amputation of hands and adultery by 100 lashes.
• Making the testimony of women and non-Muslims inadmissible in criminal cases.
• Torturing prisoners, both before and during the current civil war.
• Sending out assassins to kill Libyans who had fled to other countries just to live free.
• Supporting terrorist groups, including groups not even related to Libyan affairs.
• Having his forces fire upon peaceful demonstrators back in February of this year. This is what led to the uprising in the Libyan people in the first place.
"The aim has been to sustain the sovereignty of individual Libyan citizens through the creation of popular assemblies(mutamarat) and committees(lijan; in such a system that the committee is pervasive at every political level and in every social sector.Every resident belongs to a sovereign popular assembly at the district level; members meet for an annual week of evening sessions to receive reports on local matters and to agree an agenda of important issues(such issues can range widely; from the relation between law and Islam to foreign aid, from policies on expatriates to economic development). The chairman and other mandated delegates carry the findings and conclusions of the meetings to the annual National Assemby which in turn takes its majority decisions to the secretariats"
Originally posted by JunoTheGreat
reply to post by lostjohnny
LOL i know right! I cant believe these guys are trying to stick up for a ruthless murderer! That's one of problems with today's society. People look up to the corrupt and greedy, and put down the noble and wise. sad sad sad
Originally posted by here4awhile
Originally posted by CaptChaos
Ghaddafi had like ninety five percent approval rating from Libyans. Hmmm. More than DOUBLE that of our own president.
Oh, the "rebels" said all the people hated him. And those "rebels" appear to be mostly foreign mercenaries.
isn't this the truth that most anti-libya/anti-gadhaffi creepers try and ignore?
yes...yes it is...
Libya was an exceptionally thriving society in Africa until NATO showed up and ruined the country and it's upcoming...
]WAY better literacy rate, free healthcare (yes, not as good as US's no doubt, BUT FREE) and great education compared to others in Africa...such a sad state of affairs to actually think people believe this crap...
Originally posted by Shminkee Pinkee
Gaddafi WAS a Tyrant. He sold weapons to the IRA & the Red Army Faction, to name two, as well as allowing training camps in the desert...I'm sure, however, the people of Lockerbie, the relatives of the victims on board Pan Am Flight 103, the relatives and friends of PC Yvonne Fletcher, the relatives and friends of the victims of the IRA and the Red Army Faction would be quite happy that he's no longer with us.
I asked Muammar about his support for the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). "These organisations were all controlled by the CIA and MI6," said Muammar. "Many of the top people in the IRA are agents of the British security services. And it should not be forgotten that it was the CIA who supplied weapons to the IRA."
"The purpose of the slaying ... was to 'shape' public opinion and, importantly, pre-empt Parliamentary indignation for the later bombing of Tripoli by British based US warplanes."
"With the agreement of Queenie Fletcher, her mother, I raised with the Home Office the three remarkable programmes that were made by Fulcrum, and their producer, Richard Bellfield, called Murder In St. James's."
"Television speculation is one thing, but this was rather more than that, because on film was George Styles, the senior ballistics officer in the British Army, who said that, as a ballistics expert, he believed that the WPC could not have been killed from the second floor of the Libyan embassy, as was suggested."
"Also on film was my friend, Hugh Thomas, who talked about the angles at which bullets could enter bodies, and the position of those bodies."
"Hugh Thomas was, for years, the consultant surgeon of the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast, and I suspect he knows more about bullets entering bodies than anybody else in Britain."
"Above that was Professor Bernard Knight, who, on and off, has been the Home Office pathologist for 25 years."
"When Bernard Knight gives evidence on film that the official explanation could not be, it is time for an investigation."