Muammar Gaddafi

[[File:Muammar al-Gaddafi at the AU summit-LR.jpg|thumb|right|165px|The Colonel. No, not the KFC guy....]]{{politics}}
{{Cquote|I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level.|||Gaddafi<ref>[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/10/20/gaddafi-as-orator-a-life-in-quotes Gaddafi as orator: A life in quotes: In speeches that at times stretched to several hours, Gaddafi’s remarks astounded audiences in Libya and abroad.] (20 Oct 2011) ''Al Jazeera''.</ref>}}
'''Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi,''' (Arabic: معمر محمد ابومنيار القذافي‎) ''', alleged "[[drug]]gie [[drag queen]]",<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250002-4.pdf Madman Moammar Now A Druggie Drag Queen] by Niles Lathem & Doug Feiden (17 June 1986) ''New York Post'' via ''Central Intelligence Agency''. Page 4.</ref> Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution, King of the Kings of Africa, May His Spellings Be Many''',<ref>According to ABC News, [http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/08/rebel-discovers-qaddafi-passport-real-spelling-of-leaders-name/244077/ about 122 different ways], although here we only use 14 of them.</ref> aka '''The Mad Dog of the Middle-East''' {{lived|1942|2011}} was the [[dictator]] of [[Libya]] from 1969 until his death. Interestingly, even after taking control of Libya {{Gaddafi}} never upped his military rank past colonel, apparently out of a desire to avoid taking any grandiose titles.<ref>[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/12/why_is_qaddafi_still_a_colonel.html Why Is Qaddafi Still a Colonel?] Umansky, Eric. ''Slate''. 12.23.03</ref> This did nothing to stop him from becoming a horrible [[authoritarian]].{{nofact}} Much like [[Saddam Hussein|a certain mustachiod Iraqi dictator]] Gaddafi was caught hiding in a hole, Arab tyrants seem to have a thing for dirty underground holes.<ref>[https://fpif.org/will_gaddafi_end_up_in_a_hidey_hole_like_saddam/]As Predicted, Gaddafi Ended up in a Hidey Hole Like Saddam
Tyrants come to diverse endings.
By ''Russ Wellen''. 10.22.11</ref>

His domestic policy was characterized by [[Islamic]] [[socialist]] economics and [[Welfare state|welfare statism]], funded by having lots of [[Fossil fuel|petroleum]]. In foreign policy, he was an [[Arab nationalism|Arab nationalist]].  He held the creepy title of "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution," had [[personality cult|pictures of himself all over the country]] and tolerated no criticism of himself, in true [[Kim Jong Il]] style. In February 2011, [[civil disobedience]] started in [[Benghazi]] before turning into an all-out [[civil war]]; by August 2011 he had been officially deposed by the National Transitional Council, and he was killed by rebels on October 20.<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15387872 As it happened: Libya's Col Gaddafi killed], BBC</ref> At the time of his death, he was wanted by the {{wpl|International Criminal Court}} for [[crimes against humanity]] due to ordering attacks on civilians; the case was dismissed due to his passing.<ref>[https://www.icc-cpi.int/libya/gaddafi Gaddafi case], ICC</ref>

==Cult of personality==
{{main|Personality cult}}
In 1979, [[journalist]] Oriana Fallaci interviewed {{Gaddafi}}, and among other things exposed his personality cult to his face.<ref name=fallaci/><ref>''Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present'' by Ruth Ben-Ghiat (2021) W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393868419.</ref>{{rp|91-92}}
{{quoteblock|'''{{Gaddafi}}''': … And the same was done by the students. In fact, only the people count in Libya today.

'''Fallaci''': Really? Then how come everywhere I go I see only your image, your picture? Even on the facade of the [[Catholic]] church, which is now a storage depot, there is an enormous picture of you in a military uniform. And the same on the streets, in the shops, in offices. At my hotel they even sell pure silver plates with your picture in the middle.

'''{{Gaddafi}}''': What have I got to do with that? The people wanted it this way. What am I supposed to do to stop them? Can I prohibit it?

'''Fallaci''': Oh, yes, you can. You prohibit so many things, all you do is prohibit; just imagine if you cannot stop this personality cult of yours.

'''{{Gaddafi}}''': What can I do?

'''Fallaci''': As a child I saw the same thing with [[Mussolini]].

'''{{Gaddafi}}''': You said the same thing to [[Khomeini]].

'''Fallaci''': True. I always make that comparison when I interview someone who reminds me of Mussolini.}}

==Transliterations==
If you've read anything about {{Gaddafi}} already, you may have noticed that his name ends up spelled at least a few different ways — there are at least 648 ways to spell {{Gaddafi}}'s name in English. No, really. That's the actual number cited by a 1982 edition of ''Libya: A Modern History''.<ref>John L. Wright (1982). [https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/AfsNAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=648 "Libya: A Modern History"], page 130. Johns Hopkins University Press.</ref> Why the problem?  There is no standardised transliteration of Arabic into [[English]]. Journalists and authors in the western world traditionally spells his name "Muammar al-Gaddafi" while his passport gives his name as "Moamar al Gathaffi." To add to the confusion, the tyrant himself is alleged to have spelt his name "Moammar al Qadaffi" while his playboy son, Saif al-Islam spelt it "Muammar al Kaddaffi."

==''The Green Book''==
[[File:Libya 1979 Int Seminar of the Green Book (Col Gaddafi).jpg|thumb|left|165px|Poster for the 1979 International Seminar of ''The Green Book'']]
{{Gaddafi}} called his political views the "Third International Theory." Those [[political]] and [[economic]] ideas are spelled out in the ''Green Book'' (no relationship to the {{wpl|Green Book (film)|crappy Oscar-bait melodrama of the same name}}), which is split into three sections. Reading the book's contents, one has to wonder what kind of political ideology (if any) he had in mind when writing it, considering how many of the book's odd ideas seemingly contradict each other as well as his rather ''interesting'' take on left-wing governance.

For example, the first section deals with his proposal for a radically decentralized participatory democracy, in which voting, [[political party|political parties]], and representative [[government]] do not exist, and in their place are local popular committees that send representatives to a national assembly (in effect, a representative government, even if he wants to pretend otherwise). This is claimed to be a [[Democracy#Direct democracy|direct democracy]], though by nature it is literally representative. The second section espouses socialism as his favored economic system, albeit a decentralized form led by a form of workers' councils.  The wage system would be abolished and goods produced would belong to the producers.  Production for profit would be banned.  The views in the first two sections of the ''Green Book'' are superficially similar to council [[communism]], except that {{Gaddafi}} opposes [[Marxism]] and espouses Islam.

The economic and political ideas in the first two sections are thus divorced from their [[left wing|left]]-[[libertarian]] origins and instead given a context of [[social conservatism]] and [[Pan-Arabism|pan-Arab nationalism]], which are the subject of the third section of the ''Green Book''. That section contains {{Gaddafi}}'s views on [[social]] and [[moral]] issues, and it is the sort of [[crank]]y stuff of which [[Jerry Falwell]] would be proud: [[Kinder, Küche, Kirche|women should bear children and stay in the kitchen]], [[racism|black people are more sexually active because they have little to do in the hot sun]], and more similar batshittery.

The extent to which the ''Green Book'' has ever served as a real blueprint for Libya's governance is questionable at best.  In practice, {{Gaddafi}} was an [[Autocracy|autocratic]] military dictator who let Libya's popular committees and workers' councils have their say but then did whatever he wanted to anyway, with the popular democracy serving as a sort of steam valve for popular discontent and opinion but not exercising any actual governance over the country.  If the committees decided something he didn't like, {{Gaddafi}} simply overrode it. Key to how this worked was the ''Green Book'''s proposal that there should be no written [[constitution]] or body of [[law]], but that society should operate on the [[traditional values|basis of tradition]] &mdash; in theory, organically emerging from a monolithic society sharing a single [[culture]]; in practice, whatever {{Gaddafi}} said went.  In reality, Libya did have laws and a written body of same, but they originated in decrees from {{Gaddafi}} and the revolutionary council.  Those laws include the banning of political parties, imprisonment of anyone criticizing the government, and imprisonment of anyone discussing any [[heresy|heresies]] that depart from the One True Green Book. For a country supposedly based on the idea that there should be no "law", Libya sure did have a lot of [[Prisoner of conscience|political prisoners]].

==Women==
Despite {{Gaddafi}}'s regressive pronouncements about women in ''The Green Book'', {{Gaddafi}}'s coup granted women far more rights and legal protections than before the coup.<ref name=benghiat>''Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present'' by Ruth Ben-Ghiat (2021) W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393868419.</ref>{{rp|132}} However, {{Gaddafi}} was far from being a [[feminist]]. He kept a private harem of rotating sex slaves within his personal Bab al-Aziza compound that he [[rape]]d and [[torture]]d. He even selected girls and women to be enslaved when he visited the schools and universities.<ref name=benghiat/>{{rp|131-134}}

==Relationship with the world==
Gaddafi's first move after the 1969 [[revolution]] was to kick [[U.S.]] and [[British]] military bases off Libyan soil.

During the mid-1980s, Gaddafi made his presence known by supporting several high-profile [[terrorist]] groups.  His support of terrorism earned him the ire of the [[Ronald Reagan]] administration, who dubbed him "the Mad Dog of the [[Middle East]]".

Ten days after a discotheque bombing in West [[Berlin]] in 1986 which killed three and injured 230 including 79 American nationals, Reagan, suspecting Libya was behind the attack, unleashed a bombing raid on Libya, which {{Gaddafi}} claimed killed his 15-month-old adopted daughter ([[evidence]] for this is lacking). Subsequently, evidence has shown that Libya was indeed behind the Berlin bombing.<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/14/world/4-guilty-in-fatal-1986-berlin-disco-bombing-linked-to-libya.html 4 Guilty in Berlin Disco Bombing Linked to Libya], ''The New York Times''</ref> 

Having laid low for a couple of decades and made a few showy moves of dismantling his [[nuke|nuclear program]], {{Gaddafi}} was once again being trotted out as an example of a (reformed) [[lulz|moderate]] Arab leader (with ''some'' basis in fact, but avoid [[not as bad as]] please). [[China]] and [[Russia]] were two of the most valuable traders in Libyan [[oil]] up until the civil war in 2011.

===Military blunders===
Despite his background as a military figure {{Gaddafi}} had an impressively bad record of leading Libya into [[war]]s, losing, but somehow retaining his power. In 1977 {{Gaddafi}} tried to stop [[Egypt]] and [[Israel]] from making a peace agreement that would later be known as the Camp David Accords. A planned "march on Cairo" to protest the treaty involved several Libyan tank divisions. The Egyptians easily repelled this invasion and Anwar Sadat was planning a campaign to push to Tripoli before other Arab states intervened.<ref>[http://www.historyguy.com/egypt_libya_war_1977.htm Egyptian-Libyan War of 1977]</ref>

Afterward, {{Gaddafi}} turned his attention south to Chad, which had been fighting a [[civil war]]. {{Gaddafi}} was hoping to seize some of the northern portions of that nation and began backing some of the factions in the civil war. [[France]], however, was concerned about {{Gaddafi}} extending his influence south out of North Africa and into Central Africa. The French (with American, [[Sudan]]ese, and Egyptian assistance) began funding and organizing the Chadians, eventually reaching the point where {{Gaddafi}} had no allies left in Chad. In 1987 his army was defeated in what is known as the "Toyota War," where Chadian fighters literally piled into the back of modified Toyota pickup trucks and pursued his forces across the border.<ref>[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/chad.htm Libyan Intervention in Chad]</ref>  This taught the world that a pickup truck with either a gun or anti-tank missile attached makes a ''really'' effective support vehicle.

===Pan Am Flight 103===
[[File:Muammar al-Gaddafi-30112006.jpg|thumb|right|175px|It was just a joke, bro!]]
{{cquote|In general, I am opposed to the hijacking of planes, but when you talk about the [[Palestinians]] it is another matter.|||{{Gaddafi}} in a 1979 interview<ref name=fallaci>[https://web.archive.org/web/20190625041342/https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/16/archives/iranians-are-our-brothers-an-interview-with-col-muammar-elqaddafi.html 'Iranians Are Our Brothers'] by Oriana Fallaci (December 16, 1979) ''The New York Times'' (archived from June 25, 2019).</ref>}}
On December 21, 1988, 270 people were killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded mid-air over Lockerbie, [[Scotland]]. 15 years later on August 16, 2003, the Libyan government formally admitted responsibility (but did not admit guilt) for the bombing in a letter presented to the president of the [[United Nations]] Security Council. How much {{Gaddafi}} was behind the planning of the bombing is open to conjecture, but it soured relations between Libya and the [[Western world]] for many years.

===Idi Amin===
When [[Idi Amin]] fled [[Uganda]] after the fall of his <strike>kingdom</strike> country, he was offered safe passage to [[Saudi Arabia]] via Libya. {{Gaddafi}} had long supported the Amin government, including supplying [[Mercenary|mercenaries]] to prop up his ailing regime.

===War on Terror===
Soon after the [[9/11]] terror attacks in the United States, British and American intelligence agencies forged a partnership with {{Gaddafi}} to spy on Libyan dissidents in the [[Western world]], in exchange for permission to use Libya as a base for [[extraordinary rendition]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/09/03/libya.west.spies/ |title=Documents shed light on CIA, Gadhafi spy ties |first=Ben |last=Wedeman |work=CNN |accessdate=3 September 2011 |date=3 September 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Libya: Gaddafi regime's US-UK spy links revealed |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14774533 |publisher=[[BBC]] |accessdate=20 December 2013|date=4 September 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Abigail Hauslohner |title=How Libya Seems to Have Helped the CIA with Rendition of Terrorism Suspects |url=http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2091653,00.html |work=Time |accessdate=20 December 2013 |date=Sep 2, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/files-show-mi6-cia-ties-to-libya-reports-20110904-1jrzy.html |title=Files show MI6, CIA ties to Libya: reports |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |accessdate=4 September 2011 |date=4 September 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8739893/Libya-secret-dossier-reveals-Gaddafis-UK-spy-links.html |title=Libya: secret dossier reveals Gaddafi's UK spy links |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |first=Richard |last=Spencer |accessdate=3 September 2011 |date=3 September 2011 |location=London}}</ref> As a relatively secular ruler, {{Gaddafi}} had been battling internally militant jihadists pining for a state fully under [[Sharia]] throughout the lifetime of his regime.

==Wealth==
By the time of his death, LA Times estimated {{Gaddafi}}'s fortune as $200 billion (most of it in accounts and investments in countries like the US, France, Germany, and Italy), what would make this [[hypocrisy|life-long socialist]] in fact, the richest person in the world,<ref>https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-oct-21-la-fg-kadafi-money-20111022-story.html — As Libya takes stock, Moammar Kadafi’s hidden riches astound] '''LA Times'''</ref> although it actually depends at how you measure wealth. Since much of his assets were (at least in theory) the property of the Libyan government, it might not be technically accurate to say that all that money was his, even though he and his sycophants were to some extent the true "owners" of the entire country.<ref>[https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2011/10/25/did-moammar-gadhafi-die-the-richest-man-in-the-world/?sh=5bcf2ed976cf Did Moammar Gadhafi Die The Richest Man In The World?] '''Forbes'''</ref> A considerable part of these assets remained frozen years after his death.<ref>https://www.politico.eu/article/muammar-gaddafi-frozen-funds-belgium-unknown-beneficiaries/ Millions flow from Gaddafi’s ‘frozen funds’ to unknown beneficiaries] '''Politico'''</ref>

==Antisemitism==
In life, {{Gaddafi}} was an [[Antisemitism|antisemite]] of almost [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]-level proportions. He attempted to inculcate hatred of [[Judaism|Jews]] among the populace, confiscating all Jewish property upon rising to power and cancelling all debts to Jews. Despite the prohibition of immigration, most Libyan Jews managed a mass Exodus, leaving only twenty Jews remaining in Libya, with the last dying in 2002. The same year, another woman was discovered to have Jewish ancestry and she wisely fled to Rome upon learning. {{Gaddafi}} made a half-hearted attempt to reconcile with powerful Jewish leaders such as Moshe Kahlon but this was only because of an attempt on the part of his son and expected successor, Saif al-Islam, to persuade Libyan Jewish immigrants to [[Israel]] to return to Libya and surrender the land to the [[Palestine|Palestinians]].<ref>[https://forward.com/news/146435/qaddafis-hatred-of-jews-turned-on-him/ Qaddafi's Hatred of Jews Turned on Him] by Andrew Engel (November 18, 2011) ''The Forward''.</ref> So fierce was {{Gaddafi}}'s hatred of the Jews that he's said to have killed anyone who found out that his mother had Jewish ancestry.<ref>{{cite news |last=Miller |first=Elhanan |title=Gaddafi killed anyone who discovered his mother was Jewish, aide claims |url=http://www.timesofisrael.com/gaddafi-killed-anyone-who-discovered-his-mother-was-jewish-claims-aide/ |date=2012-07-19 |access-date=2023-01-17 |website=The Times of Israel |language=en-US |issn=0040-7909}}</ref>
Yet ironically, during the last days of his life Qadhafi begged Israel to save him.<ref>[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/in-his-last-days-gaddafi-turned-to-israel-for-help-report/amp/]</ref>

==Death==
Following the start of the [[Arab Spring]], an armed insurrection began against the {{Gaddafi}} government and was later backed by [[NATO]]. Following the almost complete defeat of the government forces, {{Gaddafi}} went into hiding. 
He was later captured alive in a sewer,<ref>[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/20/libya-gaddafi-finalhours-idUSL5E7LK4TK20111020 Libya's Gaddafi caught hiding like a "rat"], ''Reuters''</ref> but severely wounded by bullets during the fall of Sirte on October 20, 2011. Shortly afterward he was confirmed dead, as was his son Motassim, also initially captured alive. The circumstances of their deaths remain unclear, and there has been speculation that they could have been [[extrajudicial executions|summarily executed]] by rebel combatants. The UN Human Rights Office and [[Amnesty International]] have called for an official investigation. Various eyewitness accounts and cellphone camera footage have emerged since, suggesting that rebels had beaten and killed the wounded {{Gaddafi}}, who is also alleged to have been sodomised with what was possibly a knife, a bayonet or a stick. The despot's last words are alleged to have been "What did I ever do to you?" and "What you're doing is wrong, guys &mdash; do you understand right and wrong?"<ref>{{wpa|death of Muammar Gaddafi}}</ref>

There is no word on his smoking hot bodyguards, but they were speculated to be [[Silvio Berlusconi|residing in the Italian embassy]].
== Aftermath ==
Then, the Misratan Rebels took Gadafi's mutiliated semi-naked corpse and placed it in a freezer in Misrata where thousands from all around Libya gathered to see the dead tyrant and take photos (reminscent of [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]]'s end), and [[Libya#Post-2014 Libyan Civil War (or whatever the hell is happening there now)|they all lived happily ever after]].<ref>{{wpa|death of Muammar Gaddafi}}</ref>

==External links==
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySvcdXZH6KQ Brooker, you brilliant man] on [[YouTube]] (blocked in the UK)
*[http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/10/more-horrendously-creepy-details-about-qaddafis-condoleezza-rice His equivalent of giving a girl a mixed tape.] - She deserves credit for not nuking his house. (She was also hit on by [[Benjamin Netanyahu|Netanyahu.]]{{fact}})

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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