In Libya, Gaddafi Sounds Scared

[Geee]

Pajamas Media:

“We need to create a problem for the world,” Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi declared on Libyan state TV Sunday, in what Reuters describes as his first major speech since a popular uprising toppled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak last Friday. The problem Gaddafi would like to create, as he explicitly urged in his speech, is a siege of Israel. Saying “this is a time of popular revolutions,” Gaddafi called for Palestinians to mass along Israel’s borders, by land and sea.

These are the words of a dictator who has a big problem of his own. Gaddafi’s real problem has nothing to do with Israel, or with the Palestinians. Gaddafi’s problem is Libya, where Libyans have even more reasons to hate him than the Egyptians had to hate Hosni Mubarak. Since Gaddafi came to power in a coup in 1969, he has ruled for more than 41 years — that’s 12 years longer than Mubarak ruled Egypt. Like Mubarak, Gaddafi has been arranging to turn his dictatorial rule into a dynasty, with one of his sons, Saif al-Islam, being the heir apparent. For decades Gaddafi has lived large, funneling his country’s oil wealth into schemes to maintain his own power, while crushing his countrymen. Whatever terrorism he might have abjured abroad in order to get out from under international sanctions, he still rules on the basis of terror at home. His regime — with its ruthless secret police, ghastly prisons, and jailing or outright murder of those who dissent from his crackpot controls over virtually every aspect of life — is exactly the kind of rotting relic that an angry, captive populace might wish to sweep aside.

Now come the popular revolts and the ouster of ossified dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. In Libya, opponents of the regime have called for a Day of Rage this Thursday, Feb, 17th. That day is the fifth anniversary of protests that began as a staged demonstration in 2006 against the Danish Mohamed cartoons — and then spun out of control. Libyan security forces fired on the crowd, killing at least 10. Over the next three days, as American-Libyan human rights activist Mohamed Eljahmi reported shortly afterward, protesters expressed their fury with the regime by burning government buildings, police cars, and branches of Gaddafi’s revolutionary committees. The Libyan government had to bring in special forces to regain control.