A pair

Muammar rambles

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, took the lectern at the United Nations on Wednesday morning for his first address at the General Assembly, and delivered a long and rambling diatribe — far exceeding the 15-minute limit on speeches — against the United Nations Security Council and a host of other perceived enemies, while urging the world to welcome President Obama, referring to him as “our son.”

Of Africa?

In the first third of a speech that lasted more than 90 minutes, Colonel Qaddafi focused on what he called the inherent unfairness of the United Nations, which gives the five permanent members of the Security Council far more authority than the nations in the General Assembly. This, Mr. Qaddafi said, was dictatorship, not democracy, and as such, “was terrorism itself.”

And when was the last time the Colonel held elections in his democracy?

The Afghan war, too, he said, should be investigated for possible prosecution. At times, Colonel Qaddafi veered into conspiracy, saying, for example, that the H1N1 influenza virus, also called swine flu, might be a military or corporate weapon that got out of a lab and intimating an Israeli hand behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, should be solved by the creation of a single state, which Mr. Qaddafi calls Israteen, but Mr. Qaddafi stressed it is wrong to infer that Arabs hate the Jews. “You are the ones who burned them, not us. You expelled them,” he said, referring apparently to European nations.

For Mr. Obama personally, however, he had only warm words, calling on the collected nations to welcome “our son” on the occasion of his first United Nations appearance. “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of America,” he said, saying he feared America would return to its old ways after the end of his term.

Oy vay.

Cartoon from London Times

Italy: Tepid Applause for Qaddafi

The Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, on Thursday urged the world to understand what motivates terrorists, and likened the 1986 strikes by the United States on Libya to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist attacks. Colonel Qaddafi, left, who was long accused of sponsoring terrorism, got tepid applause from the Italian lawmakers he addressed on the second day of a trip to Italy, Libya’s former colonial ruler. “It is not very intelligent to chase terrorists down the Afghan mountains or Central Asia,” he said. “That’s impossible. We must look at their reasons.”

Weird reasoning, but par for Muammar.

What a pair

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, right, in Rome on Wednesday.


Where'd Muammar get those shades?










Italy came to terms with its colonial past on Wednesday in a somewhat surreal news conference with two of the world’s most colorful politicians, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Surreal and colorful are perfect adjectives for this pair.

The Colonel's visit comes just months after Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion in reparations as part of a treaty nominally about healing colonial wounds but in practice more about helping business and stemming illegal immigration.

Curiously, the Colonel has never promoted himself to General.

In rambling remarks, Colonel Qaddafi praised Italy as the “only colonial state” that had “cleaned up its past from expansionist and colonialist policies.” Mr. Berlusconi, at turns weary and ebullient, declared “a new era of peace and friendship and collaboration” between the countries.

A good point.

In one of the least notable colonial histories in Europe, Italy ruled Libya from 1911 to 1943.

32 years as colonial master.

Earlier, Mr. Berlusconi greeted Colonel Qaddafi at Rome’s Ciampino airport, where the North African leader was flanked by his trademark cadre of female bodyguards, whom the Italian news media referred to as “Amazons.”

What can anyone add? Well, leave it to the Colonel to come up with something.

Colonel Qaddafi arrived with a provocation pinned to one lapel of his baggy military uniform: a black-and-white photograph of a Libyan resistance leader, Omar al-Mukhtar, who was hanged by the Italians in 1931. “This hanging is like the crucifixion of Christ for Christians,” Colonel Qaddafi said at the news conference. “For us, this image is a bit like the cross that some of you wear.”

So, Muammar is claiming al-Mukhtar was the son of Allah?

Italy had practical goals in mind. The financial crisis has led Italian blue-chip companies like the bank Unicredit and the energy utility ENI to rely more on Libyan investment. So in exchange for the $5 billion in reparations it is due to receive over 20 years, Libya will provide Italy with more oil, make it easier for Italian companies to conduct business there and place Italian companies “in first place” to win infrastructure contracts, Mr. Berlusconi said.

Reparations to one person, perhaps a bribe to another.

Colonel Qaddafi, meanwhile, offered ruminative remarks on colonialism and migration. He said that Italians should understand “the appeal of Europe” to many Africans. “They have no identity,” he said. “They come out of the forest, they say, ‘In the North there’s money, I’ll go to Libya and then to Europe.’ ”

Out of the forest? What a choice of words.

Students have protested his planned speech at La Sapienza University, and the Jewish community has also grumbled about the colonel’s visit. Many Jews fled to Italy after being expelled from Libya in 1967, and many of them are asking for restitution for their confiscated property.

Perhaps the Colonel can dip into the 5 billion, or, perhaps, ask his friend Silvio for a few Euros.

In Rome, Colonel Qaddafi has pitched his Bedouin tent in a public park, the Villa Doria Pamphili.

That is spin par excellence.

At his request, on Friday he is expected to meet with 700 Italian women from the business and cultural sectors, an encounter organized by the equal opportunities minister.

The Colonel gets the final word.

Pakistan Frees Nuclear Scientist

This is the man who sold nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

The One-State Solution

Everybody has an opinion. This is Qaddafi's. And it is an interesting one.

THE shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend’s cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes.

After a couple of weeks of seeing and of knowing what was going on, it became a shock to continue to see it. 1,300 dead. UN facilities hit. Civilians used as shields. It is interesting, ,and then some, to read Qaddafi writing of religious extremists feeding on conflict.

The basis for the modern State of Israel is the persecution of the Jewish people, which is undeniable. The Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion by the Egyptians, the Romans, the English, the Russians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites and, most recently, the Germans under Hitler. The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland.

Will Qaddafi recognize the state of Israel? He just has. Now he needs to send an ambassador, after signing a treaty.

But the Palestinians too have a history of persecution, and they view the coastal towns of Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and others as the land of their forefathers, passed from generation to generation, until only a short time ago.

Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa.

Thus the Palestinians believe that what is now called Israel forms part of their nation, even were they to secure the West Bank and Gaza. And the Jews believe that the West Bank is Samaria and Judea, part of their homeland, even if a Palestinian state were established there. Now, as Gaza still smolders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work.

Pretty much it in a nutshell. The Colonel recognizes matters clearly.

A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point. Further, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would do little to resolve the problem of refugees. Any situation that keeps the majority of Palestinians in refugee camps and does not offer a solution within the historical borders of Israel/Palestine is not a solution at all.

True.

In absolute terms, the two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an “Isratine” that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it.

Nice theory; will either side even consider this?

It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.” Yet only the full territories of Isratine can accommodate all the refugees and bring about the justice that is key to peace.

Great analysis. Too bad he didn't make it twenty years ago, but, nonetheless, it is welcome.

If the present interdependence and the historical fact of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence guide their leaders, and if they can see beyond the horizon of the recent violence and thirst for revenge toward a long-term solution, then these two peoples will come to realize, I hope sooner rather than later, that living under one roof is the only option for a lasting peace.

Idealistic, perhaps unrealistic, but welcome. How about that treaty?

Switzerland Frees Suspected Smuggling Nuclear Technology

Swiss authorities have released from jail a man suspected of smuggling atomic technology to Libya and Iran as part of the nuclear black market of Abdul Qadeer Khan, officials and family members said Monday.

Khan is the one who sold atomic secrets to Iran, and was, in turn, pardoned by Musharraf. I never have understood why that story disappeared from the public radar.

The suspect, Urs Tinner, was freed Dec. 22 after more than four years in investigative detention, Swiss officials said. They added that his brother Marco remained in jail because of worries that he still had access to nuclear-weapons secrets.

Spying seems to be a family business: The developments were a new phase in Switzerland’s long efforts to prosecute the family of Swiss engineers, including the Tinner patriarch, Friedrich. All three are suspected of criminal export violations. The father was released from jail in 2006 pending legal action.

In May, the president of Switzerland confirmed that the government had destroyed a trove of computer files and other material documenting the family’s business dealings. He said that the action was taken to keep plans for nuclear arms and technologies from ever falling into terrorist hands. But in interviews last summer with The New York Times, American officials said they had urged the destruction less to thwart terrorists than to hide evidence of a secret relationship between the Tinners and the C.I.A. They said that the family provided a unique lens on the secret activities of Libya, Iran and Dr. Khan.

Now that's interesting: a secret relationship between the Tinners, who sold atomic secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya, and the CIA. A way to monitor illicit activity, it is said, yet a facilitation of behavior that the US government denounced publicly.

Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem

Mr. Schoenfeld (who wrote "The Home-Front Battle Heats Up") is the senior editor of Commentary. So I went to look at Commentary.

Its website is described in Google as General, yet Jewish. Highly variegated, with a unifying perspective. On its front page I found this picture. A variation of the old slogan Yanqi go home, it includes the hammer-and-sickle, and the age-old anti-semitic slur. Always the Jews.

... to dismiss Chávez as a lunatic is to wish away his proven political skill. He is, without question, a powerful figure—and one who, thanks to a quirk of geography, is also in possession of dangerously large amounts of oil.

Heavy crude, high in sulfur, but an awful lot of it. 100 billion barrels, perhaps 80 billion; a lot of oil.

Chávez has made common cause with FARC, a narco-terrorist group ... Libya ... Syria, Hizballah, and Hizballah’s patron Iran. Virtually alone among world leaders, Chávez is an impassioned defender of Tehran’s right to pursue nuclear technology and has even hinted he would be willing to finance it.

Quite a cast of characters, his allies.