Wither Gaddafi

I have been sharing thoughts with an old buddy on events and happenings around the world. I feel it is worth while sharing his thoughts on the going on associated with Libya and its leader Muaamar Gaddafi. After all he was there many good years and had the opportunity of meeting the man in his heyday picking his brain. Unfortunately this buddy of mine is quite shy in revealing his identity.

Here goes:

So Qaddafi keeps on ranting madly. I don’t think he is getting any sympathy. Amir Musa the secretary general of the Arab League now complains that the strikes were too harsh mouthing Gaddafi's propaganda about civilian casualties. The former Foreign Minister of discredited Mubarak now wants to be president!  The Arab League is toothless - it didn’t do anything about Tunisia and Egypt and full of hollow words. It calls for an emergency meeting but who is going to attend?

The Arab League has failed miserably on Palestine as Arab countries have different agendas.

So to voice a discordant note is aimed at establishing some credibility for himself?

As more strikes are envisaged Qaddafi's forces will no longer have the use of their planes and will find it difficult to withstand the renewed offensive of the rebels. Probably there are still a lot more artillery and missiles that need to be destroyed before a final push on Tripoli begins. The US does not want a divided truncated Libya which would only mean the rebels' eventual control of Tripoli and Qaddafi's ouster.
 

There is no doubt Qaddafi has been a brutal dictator.  Those so called followers chanting their support are paid to do so. They will be the first to change sides once they see the rebels at the gates. His son and heir apparent Seif now has completely gone silent after the earlier blood curdling threats he made on the rebels.

Qaddafi miscalculated. He was sure that either China or Russia or both would veto the UN resolution empowering the West to take punitive action. Instead they gamely abstained and both South Africa and Nigeria had their arms twisted to fall in line giving the Western alliance the 10 positive votes (one better than the required 9).

Arab countries which came out against the resolution, Algeria and Syria, fear that a similar fate may visit them as they have suppressed the opposition in their countries. Indonesia knows too well that after Timor Timur they have to tread carefully over Papua.