Oriana Fallaci died almost five years ago but her writings live on. She won fame especially for the knowledge, cunning, and feistiness of her interviews with world leaders such as Yasser Arafat, Robert Kennedy, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Ariel Sharon, Lech Walesa, and the Dalai Lama. A collection of some of the best are out this month in a new book in English, Interviews with History and Conversations with Power (Rizzoli New York).
I mention this collection because it includes an interview with Moammar Qaddafi from 1979, with a paragraph (on p. 148) notable at this moment when NATO is making war on him and declaring he must go. With her trademark verve, Fallaci asked him, “You’re not very humble, are you, Colonel?” to which Qaddafi replied with exasperation: “I can survive the attacks of the whole world. And because my Green Book has resolved man’s problems, society’s problems. America can wage war against us, the West can torment us, it doesn’t matter: the world has my Green Book. All we need to defend ourselves is the Green Book.”
Judging by the operations currently underway, Qaddafi finds himself in need of more protection than what his Green Book provides. Typical headline today, from FoxNews.com: “Qaddafi Forces Reportedly Fire Cluster Bombs into Civilian Areas.” That would be Libyan civilian areas, specifically Misrata, the country’s third largest city.
Comment: How satisfying, even three-plus decades later, to watch as a dictator’s pomposity, bluster, and narcissism are punctured for the whole world to see.
Qadaffi is doing just fine for now; p 148 of the Green Book says to use cluster bombs if you feel like it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI do not believe a word of what's being reported in the press. Cluster bombs? Just propaganda. Cue "the Hun" of WWI and the truth being the first casualty of war.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd i wished that media wouldn't not be so ignorant to not say worse. There is nothing special about cluster bombs. Firing an weapon against a civilian is illegal be either a bomb or a bullet. And it is not illegal to fire cluster bombs at a city if the target inside city is military.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI dunno, given the way things are going for NATO in Libya and the fact that we let him slaughter our citizens 25 years ago without sending in the Marines, I'd say the lunatic's boast seems to be not completely without merit.
ps, we (NATO) dropped over a thousand cluster bombs on Kosovo, so it's not really an area where we can take the high road.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI would say it looks like Quadaffi is being vindicated at this point. He doesn't seem to have much to worry about.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr Pipes' satisfaction rings tragically hollow. Qadaffi's cluster bombs are killing people. He lives.
We should have nuked Tripoli the day that Qaaffi accepted responsibility for PanAm 103.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot many dictators in history have fallen from having their pomposity, bluster, and narcissism punctured.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"How satisfying...to watch as a dictator’s pomposity, bluster, and narcissism are punctured...."
This statement verges on the delusional given that it was preceded (and apparently prompted) by a report that Qaddafi is slaughtering civilians.
No, really: I honestly can't figure out what Pipes's reasoning was supposed to be. Does he think that Qaddafi's move was a desperate act that foreshadows a quick demise? Doesn't seem plausible; dictators slaughter civilians all the time, and can nevertheless remain in place for decades.
Maybe Pipes can return to explain himself. Who on earth feels smug when someone starts cluster-bombing his own people?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Lorraine
"...a report that Qaddafi is slaughtering civilians."
It seems to me that the word "civilian" has been stretched beyond the breaking point in the Libyan situation. It's a civil war. Qaddafi and his people are on one side, and some other people are one the other. They're fighting and killing each other. Barring more evidence than has been forthcoming, I refuse to take more moral umbrage at Qaddafi's shelling of an enemy city than I did at Nazi bombing of Britain, or Allied bombing of Dresden.
It's war. In war, you kill your enemies. So it is, so it shall ever be.
The pretense that this is a peaceful-civilians-vs.-murderous-gov't situation pretty much evaporated when the "peaceful civilians" started attacking Qaddafi-held cities under allied air cover.
You want to argue that it's in our national interest to oust Qaddafi? Fine. Want me to be upset that he's winning (or, at least, not losing)? Fine. Want me to be morally outraged that one side in a war is actually ::gasp:: fighting? Not in this lifetime.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse“Qaddafi Forces Reportedly Fire Cluster Bombs into Civilian Areas.”
Despite all the hyperventilating by Obama and O'Riley there are many reports out there that show the causalities so far suffered by the public in Libya have been nothing out of the ordinary for an insurgent war. If the cluster bombs are anything like the immanent disaster in Benghazi it's more rebel propaganda to stampede the West into attacking Kadaffi than a need to protect citizens from genocide.
"a dictator’s pomposity, bluster, and narcissism are punctured for the whole world to see".
In the sense that the West has had it enough to decide to slap Kadaffi around I suppose so. But in the sense of actually mortally wounding him there has been no puncture that I can see. If it is just about appearances then it’s Mission Accomplished. If it’s about what is really going on on the ground then Obama lied and people died.
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