Gaddafi Moammar

Gaddafi has always been an independent and ruthless Dictator-leader of the Libyan tribes and strongly resisted control by both the USSR and the USA in the Cold War days whilst the Dictators of Saudi and Jordan and the Emirates etc sided with the US, handing over their sovereignty and maintaining their despotic ways with strong US support. It was only when Gaddafi had proclaimed full and real independence from both the USA and USSR that the Americans did a lot of bombing raids and killed his son expecting Gaddafi to respond in a mad way so they would have a reason to invade, but he never did respond in a mad way at all. They have got him wrong for a long time and have taken to parody and painting him as a madman etc, but he's no madder than the Saudi King or the the King of Jordan, he's just an independent dictator, and a very bright tactician. He doesn't have many weapons of course and is fully involved in counter-insurgency, which is why he's an easy target now...and a lucrative one. Libyan oil is so pure it hardly needs processing at all so if you can grab it all for free, you can still pump up the world price and make a killing in more ways than one. Easy Money for BP and Total and the American conglomerates. Still, the launching of this new war, and it is war, is a very rushed decision to protect UK/French and US saboteurs in Benghazi and the West usually does underestimate the skill of Gaddafi. He's been the tribal leader for 40 years now and every moment has been hard. He has been an enormously smart and ruthless survivor and 40% of the people of Libya are very well looked after. We will see how 'Freedom' reduces this % to just about nothing.