Monday, February 21, 2011
Editorial

Libya is waking up. Its people have seen the examples set by North African neighbors and are beginning to find their voice, absent in the face of a brutal dictatorship for so long.

This bizarre and despotic regime has long been the joker in the Arab pack. Its moody, egomaniacal leader, along with his family, has treaded water in oceans of oil money as the West turned a blind eye and every conceivable cheek to indulge his narcissism. A clan of thugs, headed by the self-styled godfather of Africa, has circumvented laws across the world with the collusion of states whose pockets are lined in part by petrodollars from Tripoli.

It is a regime which has committed countless atrocities, not only against its own people, but also those abroad, buying silence as it went. One need only to look at Moammar Gadhafi’s alleged role in support of the IRA, in the Lockerbie terrorist attack and fomenting revolt in the Philippines to realize the extent of misdemeanors committed by a tyrant so brazenly and bizarrely courted by the West.
If Gadhafi has blamed foreign elements for encouraging Libyan unrest, it is only because he knows full well how to interfere in another country’s business.

Corruption and vice in Libya did not appear overnight. They took 42 years of tacit support from administrations desperate for a piece of the hydrocarbon pie. That the same countries who bent over backwards to accommodate Gadhafi’s most avaricious whims are now calling for reform and supporting a downtrodden people’s right to protest represents breathtaking hypocrisy. Where were the demands for better state-building or improved human rights during four decades of fiefdom?

Utilizing the military and assorted mercenaries to quell protests with live ammunition has provided the regime with yet another chance to show its predilection toward brutality, corruption and power. Aside from the act itself being deplorable, killing unarmed protesters is self-defeating; martyrdom in Egypt and Tunisia only galvanized popular dissent.

Nor will blocking media outlets and mobile phone networks succeed in preventing what is looking increasingly like the inevitable fall of Gadhafi’s administration. Those who care to glance around them will see that 2011’s wave of Arab discontent is now drenching Libya.

Rotten regimes built on hush money and fear can only last as long as the people acquiesce. That time has passed and not even Gadhafi’s billions can avert the course of change.

The deaths of protesters at the hands of hired thugs may have shown the world the Libyan regime believes life to be cheap, but demonstrators have finally realized it is not without value.