A Short, Weird History of US-Libyan Relations

August 23, 2011

Tags: Condeleeza Rice, Libya, Qaddafi
Posted in: Democracy, Embassy/State, Military

Remember kids, the Internet is written in ink.

W-a-y back in the dark ages of the 1980’s, President Ron “Prune Face” Reagan called Gaddafi the “mad dog of the Middle East,” bombed his compound, “accidentally” killing Gaddafi’s daughter. Gaddafi had blown up a number of Americans in a disco.

Hijinks ensued. One of Peter’s first jobs at State was working on the Lockerbie bombing from the Washington end in 1988. He worked on Lockerbie again while assigned to our Embassy in London in 1991. America was very, very angry with Gaddafi.

We fast forward to 2003…

…the year we liberated Iraq. We’ll skip all that stuff for another day’s posting about how the US supported Saddam while he was fighting the Iranians for us, and that awful picture of a young Don Rumsfeld wearing his 80’s ‘do shaking hands with Saddam. America was in the process of remaking the Middle East in 2003, so we ignored the work the AQ Khan network had done helping Libya (and North Korea, bonus!) move down the road to owning WMDs to welcome Gaddafi back into our Bosom o’ Freedom if he’d turn around and drop those WMDs. For laffs, Gaddafi also handed over one of the Lockerbie bombers to Justice, who was released on a flimsy health excuse by the sissy Brits a few years later and who Mitt Romney wants re-returned to justice, this time in the US, hopefully in time for the election..

Good job Gaddafi! We rewarded him with a visit in 2008 by SecState Condi Rice. While in Tripoli (ironically at the same compound where we killed Gaddafi’s kid; folks, you just can’t make this stuff up), Condi said: “We did talk about learning from the lessons of the past. We talked about the importance of moving forward. The United States doesn’t have any permanent enemies.”

Over the next few years the US built up its relationship with Gaddafi, first with a few texts, then friends on Facebook, then some lunch dates. It got serious ya’ll!

In 2007 on one-day Fox affiliate al-Jazeera TV, Gaddafi said of the US SecState:

“I support my darling black African woman. I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders. … Leezza, Leezza, Leezza. … I love her very much.”

 

According to the required report of foreign gifts that State produces, in 2008 one of the most generous gift-givers was Libya’s Gaddafi, who seemed particularly grateful for former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Tripoli, giving her gifts worth a total value of $212,225, including a locket with his own picture inside. Completely unrelated but hysterical, that same year Nicolas Sarkozy gave President Bush a brown leather Hermes saddle. Awkward!

The US went on to open an Embassy in Libya, appointed a real Ambassador (who got tossed out in 2010 after some Wikileaky stuff angered Gaddafi), the UK basically swept Lockerbie under the rug and released (because he had the flu) the terrorist who helped plant the bomb, and Gaddafi’s son was invited on a study tour of the US including a VIP tour of our Air Force Academy in Colorado just days before the uprisings began back home. Old Man McCain got off his Hoverchair to travel to Libya and suck up to Gadaffi. Maybe best of all, US companies started selling good stuff to Libya, including US-made armored trucks now being used to suppress angry mobs (See “Libyan Blood on American Trucks”). Nobody makes freedom-suppressing riot gear like America. We’re like the Forever 21 of the stuff for dictators worldwide.

I fell asleep then for a couple of days and woke up to find we did not like Gaddafi again.

By March 2011, former SecState’s Rice and Albright were back on Gaddafi’s ass, calling him a “nut.” “Nut” is an upgrade in diplomatic language from Reagan’s choice of name-calling, “mad dog.” So we’re back bombing the guy, sanctioning his oily butt and going all postal on Libya with our NATO dawgs. Current President of the United States of America Donald Trump brags of ripping off Gaddafi on a land deal, the kiss of death.

Then some stuff happened in Libya in August 2011, you can see it on CNN or The Twitter.

Yeah, this diplomatic stuff is complicated. I really have to stop sleeping in.

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