David Aikman: Arab Unrest and the Status of Women
[Dr. David Aikman was a journalist with TIME Magazine for 23 years, and is now a professor of history at Patrick Henry College in Virginia. He has authored more than a dozen books, including "Jesus in Beijing" (Regnery, 2003), "Billy Graham: His Life and Influence" (Thomas Nelson, 2006) and "The Delusion of Disbelief" (Tyndale, 2008). His latest book is "The Mirage of Peace" (Regal), and he is currently working on a book about the end of Christian America.]
In the 1980s, when it was President Reagan's challenge to face down the mad dictator of Libya, he referred to Colonel Muamar Gaddafi as both a "mad dog" and "Looney tunes," a Warner Brothers cartoon series with a cast of nutty and humorous character. But in today's situation in Libya, the movie analogy should be changed to Goldfinger, the deranged and super-rich villain of a James Bond movie who deployed his billions to pay off a retinue of mercenary thugs.
Today, Libya contains the Arab world's Blofeld, the Goldfinger villain, a megalomaniac tyrant apparently willing to murder hundreds of his own people to demonstrate the point that his people "love" him. One of his Western-educated sons, Saif, alternately winked at the camera or ranted in public that "rivers of blood" would be shed as his father took the needed measures to suppress political opposition. Of course, Muammar Gaddafi had already insisted in public that his political opponents had probably all been deluded into criticizing him by hallucinogenic drugs slipped by agents of al-Qaeda into their instant Nescafe when they weren't watching.
If ordinary Libyans weren't being beaten and murdered by the Gaddafi regime for their actions, it would all be almost funny: political unrest in the Arab world metastasizing into murderous mayhem in the one Arab country whose ruling tyrant is manifestly delusional and has been in power for more than four decades. But it isn't funny. No matter how you look at it, the situation in Libya is a tragedy for the Arab world and a slap in the face of all human beings who aspire to orderliness and decency in government....
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In the 1980s, when it was President Reagan's challenge to face down the mad dictator of Libya, he referred to Colonel Muamar Gaddafi as both a "mad dog" and "Looney tunes," a Warner Brothers cartoon series with a cast of nutty and humorous character. But in today's situation in Libya, the movie analogy should be changed to Goldfinger, the deranged and super-rich villain of a James Bond movie who deployed his billions to pay off a retinue of mercenary thugs.
Today, Libya contains the Arab world's Blofeld, the Goldfinger villain, a megalomaniac tyrant apparently willing to murder hundreds of his own people to demonstrate the point that his people "love" him. One of his Western-educated sons, Saif, alternately winked at the camera or ranted in public that "rivers of blood" would be shed as his father took the needed measures to suppress political opposition. Of course, Muammar Gaddafi had already insisted in public that his political opponents had probably all been deluded into criticizing him by hallucinogenic drugs slipped by agents of al-Qaeda into their instant Nescafe when they weren't watching.
If ordinary Libyans weren't being beaten and murdered by the Gaddafi regime for their actions, it would all be almost funny: political unrest in the Arab world metastasizing into murderous mayhem in the one Arab country whose ruling tyrant is manifestly delusional and has been in power for more than four decades. But it isn't funny. No matter how you look at it, the situation in Libya is a tragedy for the Arab world and a slap in the face of all human beings who aspire to orderliness and decency in government....