Qaddafi: Still Crazy After All These Years

Michael Moynihan has posted a splendid article at Reason about his trip to Libya, during which a kind of dark hilarity was the order of the day.

Here, Moynihan is trapped in a bizarre interview with "rehabilitated" terrorists recently released from prison:

After hours of formulaic answers, plummeting blood sugar, and a grumbling stomach, I sink deeper into the cushions, extending my legs toward the center of the room. Another journalist leans over and chides me for exposing the soles of my feet to the former Al Qaeda member, fearing that I might offend him. “In Arab culture,” he says, “that is considered disrespectful.” It is wise, I decide, to not offend our host, even if he has never killed an infidel. An hour later, the same reporter is now ignoring his own advice, the bottoms of his feet pointing directly at the ex-terrorist, doubtless in an attempt to stop the man from talking.

Visiting the Middle East or the African Maghreb, you are constantly reminded that while the much-touted moderate Islamists may not want to destroy the New York skyline, they are still insane. Several reformed LIFG fighters inform me that “American Muslims would fight America if it invaded Libya.” Osama bin Laden was once a reasonable guy, one tells me, corrupted by his relationship with the Egyptian fundamentalist Ayman al-Zawahari. And although America might have provided support to Muslims in the past, this doesn’t matter because it was for our own self-interest, not because we realize that Islam is the one true faith.

One charming, amusing, and polite former stooge for Al Qaeda now operates in the same capacity for the Libyan government, claiming he saw the light and converted from Islamism to Qaddafism. When I ask about press freedom, he confidently informs the group that there is no restriction on speech in Libya and there even exist a number of privately run newspapers.

“Can one of these independent newspapers print a banner headline tomorrow demanding, ‘Qaddafi Must Go’?” I ask.

“Why would they want to do that?” he replies.

Such answers go a long way toward explaining why Libya ranks 156 out of 175 in Reporters Without Borders’ latest Press Freedom Index.

I was fascinated to discover the main subjects of Qaddafi's speech at the UN:

[Qaddafi] recently made his long-awaited debut at the United Nations, treating the assembled to a 90-minute speech denouncing Jack Ruby, the “Israeli” murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald, and declaring the swine flu a capitalist conspiracy.

As the ol' professor says, read the whole thing.