I must admit that I find Qaddafi to be a man that evokes an involuntarily chuckle from me whenever I see him in pictures or video. His attire, abundantly packed with flamboyance rivaling any eccentric entertainer. The speeches filled with the ravings of a mad man worthy of being labeled a despot or dictator. Yet, this man has managed to hold onto power in Libya for more than forty years.
I'm American, so I expect that the picture of Qaddafi that my own government has fed me is tainted with propaganda and bias. I had no knowledge of who Qaddafi really was, or why he might have feelings of mistrust regarding the American government.
When I saw the revolts in Libya, initially I didn't pay close attention. What got my attention was Qaddafi. A man loomed over my room from my television screen. He looked very peculiar, almost like an old Hollywood actor that had a bad cosmetic surgeon or wore too much makeup.
What I heard was, of course, a foreign tongue. I listened for about a half hour trying to see if I felt that he was as crazy as my government had been telling me for years. My expectation was that he would be a pretty normal guy, despite the fact that it looked like he was giving this defiant speech from inside an abandoned warehouse. What I felt from listening to this foreign tongue, & the odd sounding translator was anger, delusion, & denial.
Qaddafi didn't want to give up power, nor does he have any plans on doing so now. His intention was to
blame outside entities on this revolt by the Libyan people. For what seemed to be over an hour, he yelled about western nations & al-Qaeda causing these Libyans to revolt. At then end of his "speech", which you have to see for yourself to believe, I felt that he was another dictator in need of forced removal. Qaddafi was unwilling to trust his own Libyan brothers & sisters to choose the direction of their country. Afraid of what it might mean for the Qaddafi clan if the Libyan people could choose their own leader. Peaceful transitions of power are what make a country better, a tradition so great, that I can find no words to translate it's value to my own society.
I'm American, seeing those Libyan people demand freedom and democracy immediately pulled my heart strings. Qaddafi's speech made me empathize with the Libyan people even more. I am honestly tired of my own country being in a perpetual state of war(s), & even suspicious when my country heads to any country with oil, claiming to promote "freedom" & "democracy", yes, even under a black president.
The America I believe in really does stand up for, and in some cases, protect those seeking freedom, liberty, & democracy. If that is what we sell to the world in our foreign policy & the propaganda we feed our own people, there will be times we have to live up to it. Libya gives the USA the perfect opportunity to make up for a war of choice in Iraq, a long drawn out war in Afghanistan, years of short-sighted foreign policy choices all across the Muslim world, & to show real goodwill by helping the Libyan people.
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