catapult magazine

Remember Qaddafi, leader of Libya, who was the equivalent (or worse) of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s? Ever wonder what happened to him and why Libya didn’t make it into Bush’s ‘axis of evil’? Below is an excellent article from the New York Times. It’s long.

I’m convinced that to truly begin to understand world events we are going to have to be willing to read long-ass articles like this one. CNN isn’t reporting anything about Libyia right now because “nothing is happening.” But the fact that nothing is happening is the most interesting event of all! If it such a change could happen in Libya, can’t it happen in Iraq? How come Reagan didn’t invade Libya, an oil rich desert country ruled by a fanatical dictator who was supporting terrorists to a far greater extent than Hussein is? How could someone like Qaddafi make such a radical turnabout?

To access this article, you’ll have to sign into the NYT website which is a good one by the way. And they’ve never spammed me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/magazine/19LIBYA.html?8hpist

Did I hear it right? Did Libya just became a chief representative on the U.N.‘s committee for human rights? Or was it Lebanon? I can’t remember now, but I heard it on BBC radio. I don’t think the U.S. government was too happy about it. I’ll look for confirmation of this on the news tonight.

You heard right. Here’s the story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,76086,00.html

The other side of the coin is this: Show me an African country with a good human rights record.