Mad dogs and Englishmen

Colonel Gaddafi has some nerve. He calls those opposed to him mad dogs. If ever there was a person in need of cerebral therapy it is him. He is a tyrant that deserves all he gets. People all over the world just want to live in freedom. Free to wander down to the shops without some nerdy creep telling tales about them. Free to worship in peace. Free not to worship in peace. Free to express an opinion without getting shot, or locked up and tortured. Gaddafi took away those freedoms. Yet he was free to steal from his people, to play havoc in world politics and to curry favour with corporations keen to sell their souls for a fistful of dollars.

I hope he's gone by the end of today!

The British government has been caught blinking at the moon again. When it comes to helping stranded Brits abroad, the British government invariably puts the commercial cart before the humanitarian horse. It sometimes seems best to tag along behind a group of foreigners. Seems the Chinese are up to speed in Libya. Enoch Powell said that the Foreign Office was a nest of vipers. The only thing to change apparently is that the tongues are not forked anymore.

I saw Question Time last night. Peter Hain made a fool of himself. Fancy saying it was OK to sell Gaddafi weapons so long as he he didn't use them "on his own people". It's like saying a fat man can buy donuts so long as he doesn't eat them. And I'm uneasy with Cameron gallivanting around the deserts of Arabia with booted and suited gunsmiths when most of the Middle East is fighting for basic human rights.

It was OK attacking Saddam Hussein but it isn't OK stopping Gaddafi paying mercenaries to kill people in the streets of Tripoli. Double standards? I'd say so. The Western governments could do a lot more than they are doing right now. Libya is an ancient civilisation that has had the misfortune to be ruled by a despot of semi-civilised behaviour. The new government of Libya will not thank the West for allowing the country's major assets to go up in smoke or sit in a tax haven somewhere. David Cameron needs to know that Arabs favour strength over weakness. Britain looks rather anemic right now.

Posted in: Libya