The Mad Dog of Libya Keeps Laughing

by Eric Hammer | FTMDaily Contributing Writer

TEL AVIV, Mar 1 – There was something truly sad in watching the interview that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi recently gave to Christiane Amanpour. He met with her and two other journalists in the lobby of a local hotel in Tripoli, apparently unafraid of possible assassination attempts.

Repeatedly asked about the revolution, he kept laughing and insisted that his people love him and that there is no revolution. According the Mad Dog of Libya, it was Al Qaeda and hallucinogenic drugs which were responsible for the uprisings, an assertion he repeated over and over again, almost as if it were a mantra.

The President Remains Noncommittal

Meanwhile, President Obama, seemingly preoccupied with the budget crisis at home has paid scant attention to Libya and indeed has paid scant attention to foreign policy in general, preferring to let other nations take the lead with America at best becoming a second fiddle.

While he finally did have Secretary of State Hillary Clinton make a statement saying that the killing of civilians was unacceptable and that “all options are on the table,” this was only after more than 1,000 people were lying dead in the streets of various Libyan cities and he still fell short of pushing more forcefully for Gaddafi to leave his post.

No Longer Projecting Power

The Guardian, one the UK’s leading newspapers, pointed out in an editorial that when Obama was elected, he became the first U.S. president to repeatedly downplay America’s role as a shining beacon of hope to the world. According the Guardian, Mr. Obama instead prefers to apologize for past mistakes and to bury his head in the sand, pretending that the foreign policy problems that come with being the world’s only remaining superpower are no longer his problem.

The irony of the President’s repeated timidity and insistence that America is no longer a great country is that he makes it all the more likely that the U.S. will have to go into yet another war in the Middle East.

Regimes Need to Know That Someone Is In Control

In 1993, a movie called Dave, starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver was released. While the movie was meant as a light hearted comedy, there was one line in the movie which seems especially prescient for today’s situation:

In explaining to Dave why he needs to impersonate the President, who had suffered a stroke, the President’s advisors, who really had their own agenda in mind, told him that “sometimes our friends and even our enemies need to know that the President is alert and sitting at that desk, right there.”

Gaddafi Feels Confident

One reason that Gaddafi may not feel as threatened as he should is because he knows that President Obama is reluctant to get involved. Indeed, aside from repeatedly trying to embarrass Israel, the President seems to have all but abdicated his role as leader of the free world, preferring instead to tell people how America is wrong about so many things and is no longer special.

With this kind of attitude, the timid threats that the President has finally seen fit to offer have little chance of unseating the Mad Dog of Libya peacefully. Instead, America will very likely be forced to make good on her threats by administering a no fly zone and possibly even sending in troops to protect her interests. However, that second possibility is much less likely.

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