Gadhafi x Rice?

[StarSword]

Apparently Moammar Gadhafi had a crush on Condoleeza Rice. WTF?

TRIPOLI, Libya -- Libyan rebels who took control of Moammar Gadhafi's sprawling compound made a surprising discovery in one of the buildings: a photo album with pictures of Condoleezza Rice.

Though maybe the discovery isn't that surprising. Over the years, the Libyan leader's comments and actions related to the former secretary of state have raised a few eyebrows.

Consider how he talked about her in an interview with Al-Jazeera television in 2007, where he hinted that then-President George W. Bush's top diplomat wielded considerable influence in the Arab world.

"I support my darling black African woman," he said. "I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders. ... Leezza, Leezza, Leezza. ... I love her very much. I admire her, and I'm proud of her, because she's a black woman of African origin."

The following year, Gadhafi and Rice had an opportunity to meet when the secretary of state paid a historic visit to Libya - one that made steps toward normalizing relations after the United States went decades without an ambassador in Tripoli. (The U.S. "doesn't have any permanent enemies," she said during the trip.)

Gahdafi welcomed Rice in his home - one that President Ronald Reagan once ordered bombed in retaliation for Libya's attack on a German disco - for the traditional meal that ends the daylight fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Once again, he repeatedly addressed Rice - "Condi" to her friends - as "Leezza," her aides said.

During the visit, he presented Rice with a diamond ring, a lute, a locket with an engraved likeness of himself inside and an inscribed edition of "The Green Book," a personal political manifesto that explains his "Third Universal Theory for a new democratic society."

Together, the haul was worth $212,000. (Rules prevent her, or any other U.S. official, from keeping gifts from foreign leaders - they generally end up in a warehouse, and some may turn up years later in a presidential library.)

Flash forward three years, when Libyan rebels moved into Gadhafi's Tripoli stronghold and took control. There, left behind in the compound, was Gadhafi's dear Leezza, her image affixed to the pages of a photo book.

Rebels leafed through the album Wednesday after finding it as they rummaged through Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound.

Rice did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the discovery of the photos. In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was also asked about the album.

"I don't need to see the photos," she said. "But bizarre and creepy are good adjectives to describe much of Gadhafi's behavior. So (it) doesn't surprise me. It's deeply bizarre and deeply creepy, though, if it is as you described."

EDIT: Fixed spelling (mine).

[K. A. Pital]

Gaddafi had certain respect for black people in echelons of U.S. power. It doesn't mean he had a "crush" on Rice. He continously referred to Obama as a "son of Africa".

[Lord Zentei]

Maybe so, but in the case of Condoleezza Rice, a "crush" seems to be exactly it.

According to the LA times, it's not just a scrapbook with her picture in it, but several scrapbooks about her specifically.

Top of the Ticket
Political commentary from Andrew Malcolm

Eww! Moammar Kadafi (hearts) Condoleezza Rice


Apparently, longtime Libyan despot Moammar Kadafi did not have a whole lot of time to load up the U-Haul when he left his immense housing compound in Tripoli the other day.

Ransacking rebels -- are there any other kind? -- are still apparently going through the personal treasure troves of the strange fellow who's ruled Libya since Barack Obama was an elementary school pupil who thought fundraisers were for classroom cookies or school magazine subscription drives.

This is part of the ritual dismantling of despotic regimes familiar to the aftermath of such downfalls.

Remember when American troops were going through the house of Saddam Hussein's mistress in Baghdad a few years ago? They found the predictable 6,000 handguns for amusement. Wine. Decadent impressionistic artwork of females whose faces were uncloaked along with other anatomical areas.

Most embarrassing perhaps was the revelation that ironman Hussein, one of the world's most evil men who killed thousands of innocents for no particular reason, put up with a household companion who had a particular female fetish for piling brightly colored and totally useless little pillows all over the beds and chairs each morning and then removing them again each night.

Anyway, jubilant rebels in Tripoli are showing off proof today that the self-appointed Col. Kadafi was, in addition to torture and terrorism, into scrapbooking.

And Condoleezza Rice.

He had several scrapbooks devoted to the former professor, campaign advisor, national security advisor and secretary of State for George W. Bush.

Kadafi has a longtime fondness for women; he had his own "elite" female security force and, of course, purportedly numerous mistresses who've told tales for pay of lavish gifts and decadent lifestyles, if you can believe there's hypocrisy in high places.

The smart female friends, many of them non-Libyan, retired from his circle a few years ago. Kadafi also spoke glowingly of Rice a few years ago as a strong African woman.

Rice is an avid sports fan. She's now returned to the faculty of Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, disdaining repeated media talk of a political career and still dreaming of becoming commissioner of the National Football League someday. She also has an eagerly anticipated memoir coming out this fall, "No Higher Honor."

Rice, of course, is long accustomed to the public spotlight and wary of its fickle ways. She used to tell the story that as a member of Exxon's board of directors she once had an oil tanker named for her.

She appreciated the intended honor but with a smile found it a dubious distinction because "there's only one reason an oil tanker with my name would ever come up in the news -- and it's not a good one."

[K. A. Pital]

Heh. I can only hope that post-Gaddafi's Libya has enough female rights to have a set of female armed bodyguards or allow women to serve in the army. Or at least drive.

Ransacking rebels -- are there any other kind?

Um... yes. There are. But the rebels are making much less "ransacking" than the West. The West has betrayed rebels by plundering Libyan funds for itself and its satellites like Qatar, which is really sad.

Hussein, one of the world's most evil men who killed thousands of innocents for no particular reason...

One has to be crazy dumb to find no reasons in the Iran-Iraq war, the violent suppression of Kurdish separatism and the invasion of Kuwait. All of them had reasons, mostly imperialistic, as Iraq was one of the low-tier Middle East imperialists for a long time. What is it with journalists and stupidity? Are they really that stupid, or are they provoking people? Even Hitler didn't kill "thousands of innocents" for "no particular reason", economic imperialism dictated a good share of his actions and the rest, like depopulation of the East, were dictated by racism, which was also a quite acceptable political stance at the time.

[Lord Zentei]

Heh. I can only hope that post-Gaddafi's Libya has enough female rights to have a set of female armed bodyguards or allow women to serve in the army. Or at least drive.

Indeed. Looking at some of the prospective successors, that's not a given by any means.


As for the other two comments, sorry, not taking the bait this time.

[Thanas]

Ransacking rebels -- are there any other kind?

Um... yes. There are. But the rebels are making much less "ransacking" than the West. The West has betrayed rebels by plundering Libyan funds for itself and its satellites like Qatar, which is really sad.

What now?


Also, your sig quote is really offensive.

[K. A. Pital]

Ransacking rebels -- are there any other kind?

Um... yes. There are. But the rebels are making much less "ransacking" than the West. The West has betrayed rebels by plundering Libyan funds for itself and its satellites like Qatar, which is really sad.

What now?

You didn't know? Libyan state companies (considering Libya's state sector is most of the GDP) have to pay wages. The rebel leaders pleaded to get money unfrozen from Libyan state company accounts so that they could pay the workers. And the money was indeed unfrozen. Part of it went to "American companies" to "restore Libyan power networks", another part went to the UN to deal with the refugees and yet another went to a fund created by Qatar to help the "reconstruction of Libya" which is controlled by other nations. In essence, instead of giving the money back to Libya's new government, the West and their Middle East satellites like Qatar just plundered Libya's savings and assets. Excellent start of relations.

Also, your sig quote is really offensive.

Why is that now? The end justifies the means, in German. As you can see, I also translated "The Iron Heel" into German. I don't think that the quote is offensive, unless...

[Thanas]

You didn't know? Libyan state companies (considering Libya's state sector is most of the GDP) have to pay wages. The rebel leaders pleaded to get money unfrozen from Libyan state company accounts so that they could pay the workers. And the money was indeed unfrozen. Part of it went to "American companies" to "restore Libyan power networks", another part went to the UN to deal with the refugees and yet another went to a fund created by Qatar to help the "reconstruction of Libya" which is controlled by other nations. In essence, instead of giving the money back to Libya's new government, the West and their Middle East satellites like Qatar just plundered Libya's savings and assets. Excellent start of relations.

source?

Why is that now? The end justifies the means, in German. As you can see, I also translated "The Iron Heel" into German. I don't think that the quote is offensive, unless...

The history associated with it is....don't tell me you believe in it

As for die eiserne Ferse, that just sounds ridiculous and does not mean what you think you do in German.

[K. A. Pital]

This here says that they need a lot of money from state company accounts: http://www.tribune-chronicle.com/page/c ... 1&nav=5030

And of course, expected loan-for-oil result for the impoverished Benghazi government:

Laurence Lee, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Rome, said it had been suggested that the money would not be a gift, but a loan from the coalition countries.

"One assumes that in the fullness of time this would be repaid by oil sales, which Qatar already started with one shipment of oil. And it may be able to be repaid relatively quickly.

He said the countries that recognise the rebel council, France, Italy and Qatar, are the ones with which the TNC will do business.

"The fact that it will be France and Italy that will be administing this fund is bound to lead some people to think that this is quite a good way of persuading a cash-strapped eastern Libya in Benghazi to accept a deal which is going to put oil and money into the hands of countries like France, Italy and Qatar.

"So although it looks like benevolence, there is a hard headed financial imperative that goes underneath it."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/afric ... 62768.html

I heard that part of the money from unfrozen accounts went to American companies instead of Libya proper, which is just fucking insane, if you ask me, but that was only on TV. I'll see if that info gets corroborated in the internet somewhere.

The history associated with it is....don't tell me you believe in it

In what, in consequentialism? As a utilitarian, obviously I do, and so do you, I don't see a problem with being a consequentialist unless you're way radical in that. I'm sort of spoofing the principle, because it is oft used to justify either the current power structure, or current military interventions or elsewhat.

As for die eiserne Ferse, that just sounds ridiculous and does not mean what you think you do in German.

On the contrary, that does not sound ridiculous and it means exactly what I want it to mean - the name of Jack London's novel about the oligarchy.

[Thanas]

This here says that they need a lot of money from state company accounts: http://www.tribune-chronicle.com/page/c ... 1&nav=5030

And of course, expected loan-for-oil result for the impoverished Benghazi government:

Laurence Lee, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Rome, said it had been suggested that the money would not be a gift, but a loan from the coalition countries.

"One assumes that in the fullness of time this would be repaid by oil sales, which Qatar already started with one shipment of oil. And it may be able to be repaid relatively quickly.

He said the countries that recognise the rebel council, France, Italy and Qatar, are the ones with which the TNC will do business.

"The fact that it will be France and Italy that will be administing this fund is bound to lead some people to think that this is quite a good way of persuading a cash-strapped eastern Libya in Benghazi to accept a deal which is going to put oil and money into the hands of countries like France, Italy and Qatar.

"So although it looks like benevolence, there is a hard headed financial imperative that goes underneath it."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/afric ... 62768.html

That sounds like a lot of speculation with little sources.

In what, in consequentialism? As a utilitarian, obviously I do, and so do you, I don't see a problem with being a consequentialist unless you're way radical in that. I'm sort of spoofing the principle, because it is oft used to justify either the current power structure, or current military interventions or elsewhat.

I do not believe the ends justify the means and I doubt you know what philosophies I believe in. It is certainly not utilitarianism.

As for die eiserne Ferse, that just sounds ridiculous and does not mean what you think you do in German.

On the contrary, that does not sound ridiculous and it means exactly what I want it to mean - the name of Jack London's novel about the oligarchy.

It is not used in German in the same way as in England, so it sounds as ridiculous as it did back then. We Germans use Faust instead of Ferse.

[Sea Skimmer]

More then slightly good reasons exist not to hand direct control of 160 billion dollars over to a group of weakly led, weakly organized unelected leaders of a rebellion which still isn't finished and which has some of its own supporters already threatening to break away. The US basically did hand over what was it, 18 billion dollars to the new Iraqi government and almost all of it was stolen within a year. This is the world trying to fucking prevent that from happening again. But its not like Stas wouldn't just find something else to bitch about over Libya no matter what happened.

[K. A. Pital]

More then slightly good reasons exist not to hand direct control of 160 billion dollars over to a group of weakly led, weakly organized unelected leaders of a rebellion which still isn't finished and which has some of its own supporters already threatening to break away.

So how the fuck are they going to keep Libya's heavily nationalized industry running? By making workers work for food aid?

The US basically did hand over what was it, 18 billion dollars to the new Iraqi government and almost all of it was stolen within a year.

The US created the new Iraqi government. It has only itself to blame. The rebels at least speak of national independence.

This is the world trying to fucking prevent that from happening again. But its not like Stas wouldn't just find something else to bitch about over Libya no matter what happened.

Prevent what, a nation falling into poverty because industry grinds to a halt? As far as I gathered, these funds are direly needed by the rebels to keep the nation running. Feel free to demolish my misunderstanding if there's enough money and stuff in Libya to keep plants running and wages paid.

I do not believe the ends justify the means and I doubt you know what philosophies I believe in. It is certainly not utilitarianism.

Fine, fine. Bad assumptions on my part. I didn't know you were a moral absolutist. And using Iron Fist instead of Iron Heel is obviously more German, but I needed that exact term and nothing else. A boot stamping on a human face.... forever.

[Sea Skimmer]

So how the fuck are they going to keep Libya's heavily nationalized industry running? By making workers work for food aid?

They have almost no industry, and several of the plants that do exist are damaged, or surrounded by massive minefields such as the pipeline plant near Brega at the moment. That shit is not going to start operating again quickly. The priority is restoring the flow of oil, which in turn depends on security, which in turn Libyans do fucking control.

The US created the new Iraqi government. It has only itself to blame. The rebels at least speak of national independence.

Speak of sure, but they still have not even moved into Tripoli despite promising to do so at once. They are in no shape to control so much money at the moment, it is far better if it is kept secure and handed over as needed until such a time as they do have an actual administration. Anyway, most Libyan assets are investments, not hard cash, and it would be absurd for the TNC to just sell them all and bring the money home without a detailed examination. The Europeans are handing over the hard cash that was in banks.

Prevent what, a nation falling into poverty because industry grinds to a halt? As far as I gathered, these funds are direly needed by the rebels to keep the nation running. Feel free to demolish my misunderstanding if there's enough money and stuff in Libya to keep plants running and wages paid.

And Italy just released 500 million Euros to them from frozen bank accounts, other nations are unfreezing similar amounts. They don't need 160 billion to do that shit, they have in fact said they need about 5 billion for the next several months. Some of that is being handed over in cash, other parts are being directed to companies which are fulfilling contracts for fucking food the TNC already agreed to. Horrors. A contract for something like 700,000 tons of food was announced just today.

[K. A. Pital]

The priority is restoring the flow of oil, which in turn depends on security, which in turn Libyans do fucking control.

Libya was pretty secure under Gaddafi. Oil was flowing far more smoothly. Even if not as cheap as it would be with the TNC having a civil war-ravaged nation as a party to any new contracts.

Speak of sure, but they still have not even moved into Tripoli despite promising to do so at once. They are in no shape to control so much money at the moment, it is far better if it is kept secure and handed over as needed until such a time as they do have an actual administration. Anyway, most Libyan assets are investments, not hard cash, and it would be absurd for the TNC to just sell them all and bring the money home without a detailed examination. The Europeans are handing over the hard cash that was in banks.

Yeah, I'm not speaking about investments, my primary worries lie with cash that was supposed to be used for operational expenses. And yes, the rebels haven't really "won" decisively so far, that is true.

And Italy just released 500 million Euros to them from frozen bank accounts, other nations are unfreezing similar amounts. They don't need 160 billion to do that shit, they have in fact said they need about 5 billion for the next several months. Some of that is being handed over in cash, other parts are being directed to companies which are fulfilling contracts for fucking food the TNC already agreed to. Horrors. A contract for something like 700,000 tons of food was announced just today.

I wasn't talking about 160 billion, I was more concerned about those 5-7 billion or so that they have as operational cash (and which they said they need). I heard that part of that was going to actors which have nothing to do with Libya, which you seem to corroborate. And yes, "contracts for food" is an excellent thing. I don't doubt the TNC didn't have any other choice, but it still looks like a huge pile of shit.

[Thanas]

I do not believe the ends justify the means and I doubt you know what philosophies I believe in. It is certainly not utilitarianism.

Fine, fine. Bad assumptions on my part. I didn't know you were a moral absolutist.

I am not a moral absolutist either.

[K. A. Pital]

I am not a moral absolutist either.

If you're a moral relativist, you obviously justify evil through greater good at least up to a certain degree (that degree itself is a calculation, too). That is a natural thought process for humans, actually. You make some sort of subconscious or consious utilitarian calculation when you think whether something is justified or not.

Feel free to disagree, though.

[Thanas]

I am not a moral absolutist either.

If you're a moral relativist, you obviously justify evil through greater good at least up to a certain degree (that degree itself is a calculation, too). That is a natural thought process for humans, actually. You make some sort of subconscious or consious utilitarian calculation when you think whether something is justified or not.

Feel free to disagree, though.

I obviously do as it depends upon the issue at hand. I am an absolutist when it comes to civil liberties in developed countries. The other stuff is a bit more cost-benefit, with a few bits of idealism thrown in.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm an "absolutist" when it comes to Western civil rights simply because the West while so developed has no excuse that it is "undeveloped", "poor", etc. when it comes to civil rights. It is stupid to expect civil rights from the Taliban, but it is more than adequate to expect them from the West if it boasts them on every corner. In any case, I don't think "Ends justify the means" is offensive at all when you hold such an approach for values that you think are right. It is just a fact that as humans we are more prone to consequentialism. We judge something by the ultimate outcome more often than not.

[Sea Skimmer]

I wasn't talking about 160 billion, I was more concerned about those 5-7 billion or so that they have as operational cash (and which they said they need). I heard that part of that was going to actors which have nothing to do with Libya, which you seem to corroborate. And yes, "contracts for food" is an excellent thing. I don't doubt the TNC didn't have any other choice, but it still looks like a huge pile of shit.

Sure is a huge pile of shit to give money to the world food program. I'm sure it will all be in the pocket of Lockheed Martin in twenty seconds. Get a fucking grip. The British are flying over nearly 1 billion as we speak.