No One Likes the Colonel
Pipes, Daniel
Daniel Pipes NO ONE LIKES THE COLONEL From the shores of Tripoli to the airstrip in Fua'amotu. Even after eleven years in power, Libya's Col. Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi continues to exert his political...
...Arab unity is the first step to Islamic brotherhood...
...Intense patriotism as a Muslim and an Arab defines Qaddafi's identity...
...Ofttimes he appears like a character out of opera bouffe or an Evelyn Waugh novel...
...In a July 1976 interview, Qaddafi defended terrorism, arguing that the use of force by oppressed peoples fighting for liberation is proper...
...Yet, for all of Qaddafi's hyperactivity, he rarely gets his way...
...This personal inclination goes far to explain the effervescence of Libyan politics during the seventies...
...Some soldiers sign up abroad, but most, threatened with expulsion for having entered Libya illegally in search of work, prefer military service for the Bureau instead...
...In the end, Qaddafi followed his emotions and Libya currently supplies most of the Polisario's materiel...
...Even though the Libyan government usually denied any involvement in these failed coups, it sometimes showed its hand while they were in progress...
...And Qaddafi really does have a mission...
...Within a few months, the new ruler felt secure enough to institute a provisional constitution, challenge the oil companies' control over petroleum production and pricing, and expel the British and Americans from their Libyan bases...
...Eritrean secessionists portray their efforts as a Muslim movement in order to win Libyan aid against the central government of Christian Ethiopia...
...These [Arabs] are not serious people and they do not keep agreements signed by them," he concluded...
...Qaddafi provides terrorists with money, weapons, training, and false documents...
...reconnaissance planes near the Libyan coast...
...His latest efforts include: the near crippling of President Carter's re-election campaign through payments to brother Billy...
...Reports came to light that Qaddafi funded the armed group that took over the Great Mosque in Mecca in November 1979...
...Also in August, Sadat claimed Gaddafi and George Habash of the PFLP had directed the Entebbe hijacking of an Air France plane at the end of June...
...Indeed, the bizarre quality of Qaddafi's actions results from his utter certainty and constancy...
...Qaddafi is a national villain in Uganda, Central Africa, and the Philippines...
...threatening Malta over oil exploration rigs in contested waters...
...But such dilemmas have been few...
...Libyan joint bank offices have opened in eighteen countries...
...six near the Mediterranean coast, four on the border with Tunisia, and one in the heart of the country, at Sebha...
...Military aid is also widely distributed...
...Qaddafi has involved himself in every Middle Eastern conflict, in Muslim causes as far away as the Philippines, and in "liberation" movements around the world...
...They were - held in Libya and eventually turned over to the Sudanese government for execution...
...temperamentally he cannot endure tranquility...
...Libya also serves as a favorite refuge for assorted desperadoes...
...According to President Sadat, Illitch Ramires Sanchez ("Carlos"), the world's most notorious terrorist, lived for two years in a small coastal hotel near Tripoli...
...for the most part, Qaddafi's preferences have been completely predictable...
...Qaddafi fights with unrelenting hostility against anything that obstructs Islam or Arabism...
...Qaddafi made no effort to control the Algerian territory, but the northernmost portions of Chad (known as the Aozou strip) and Niger were already under Libyan control...
...He is much more...
...Islamic schools, cultural centers, and mosques have been built throughout the Muslim world with Libyan funds...
...Qaddafi has won many battles but not a single war...
...while he disapproves of dividing up the Arab world further by the creation of a new state, he instinctively sympathizes with the Polisario...
...Turkey may have used Libyan arms during its 1974 invasion of Cyprus...
...And Qaddafi can take credit for it...
...declaring political union with Syria on September 10, 1980...
...they have made Libya, a nation of three million people, an unexpectedly powerful force in world...
...people's councils and Islamic socialism...
...monarchical Morocco is battling to include Western Sahara within its borders...
...the two Libyans present were his agents...
...Yet billions of oil dollars alone do not account for Libyan strength: Kuwait and Abu Dhabi enjoy revenues comparable to Libya's but play smaller roles in international politics...
...Greater futility can scarcely be imagined...
...Subsequently, both Bongo and Bokassa wore their Islam lightly-confirming the political nature of their conversions...
...to 632...
...By 1977, the Association fielded 350 missionaries, only two of whom were Libyans...
...The conspiracy against the Sudanese government which unfolded in July 1976 was hatched in Libya, where the conspirators were trained, armed, and quartered...
...In fact, political executions did not take place until April 1977, more than seven years after Qaddafi came to power...
...In the case of Chad, however, Qaddafi has a better chance of success because he already controls the country...
...Before Libyan relations with the Turkish government warmed up, Qaddafi was accused of aiding its Muslim extremist opponents...
...1 , ibya has a vast income (now almost $20 billion a year) but a miniscule, unskilled population of about three million people...
...An occasional small gesture of generosity can make a big impression: Qaddafi won favor in Sri Lanka by paying for four years' worth of tea in advance...
...government to expel several Libyan diplomats and nearly caused a break in relations...
...Qaddafi rewards governments in other ways as well...
...the same hotel housed the five Japanese Red Army members who attacked the American consulate in Kuala Lumpur in 1975 as well as the German anarchist Hans Joachim Klein, who was wounded in the kidnapping of OPEC ministers in Vienna in December 1975...
...Although Qaddafi's antipathy to both capitalism and Communism might imply a neutral stance toward the great powers, in fact he favors the Soviet bloc, for the West is associated with colonialism and support for Israel, while the Soviet Union arms and supports Qaddafi's government.* Finally, Qaddafi is drawn to revolutionary ferment...
...King Hasan of Morocco came close to losing his life in a 1971 conspiracy, at which time Qaddafi placed his troops on alert and announced their availability to aid the rebels should the "reactionary" forces challenge their rule...
...Neither bourgeois democratic nor Marxist authoritarian, neither capitalist nor Communist, his ideas constitute a "third theory...
...When Amin's support melted away, they were overwhelmed and the 1,100 survivors captured...
...Qaddafi lost no time stamping his vision on the country...
...In January 1975, Malta proposed to divide the shelf midway between the two countries...
...These are only the latest details of a grand plan for Libya...
...In May 1976, the two countries agreed to refer their dispute to the International Court in the Hague, as did Libya and Tunisia three months later...
...Some had made their way by land from Libya, others had flown to Algiers from Libya and posed as a sports group before making their way to the border...
...providing support to Iran shortly after Iraq attacked it on September 22...
...Libyan propaganda had convinced them that as soon as they raised the flag of rebellion, massive popular support in Tunisia would help them to vanquish the Bourguiba regime...
...although most of them are Arab or Muslim, Qaddafi makes real efforts to reach other countries too...
...When the late Ali Bhutto announced that he would build an "Islamic bomb" because the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Communist civilizations all have nuclear weapons and the Muslims do not, Qaddafi readily volunteered to finance the research...
...he was not and the furor died down...
...Others have been sent to Malaysia in an attempt to upset that country's delicate religious balance...
...The continued existence of Israel symbolizes the impotence of Arabs and Muslims, a result of their internal divisions...
...and flying Libyan troops to southern Chad to control the country and impose political union on it...
...In the end, Malta received no money from Libya and now blames its economic plight squarely on Qaddafi...
...But even when he does deliver, Qaddafi often alienates recipients by demanding too much as a quid pro quo...
...Qaddafi agonized for months...
...More recently, Qaddafi convinced the Maltese to terminate 181 years of British military presence on their island by promising to make up lost revenues (which amounted to about one-third of the national budget...
...Before the discovery of oil in 1959, Libya was a primitive state, politically dependent on British and American aid and economically reliant on an unskilled workforce with an annual per capita income of $30...
...In return for research assistance and the uranate, Pakistan reportedly will give Qaddafi the first one or two bombs it produces...
...Selling discounted oil to Malta has kept Dom Min-toff subservient for years...
...Unlike Amin and Bokassa, he displays no personal taste for barbarism and cruelty...
...In response, Libya claimed everything beyond twelve miles of Maltese territorial waters...
...He simply never knows when to desist...
...accusing Saudi Arabia of placing itself "under U.S...
...In his private life, *Qaddafi occasionally does speak out about the plight of Muslim minorities in Communist countries, especially Yugoslavia and Bulgaria...
...But Qaddafi has been even more unorthodox in his methods...
...Here, the Muslim component of Qaddafi's ideology shows more clearly...
...Libya's six contiguous neighbors have also taken its money for non-military purposes, as have all the countries bordering on Israel...
...Over forty governments have received funds for non-military purposes...
...Moreover, where Amin and Bokassa built up whimsical cults of self-aggrandizement, Qaddafi has an ideology and acts according to principles...
...Weeks later, nomads found the truck, overturned and empty, in the part of Niger under de facto Libyan control...
...Qaddafi does not restrict the use of terror to foreigners...
...Qaddafi's foreign efforts invariably involve giving money, buying alien services, and the energetic use of Libya's limited facilities...
...Islam plays an even greater role in Qaddafi's foreign relations...
...Since then, the Libyans have placed exploration platforms in the contested waters on four different occasions, one time nearly provoking war...
...At-temps to unite with Egypt have soured to the point where Qaddafi and Sadat now try to assassinate each other...
...For Qaddafi, Arabs, because they speak the language of the Qur'an, have a special place in Islam and so must serve as exemplars for other Muslims...
...The Association for the Propagation of Islam, founded in 1970, trains Muslim preachers sympathetic to Qaddafi's intolerant Islam and sends them abroad with ample funds...
...Because Qaddafi can take away all that he gives, these revolutionary organizations have to listen to him...
...He has been accused of trying to topple the governments of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, the Sudan, and Jordan-and in many cases, of trying more than once...
...their leaders lack the drive to push and fight...
...foreign policy came to nothing...
...During the spring of 1980, Qaddafi's agents hunted down Libyan exiles who opposed his regime...
...The Maldive Islands received two radar-equipped boats for its coast guard...
...The troops, numbering about 7,000, are well paid, well trained, highly politicized, and strictly disciplined...
...He condemns the United States for exploiting Muslims economically and he regards Israel as the culmination of Western imperialism-not just the political control of a territory but its settlement by Europeans and their subsequent expulsion of its Muslim inhabitants...
...Qaddafi paid the Tanzanians $40 million for their return...
...In addition, Idi Amin probably stayed there for a time after his overthrow...
...most of them have been sent to sub-Saharan Africa, that last great battleground for souls between Christian and Muslim...
...And in a demonstration that Islam can be more important to Qaddafi than geopolitical alliances, Libyan weapons for a time were sent to the Islamic groups fighting the government in Afghanistan after the Soviet-backed coup in April 1978...
...Before leaving Libya, the soldiers were told they were being sent to Malta to participate in celebrations marking the withdrawal of British troops...
...and revolutionary ferment...
...empty promises and fanaticism on his part have repeatedly undermined his ceaseless efforts to project power...
...This became evident in December 1976 during negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front: To insure their success, Qaddafi virtually excluded the Front from the talks and came to terms on their behalf with the Manila regime...
...The diplomatic pouches and secure cables of Libyan embassies afford an invaluable network for supplies and information...
...Like them, he has sponsored a long list of grotesque and malevolent activities and sneered at world-wide condemnation of his acts...
...Recently, however, a cult of personality has been building around Qaddafi...
...Three near-bankrupt leftist governments in the Caribbean (Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica) recently accepted emergency aid, while Soviet clients nearer to Libya (Angola, Ethiopia, South Yemen) have also profited from Libyan largesse...
...By convincing them to convert from Christianity ("the religion of imperialism") to Islam, Qaddafi forged bonds with two African strongmen: Albert-Bernard Bongo, president of Gabon, in September 1973, and Jean-Bedel Bokassa, president (and later emperor) of Central Africa, in October 1976...
...Exhilarated by these early successes, Qaddafi plunged into international affairs and overnight turned Libya into a significant actor on the world stage...
...Libya also wins influence by paying premium prices for the vast array of foreign goods and services it consumes...
...During the November 1972 unity talks in Tripoli between North and South Yemen, he threatened to detain their diplomats until they reached an agreement (they did...
...The Bureau to Export Revolution (known also as Le Bureau arabe des liasons) runs commando camps for foreigners in Libya...
...Following the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, Qaddafi offered the Sudan extensive military aid if Numeiri broke with Sadat...
...A few up-to-date weapons Qaddafi even provided a loan for the construction of a mosque to American Black Muslims in return for their adoption of a less idiosyncratic form of Islam...
...These three legions are staffed, even directed, by foreigners and they each have a distinct mission: religious, military, or terrorist...
...On the morning of January 27, 1980, three hundred legionnaires, soldiers of the Tunisian Resistance Army attacked the town of Gafsa in western Tunisia...
...He helped to foil a coup attempt against Sudanese President Numeiri in July 1971, by forcing down a BOAC plane flying over Libya with the coup's two leaders on board...
...Support for the Ethiopian government after 1975 against Eritrean secessionists has also meant placing emotions ahead of ideology...
...He believes that the people's councils and Islamic socialism proposed in his Green Books can solve the perennial problems of the distribution of power and wealth...
...According to the Christian Science Monitor, Qaddafi "may use the bomb to blow up the Suez Canal as a personal gesture of hatred for President Anwar Sadat...
...He has three passions: Islam and Arabism...
...In each instance, negotiations broke down when the other side began to appreciate Qaddafi's intentions to dominate the union...
...When huying products such as steel, cement, and foodstuffs, which are homogeneous in quality and uniform in price, Libya often chooses the seller who is most politically cooperative...
...Finally, equating Qaddafi with Amin and Bokassa wrongly implies that he is a figure of only regional importance...
...Libyan support for the Islamic opposition to the Shah began in the mid-1970s, and Qaddafi now claims to have been the first leader outside Iran to aid Khomeini...
...In Chad, Muslim rebels who took up arms in 1966 against the central government run by Christians and animists have received significant aid from Qaddafi since 1970...
...Talking big but paying small has disappointed many potential allies, particularly in Africa...
...For example, he insisted that Nepal break diplomatic relations with Israel in return for $50,000 in disaster relief...
...while the coup was in progress, Qaddafi sent Libyan planes over Khartoum...
...Most recently, he has been connected with the outbreak of violence by a Muslim group in northern Nigeria that left over 100 people dead...
...It appears that Musa as-Sadr, an invited guest of state, was murdered by his Libyan hosts...
...Difficult choices arise only rarely: Revolutionary Algeria supports the creation of a new independent Arab state of the Western Sahara by the Polisario...
...Few states, even small ones, sell their foreign policy that cheaply...
...Larger sums go for economic development: a pelletization plant in India, agricultural infrastructure in the Sudan, and a wide variety of joint ventures (shipping companies, trading firms, factories, agribusinesses...
...Two years later, in what is perhaps a related development, Libya purchased $415 million worth of stock in Fiat, La Stampa''s parent company...
...Since 1969 Libya has witnessed few atrocities and its repression is moderate by world standards...
...Qaddafi has reaped bitterness and destruction without attaining any of his goals...
...Some money goes to humanitarian causes, such as caring for flood and earthquake victims in Pakistan or feeding the peoples struck by famine in Somalia...
...In contrast to Amin's and Bokassa's former splendor, Qaddafi lives modestly...
...Qaddafi exercises an even tighter rein over the foreign legions he sponsors...
...Soldiers from these camps have often ventured outside Libya, assisting the Polisario (via a desert route dubbed the "Qaddafi trail"), occupying the Aozou strip in northern Chad, and fighting in Chad's civil war...
...Even though international representation in Libya has tripled since 1969, the country is isolated...
...He continually advances the cause of Islam, whether by imposing Islamic regulations within Libya, urging Muslims elsewhere to do likewise, or helping Muslims in conflict with non-Muslims...
...bribing Cyprus to accept a transmitter for Libyan radio broadcasts...
...He sells oil, even at ever higher prices, as a favor to be exploited for political ends...
...Libya's King Idris failed to wring any political and economic power out of Libya's oil, and so when Qaddafi took over the country in a bloodless coup on September 1, 1969, he inherited a sleepy state without international ambitions...
...this has just happened again with Syria...
...Qaddafi's aid to opposition groups extends to virtually every West European separatist movement that turns to him, including such secessionist groups as the Canary Islanders, the Basques, the Northern Irish, as well as the Scottish, Welsh, Breton, Corsican, and Sardinian movements...
...Similar Muslim fellow-feeling impels Qaddafi to give unbounded support to the PLO...
...in Libyan politics, in the world at large, Qaddafi constantly creates turbulence, upsets the status quo, and revels in action for its own sake...
...When Brezhnev asked why Tashkent, Qaddafi was quoted as saying, 'Because I understand there are a lot of Muslims in that part of Russia [sic] and I would like to take care of them.' The matter was never raised again...
...Despite his reputation as an eccentric, even a madman, he has pursued consistent policies for twelve years...
...They lack Qad-dafi's sense of mission...
...The Polisario is losing, the Gafsa attack failed, Sadat persevered in making peace with Israel, Chad degenerated into anarchy, Idi Amin and Bokassa were overthrown, Eritreans and Ethiopians reached a stand-off, Israel withstood terrorism, the Mecca mosque caper failed bloodily, the National Front in Lebanon disintegrated, Thai and Philippine rebellions ground down to a halt, and the attempts to use Billy Carter to influence U.S...
...In some ways, Qaddafi resembles two other wildly eccentric African despots, Idi Amin and Jean-Bedel Bokassa...
...Over the past decade Qaddafi's radical fervor has cost him nearly all of his allies...
...Qaddafi is completely determined and committed...
...Khomeini cannot forgive Qaddafi for murdering Musa as-Sadr, his relative by marriage...
...Libya needs tens of thousands of technicians, educators, clerks, construction laborers, and unskilled workers...
...No ruler has resigned so many times, tried so often to unite with other states, or meddled so irresponsibly around the world...
...Qaddafi has reacted with astounding greediness to the discovery of oil on the continental shelf between Libya and its oil-poor neighbors, Tunisia and Malta...
...Extreme anti-Israel sentiment did not prevent a break in relations with the PLO during 1979, and its expulsion from Libya...
...Libyan influence is also discernable in the Algerian National Charter of June 1976, which made Islam the religion of state, and in the Mauritanian decree of June 1978 which established Islamic precepts as the law of the land...
...Qaddafi was even present in the mosque in Bangui, Central Africa, when Bokassa converted...
...In a tauntingly aggressive move, government maps of Libya published in September 1976 included about 7,500 square miles of Algeria, a similar amount of Niger, and 37,000 square miles of Chad...
...True to his anarchistic bent, Qaddafi supports as many opposition movements as established governments...
...Musa as-Sadr, leader of the Twelver Shi'is in Lebanon, disappeared while on a state visit to Libya in August 1978...
...occupation" (whichprovoked a break in relations on October 30...
...Such diversification wins Libya influence and prestige in many countries while reducing its vulnerability to any one supplier...
...Egypt and Tunisia provided the most manpower for Libya during the 1970s, but recent crises with these two countries (peace with Israel, the Gafsa incident) have led to a reduction in favor of laborers from Turkey, Pakistan, India, and other points east...
...Translating these principles into action, Qaddafi helps Muslims against non-Muslims, Arabs against non-Arabs, revolutionaries against the status quo, republicans against monarchs, and absolutely anyone who hates Israel...
...he has a vision of truth and does everything in his power to advance it...
...only Algeria and Pakistan have managed to maintain steadily good relations...
...Although Qaddafi repeatedly assured France during the years 1971-74 that Libyan Mirage planes had not been made available to Egypt, President Sadat later disclosed that they had...
...He can not forgive the Europeans for having colonized so much of the Muslim world and then imposing on it what he views as their weak, corrupt ways...
...Libya's new power of course, flowed from its oil, without which its influence would be no greater than that of, say, Chad or Niger...
...Within two years of his conversion to Islam, Gabonese President Bongo abrogated all the cooperation agreements he had signed with Libya because Qaddafi had not honored them...
...As observed in Africa Contemporary Record, by mid-1976 Qaddafi had become omnipresent: In addition to the plan to kidnap Abdul Menim Houni at Rome airport in March, and the assassination plots in Egypt and Tunisia the same month, he was accused in May of planning sabotage in the Nile Delta and of arming terrorists in Iran...
...In fact, they found no local sympathy and the government easily regained control...
...Who but Qaddafi would unearth the bones of Italians buried in Libya, build a 200-mile concrete wall to protect himself from a neighbor (Egypt), or sign a mutual defense treaty with Guinea...
...Threats against dissident Libyan students living in this country led the U.S...
...The Palestinians who killed eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics received their weapons through the Libyan diplomatic pouch (those killed by the West German police received state funerals in Libya...
...Others staged a coup in the Sudan and aided three African tyrants, Amin, Bokassa, and Francisco Macias Nguemo in Equatorial Guinea...
...Qaddafi funds these groups, arms them, and provides access to Libyan training camps and radio...
...but permitting outlawed groups- almost always non-European-to open offices, even headquarters, in Libya gives him even greater control...
...Qaddafi's faction in Chad turned against him when Libya claimed a slice of Chad's territory...
...Libyan authorities claim he left Tripoli on Alitalia flight #881 to Rome on August 31, but investigations have clearly shown that he never left Libya...
...mounting a war of nerves against U.S...
...Such actions have not been without coqsequence...
...Yet there is more to Qaddafi...
...intense international competition to supply this labor again permits Qaddafi to extract political concessions...
...his enthusiasm for the Green Books may now even eclipse his devotion to the Qur'an...
...Small gifts win goodwill in remote areas: The poorest countries in Africa (Burundi, Malagasy, Rwanda, Togo) receive development aid, Sri Lanka got one million dollars for hosting the non-aligned conference of 1977, and Tonga plans to extend the main airstrip at the Fua'amotu airport with three million dollars from Libya...
...Their murder of four dissidents in Rome, two in London, and one each in Athens, Beirut, Bonn, and Milan aroused international opprobrium...
...This accounts for the increasingly erratic regulations concerning Islam which emanate from Libya (such as a change in the first year of the Islamic calendar from 622 C.E...
...Unquestionably, he is fanatical, but rarely erratic, unpredictable, or devious...
...From this odd blend, Qaddafi has devised novel methods of conducting an adventurous foreign policy based not on human resources, but on wealth and will power...
...Until 1975, the Libyan government relied on independent foreign groups to undertake its terrorist missions...
...Libya has a key role in OPEC, serves as an arsenal for Soviet arms, and aspires to nuclear weapons of its own...
...among other acts of adulation, he accepts veneration as a messiah figure from the Children of God, an American Jesus freak movement...
...Since the introduction of his third way in 1973, Qaddafi has increasingly insisted on its application in Libya and in other countries where he carries influence...
...Israel's destruction will be both the catalyst and symbol of Arab and Muslim unity...
...Threats of an oil boycott convinced President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines to accept Libyan mediation in his struggle with Muslim rebels...
...Under the guise of working to forge a single Arab nation, he has attempted to unite Libya with a dizzying number of other countries, including the Western Sahara, Morocco, Mauritania, Malta (only Qaddafi sees Malta as Arab), Egypt, the Sudan, Syria, and, most recently, Chad...
...When Israel shot down five Syrian Migs in June 1979, Libya immediately offered to replace them...
...Further east, he helps Muslim rebels in Thailand and the Philippines...
...Tanzanian troops threatened to overthrow Idi Amin in early 1979, so Qaddafi sent 1,500 Libyans and legionnaires to Uganda...
...only enormous revenues buy enough friends to keep it from becoming a pariah...
...But when it came time to pay, Qaddafi subjected Dom Mintoff to a humiliating inquisition at the hands of a people's council...
...In the Lebanese civil war of 1975-77, Qaddafi of course backed the more Muslim faction of the National Front...
...He aids several subversive Muslim organizations in Egypt in the hope that one of them will either assassinate leading Egyptian politicians or carry out a coup...
...The Tunisians endured sabotage, assassination plots, and aggression over contested oil fields, until the attack on Gafsa finally expended their good will...
...Egyptians, Tunisians and other Arabs, sub-Saharan Africans, Pakistanis, Indians, Vietnamese, North Koreans, and West Europeans participate, but there are no Cubans or Soviets, and the organization is run by Palestinians...
...Most were shot, but one was strangled and another decapitated...
...Although domestic brutality increased in 1980, it is still very far from recent ravages in Uganda, Central Africa, or Equatorial Guinea, to say nothing of Indochina...
...Libyan participation ceased to be merely financial in mid-1979 when a truck in Niger carrying 20 tons of 70 percent uranate, known as "yellow cake," disappeared from its normal route to the sea...
...Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi continues to exert his political will at a frenzied pace...
...have made a big difference for the armed forces of countries like Burundi, Central Africa, Mauritania, and Niger...
...Aiding these rebels gives Qaddafi some clout...
...Qaddafi has also developed a political ideology of his own to guide public affairs in Libya and around the world...
...For example, when the Italian newspaper La Stampa published a satire on Qaddafi in 1974, Qaddafi demanded the dismissal of its Jewish editor and threatened to break diplomatic relations with Italy if not satisfied...
...In that year, the establishment of a terrorist foreign legion, the Service special des renseignements, made it possible for Qaddafi to initiate and control hijackings, assassinations, sabotage, and kidnapping...
...Organizations represented in Tripoli include the Polisario (Western Sahara), Union democratique republicaine du Mali, Tunisian Resistance Army, Frolinat (Chad), Ansar (Sudan), Front for the Liberation of Egypt, Palestine Liberation Front, Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arab [Persian] Gulf, Arabistan Liberation Movement (Iran), Pattani National Liberation Front (Thailand), Moro National Liberation front (the Philippines), as well as movements directed against the current regimes in Morocco, Mauritania, and Afghanistan...
...In July he was charged with masterminding the coup attempt in Sudan, and in August, with responsibility for bombings in Egypt and for an attack on an El Al plane in Istanbul...
...Not one of Qaddafi's attempts at coups d'etat has toppled a government, not one rebellious force has succeeded, no separatists have established a new state, no terrorist campaign has broken a people's resolve, no plan for union has been carried through, and no country save Libya follows the "third theory...
...For example, he encourages any measure against Israel, opposing the Jewish state in every international forum, however inappropriate, embracing terrorism without qualms, and even proposing such schemes as the bombing of the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II as it brought Jews to celebrate Israel's 25th Anniversary...
...Libya aids governments and opposition groups about equally...
...Daniel Pipes is the author of Slave Soldiers and Islam published last month by Yale University Press...
...He has not publically discussed Muslims in the Soviet Union, however, though reports have circulated that he brought up this topic during a 1977 meeting with Brezhnev in Moscow: "Brezhnev reportedly raised the possibility of opening a Soviet consulate in Benghazi, whereupon Qaddafi said that would be all right if Libya could open one in Tashkent...
...Libya invests very little in the less developed countries, prefering the larger, more stable markets of the West...
...Here too Qaddafi exploits the power of his money, though usually with less success...
...Qaddafi uses his international connections as an Arab and a Muslim to expand Libya's influence...
...Many Arab regimes fail to meet Qaddafi's standards, so he has often instigated coups against them...
...Qaddafi also supports activist Muslims struggling against governments run by less zealous Muslims...
...to Libya's acute embarrassment and disappointment, King Hasan quickly regained power...
Vol. 14 • March 1981 • No. 3
