From the BBC
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has threatened to attack Europe in revenge for Nato's operations in Libya.
Col Gaddafi said Libya would target European "homes, offices, families" unless Nato stopped its campaign.
He spoke via an audio message broadcast to tens of thousands of supporters gathered in a central Tripoli square.
His message comes after France confirmed it had supplied weapons to anti-government rebels, delivering arms to Berber tribal fighters near Tripoli.
In the broadcast, played via loudspeakers to gathered crowds in the capital's Green Square, he called on supporters to "march on the western mountains", the area where the weapons had been delivered.
Then he warned Europe that Libyans would seek revenge.
"These people [the Libyans] are able to one day take this battle [...] to Europe, to target your homes, offices, families, which would become legitimate military targets, like you have targeted our homes," he said.
"If we decide to, we are able to move to Europe like locusts, like bees. We advise you to retreat before you are dealt a disaster," he added.
His message come just days after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Col Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi for crimes against humanity.
International prosecutors allege government troops fired on civilian protesters during anti-Gaddafi street demonstrations earlier this year.
Friday's rally was one of the largest in recent times, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, in Tripoli, and the message was the first time that Col Gaddafi had been heard of in weeks.
$5 that in a decade we'll be told this was one of the events that sparked the third world war.
Much as my heart goes out to the people all around the world suffering under tyrants and dictators, I just can't see how we can invade a country, even the U.N., without it blowing up in our faces down the track. Who's to say the guy after Gaddafi won't be a monster that makes the current yahoo look like a saint? Or that he/they/she won't be puppets of the surrounding nations, a religious zealot or the United Nations themselves?
Only way I can see this working is if the 'Rebels' are prepared to wipe out the 'Loyalists' down to the last man, woman and child. Horrific, but given the way the country has divided and the way that the middle east seems determined to fracture along tribal and religious lines, the only way I can see them having a true peace is outright genocide, which means the U.N. and the nations involved would have to jump in and stop their former allies ... and then have two sets of people willing to pour bile and s!&! upon their collective heads, now both armed to the friggin' teeth with military-grade munitions.
I don't know, I want to believe that the nations where these uprisings are happening can solve their problems themselves, because every time another nation tries to offer aid, it's either redirected to the local official's wallets, the local military or the aid is used later down the track for more 'them vs us' political power-mongering.
I pray to whatever deity happens to give a crap that this is just the hateful rantings of a man infamous for his cruelty and indifference to the suffering of his fellow human beings, but I also hope his ranting makes the Powers-That-Be sit up and realise that the nations of the U.N. can't solve everyone else's problems. Sometimes we have to just stand back and let the problem sort itself out, one way or the other, unless we or an allied nation is directly threatened or disrupted.
We've got to learn to balance the need for proactive action with cause and effect. If we're going to stop a tyrant killing his people, don't go in with 20,000 troops and light armor because it's economically viable, go in with 2,000,000 troops, full air, land and sea support and wipe them off the map, turn around and go home. Being able to show that you can and will deliver a colossal ass-kicking to the biggest dick in the sandbox and then go home immediately afterwards is a much more efficient display of force and might than the current foolery that our guys and gals are having to deal with in Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations all over the world, because we have an Economist, rather than a General, calling the shots.
Horrible as it is, don't try to help the locals, just wipe out the target, dump a few cargo-ship's worth of building supplies and basic food supplies and leave, because we're not welcome no matter how much we help.
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The hypocrisy of imperialism, under the guise of the UN, NATO, the International Criminal Court or whoever, is mind-boggling.
A fair assessment, Gern. Slightly unfair, Anklebiter, but only slightly.
Slightly unfair means, what, mostly fair?
Anyway, an interesting article from the Asia Times. The "Lies, lies and more lies" section, in particular.
On top of which I'd add that there have been mass disappearances (executions?) of trade unionists in the post-Mubarak Egypt, US-friendly regimes have been busy gunning down protesters in Bahrain and Yemen, sometimes with the help of our killer robots, the anniversary of the foundation of Israel has led to yet more Palestinian deaths and, of course, Syria's been up to some nasty shiznit.
Not to mention, of course, what "we" have been up to in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan over the last decade.
Qaddafi sucks, no argument there, but he is by no means the only, nor even the worst, asshat on the planet.
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"If we decide to, we are able to move to Europe like locusts, like bees."
I'm still uneasy about Bahrain's political climate.
Edit: The Arab Unrest Index.