The current Russian-Ukrainian conflict proves how difficult it is for a small country caught between large powers. Whether swinging to the left or to the right, one wrong step is one wrong step. Are small countries absolutely neutral? Can small countries be independent? Why is this not the case with the history of Ukraine? Why is the fate of a generation of "strongmen" Gaddafi not like this? Wonder if the fate of Ukraine Zelenskiy is the same?
Aristotle predicted 1300 years ago: "Something new will always appear in Libya." "Now it seems that the old gentleman's prediction is not inaccurate.
Idris I of Libya
In the late 1940s, Idris I emerged from Egypt, drove out the Italians entrenched in Libya, and declared independence. Ten years later, in the late 1950s, Western geologists drilled several wells in libya's barren desert, only to grunt out a large amount of black liquid, which was then known as "liquid gold." After another 10 years, at the end of the 60s, a world-class "madman" Gaddafi appeared in ping-pong.
Gaddafi's ideas originally came from the book The Philosophy of Revolution, written by Egyptian President Nasser. One of the sentences excites Gaddafi: "For some reason, I assert that there is a heroic character in the Arab world waiting for his actor." ”
Gaddafi memorized the passage containing the phrase backwards, and whenever he recited it, he felt his blood boil. He stubbornly believed that he was the "actor of the Arab hero" written in Nasser's book, a kind of arrogance and ambition that "the heavens will descend upon the Slovaks".
Nasser admired his little brother Gaddafi
When Qaddafi came to power through a coup d'état, he first promoted himself directly from captain to colonel, and then changed the name of the country to "Libyan Arab Republic".
He declared that his theory of governance was called "the third in the world," not to rank third in the world, but to be independent of communism and capitalism. He was opposed to both communism and capitalism. He believes that the world's third theoretical system is a powerful theoretical weapon to defeat the communist atheism and capitalist pragmatism ideas, and it is a precious wealth belonging to the people of the whole world, and the people of the whole world must arm their minds with this theoretical system.
To this end, he changed the name of the country again, this time the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya".
At first, he cursed the United States and the Soviet Union, calling them all Satans. He ordered the closure of U.S. and British military bases in Libya; expelled 25,000 descendants of Italian colonists; confiscated Oil fields from Western companies in Libya, and then raised oil prices sharply. In the intervening years, Gaddafi added billions of dollars in revenue to Libya.
Curiously, the United States paid no heed to his provocations, neither beating nor scolding, as if acquiescing.
The reason is that although the United States is annoyed by Gaddafi's stubbornness and extremism, it is dissatisfied with his enemies with the West at every turn. However, it was found that he was also cursing the Communist Soviet Union, so he thought that he was an object that could be won, and he also had a slight illusion. Whether it is Nixon or Carter, they will put up with some of his less excessive anti-American actions, and the basic attitude is "the enemy of the enemy is a friend" and "more flowers, less thorns.".
The CIA even offered intelligence to help him quell an internal coup, giving him two colonels from the Libyan army as a greeting gift.
But over time, the Americans found that Gaddafi's ties with the Soviet Union grew closer and worse for the United States. Not only did Qaddafi buy a large number of Soviet-made weapons, including MiG aircraft, SAM missiles and T-tanks, but also opened the door for the Soviet Union to establish a naval and air force military base in Libya.
Gaddafi holding hands with Bonezhilev
To the annoyance of Americans, in December 1979, some 2,000 Libyans stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli and shouted slogans in support of the Radical Islamic regime in Iran that seized power earlier that year. Finally, the embassy was burned to the ground. The United States announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Libya.
In 1980, when Reagan succeeded the "indecisive" Carter to the White House, he radically changed his view of Gaddafi, placing him on the standard blacklist of "Soviet proxies" from the object of his struggle and looking for an opportunity to clean him up.
In August 1981, the U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet shot down two Libyan Air Force Su-22s over Sidra Bend in the Mediterranean Sea.
Battle of Sidra Bend
On December 23, 1985, EgyptAir Flight 648, which was flying from Athens to Cairo, was hijacked by terrorists, killing 60 people. Four days later, the international airports in Rome and Vienna were attacked, killing more than 100 people, including 5 Americans.
Reagan, who had been trying to teach Gaddafi a lesson, finally found an excuse and decided to carry out a military strike on Libya.
But what bothered Americans was that the Soviet Union had more than 1,500 advisers in Libya, 600 of whom worked in the Libyan Air Force; what if a U.S. air raid on Libya killed a Soviet adviser? Will the Soviets retaliate? Will it go to war?
Reagan also thought it was a real problem, and he was a bit of a drummer. So he sent CIA Director Casey to feel the attitude of the Soviets.
Reagan with CIA Director William Casey
Interestingly, when the Soviet Union, which was intent on improving Soviet-American relations, heard that the US Navy was going to "exercise" in the waters near Sidra Bend in Libya, it changed the normal practice of tracking and reconnaissance in the past, and immediately withdrew its ships outside the US military exercise area, making a look of avoidance. Separately, intelligence sent back from Moscow said the Soviet Union had notified most of its advisers in Libya to return home, either for meetings or vacations.
All this shows that the Soviet Union does not want to intervene in the conflict between the United States and Libya, and the possibility of military intervention is zero. The Soviet Union gave Reagan a "reassuring pill" and Qaddafi ate a "Ecstasy Pill."
Gaddafi was bent on defecting to the Soviet Union, but he did not know that he was just a pawn.
On March 25, 1986, three aircraft carrier battle groups of the United States "Saratoga", "Coral Sea" and "United States" launched an attack on Libya, sinking 5 Libyan ships and destroying one SAM-5 missile position. The Liberians lost 150 casualties and none of the American casualties. Operation Prairie Fire ends.
Three-carrier battle group of the U.S. Navy
But before Reagan could be happy for a few days, something went wrong again. In the early morning of April 5, 1986, an explosion occurred in a discotheque frequented by U.S. troops in West Germany, killing 50 U.S. troops and 1 dead. This can make Reagan angry, is Gaddafi an undead little strong?
On April 15, 1986, the U.S. military assembled the largest fleet since World War II, 250 aircraft of various types and purposes, to carry out a "Golden Canyon" military strike on Libya, the primary goal of which was to kill Gaddafi.
A U.S. military fleet in Operation Golden Canyon
Gaddafi did not die after the indiscriminate bombardment, but he was injured and instigated, and since then he has never mentioned revenge against US imperialism on television.
At this time, the soviet leader was also replaced by Gorbachev, who compromised with the West and had a "new thinking", not to mention that the Soviet Union itself was also deeply mired in the quagmire of the war in Afghanistan, where Gaddafi was still in charge.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the "clever" Gaddafi felt that Russia, which had inherited most of the Soviet Union's legacy, was also in the sunset, and was not qualified to call himself a brother, so he took the initiative to cut off military cooperation with Russia in order to pay tribute to the United States. This is to offend Russia as well.
Putin and Gaddafi
After Clinton was elected President of the United States in 1992, Gaddafi praised Clinton as the "savior of the new world." In April 1999, in order to further draw closer to the United States, Libya handed over two Libyans suspected of creating the "Lockerbie Air Disaster" for trial. Clinton felt that Gaddafi was slowly on the road and agreed to the temporary suspension of sanctions against Libya by the United Nations Security Council.
Gaddafi with British Prime Minister Tony Blair
In 2001, after the events of 9/11, Qaddafi expressed strong condemnation of the terrorist attacks, becoming one of the first Arab leaders to oppose terrorism. Gaddafi also actively provided the United States with information on al-Qaida and called on Libyans to donate blood to the American people.
On August 15, 2003, Libya declared itself responsible for the Lockerbie air disaster, agreeing to compensate each victim's family for at least $5 million. George W. Bush was satisfied and said that the United States did not oppose the lifting of U.N. sanctions on Libya. On September 12, 2003, the United Nations Security Council voted to lift 11 years of sanctions against Libya.
Lockerbie air crash
In December of the same year, after receiving the news that Saddam Hussein had been arrested in Iraq, in order to become a friend of the United States and avoid saddam Hussein's fate, Gaddafi announced that Libya would abandon the development of weapons of mass destruction and handed over relevant facilities and materials to the United States.
Gaddafi with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
The effort paid off. In June 2004, the United States announced the resumption of diplomatic relations with Libya. George W. Bush also made a big move to lift the ban on U.S. citizens traveling to Libya and ease economic sanctions on Libya.
It can be said that in order to eliminate the suspicion of the Western countries and win their favor, Qaddafi chose the most "nearest" path, that is, to make enemies with Russia and China, to challenge our bottom line, as a letter of surrender.
Gaddafi is in China
In September 2009, Gaddafi affectionately called U.S. President Barack Obama "the son of the african people" at the United Nations General Assembly, but ironically, the "son" he called him killed two years later.
During a visit to Chile in March 2011, Obama said: "Gaddafi must step down. ”
After Gaddafi's death, Obama was asked on an NBC show about his feelings about publicly airing footage of Gaddafi's death, saying, "I don't think it's a joyous thing to be happy about." I think there should be a certain respect for the deceased, even if this person did something sinful before he died. "Don't know if Gaddafi can hear?"
I will not elaborate on it later, but the results are already known to everyone.
Gaddafi and Obama
It can be seen that Qaddafi is a wall-headed grass that drifts with the wind, has no concentration all his life, swings left and right, throws himself into the Soviet Union and is pit by the Soviet Union, and relies on the United States to be destroyed by the United States. Its fate can only sigh.
Hopefully Zelenskiy won't become the second Gaddafi.