The New York Times featured a paean to Libyan pretender to the throne, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi. While the end of the article explains why a government controlled economy is bad, that part of the article is there to show what the younger Qaddafi hopes to change.
Yet that is the goal of Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the son and possible successor to Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, as he sets out to dismantle a legacy of Socialism and authoritarianism introduced by his father 40 years ago.
“It is hard work reinventing a country,†he said in an interview last month, as he slouched on a sofa in his villa in the hills above Tripoli, picking at a tray of fruit including fresh dates brought to him by a black-suited waiter. “But that is what we are doing. We will have a new constitution, new laws, a commercial and business code and now a flat tax of 15 percent.â€
In the last few years, Mr. Qaddafi, 37, who has a doctorate from the London School of Economics, flawless English and a bold independent streak, has emerged as the Western-friendly face of Libya and symbol of its hopes for reform and openness. When he was nominated last year to lead a powerful government body overseeing tribal leaders, analysts saw it as a sign of his father’s endorsement.
Barry Rubin trashed this uncritical treatment of the friendly face of tyranny.
… the once-great newspaper of broken record now gives us a long article about how great the Libyan regime and son-of-Qadhafi are. Here you can see the pattern that prevails elsewhere: taking for granted as truth the lies that dictatorial regimes and radical movements tell while endlessly explaining that just about everyone in the world except Usama bin Ladin is a moderate.
For all of the kind words used to describe Seif Qaddafi, the profile neglects to mention his role in the release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi. After all if you’re showing Sief to be a moderate, why ruin it with the cynical business venture that freed a mass murderer, who wasn’t nearly as sick as we were told.
As The Lede noted last week, in 2008 the younger Mr. Qaddafi said in this extraordinary interview with the BBC that Libya had “accepted responsibility†for the actions of Mr. Megrahi and paid compensation for the Lockerbie bombing simply to bring about an end to international sanctions, but “that doesn’t mean we did it.†In the same interview, Mr. Qaddafi called the families of the Lockerbie victims “very greedy†and said, “Instead of wasting their time blackmailing us,†they should now work with the Libyan government “in order to find the real criminal who was behind that attack.â€
That would have ruined the mood, wouldn’t it?
UPDATE: If the New York Times wanted to give Saif Qaddafi an unchallenged forum for his views isn’t the op-ed page the place for that not the news section?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
I’m pretty sure you could find the exact same article in the archives about the current Assad. Just replace “London School of Economics” with “Medical School.”
Thankfully, no one gets to write that article about Uday and Qusay Hussein.
So the Libyans and OJ Simpson will be out there trying to find the real culprits, eh? I’m not holding my breath for an announcement.
any pronouncement by an Israeli political leader is, of course, subject to close scrutiny. This is, however, in the tradition of the New York Times that still displays Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer Price for lying about the Soviet famines.
Seif Gadafi is quite right. His country had nothing to do with Lockerbie, but it was a unwelcome present visited on the country by a CIA agent called ********* ************, a known Tripoli-head, who together with colleages had been behind the bombing which included an Iranian called **********. The reason – the get a presidentail candiddate called B*** into the White House, It workred, but only by delaying that attack until after the election, which must have been the really difficult part to swing to the Iranians, as they hav every reason to be bvery suspicious of the so-called democtraic leader of the world.
this story about accepting of responsibilities for actions that they did not do looks pretty weired to me, they play with facts and they lie so often, i am sure they know *the real criminal* and what is more he was supported by them