Honour On Sale
Moammar Gadhafi and his iron rule over his country haven't changed one iota. This proud desert nomad, the dictator of Libya whose people adore his every dictate and respond with a fervent desire for his despotic rule to last forever, has become very adept at manipulating the political deliberations of the world when it deplores his actions, by skilfully and disarmingly reaching unexpected accords when sufficiently tickled by hard cash or promises of acceptance.The uneasy alliances reached between the European Union and Libya measure a sometimes counterproductive atmosphere of live-and-let-live. Gadhafi's excesses are accepted as a diplomatic necessity to bring him into an atmosphere of detente. This man grandly assented to giving up a nuclear project in exchange for reassurances that the great glowering power of the United States would not be unleashed upon him.
He was persuaded to admit that his country had been responsible for the mass murder of innocent people through the downing of a civil airliner in Lockerbie off the Irish coast. And agreed to pay restitution to the families of those who had died. Big mistake, confirming to this man that money can pave the way to forgiveness; that human lives can be exchanged for sufficient cash incentives.
But the West was overjoyed at the momentous news that Libya under its truly eccentrically-mad leader agreed to give up on its long-range plans to furnish itself with weapons of mass destruction. Which paved the way for the West to embrace his newfound respectability, and for the United States to restore diplomatic relations.
Who knows the ways of such inscrutable minds, those who reach conclusions stretching credulity and belief in sanity? That he would target innocent medical workers and implicate them in planning, under urgings from Western influences, to give life-destroying injections to hundreds of hospitalized children to infect them with HIV.
Embarrassment at the fact that over 400 children in a Libyan hospital whose sanitation and medical practises left something to be desired, became infected with HIV? A mass infection that had occurred, according to international scientists well before the arrival of the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor at the hospital in question.
But logic and reality appear to have no influence on the quirky and irrepressibly mad mind set of such as Moammar Gadhafi, and the six people were incarcerated for life. They'd served eight years in hopeless imprisonment despite the best efforts of the West to secure their freedom. Finally, through the intervention of the European Union and its assisting funds offered to Bulgaria, and through the effervescent presence of Cecilia Sarkozy's influence they were freed.
Bulgaria gave instant citizenship to the Palestinian doctor, and he and the Bulgarian nurses were all given immediate freedom once they reached Sofia. The agreement to permit them to leave was reached once it was assured that the families of the 400 infected children would receive recompense for their grief. To the tune of $1-million for each family.
The funding source remains a mystery, but the Libyan government pronounces itself satisfied that justice has been done. Sometimes, nothing prevails beyond reason and it takes outright bribery to achieve a goal. How much is a human life worth? Nothing, if such a one as Gadhafi takes it into his head to bomb a civilian aircraft, and then grudgingly to invest himself once again in international good graces, antes up.
Beyond value, if one is sane and humane.
Forgive us if we now delicately question the sanity and humanity of France's president Nicolas Sarkozy, that resolutely good man who promises much for the future of France and that of the European Union. Has he temporarily lost grasp of his senses; at the very least sense of proportion, appropriate recompense in ransom, giddy with victory and the power it grants him?
Sign an agreement with Col. Gadhafi to help build a nuclear reactor for Libya? What can the man be thinking?
Labels: Heroes and Villains, Human Fallibility
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 25, 2007
<< Home