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Comments

• [1] Brian from Manhattan September 20, 2007 - 11:19AM

  What does Prof. Barber think Ghadafi's stance on Commercial Billboards in Libya will be? Ghadiafi has long-opposed any Western advertising making Libya a haven free from the visual pollution (other than his own images on billboards) seen nearly everywhere else in the world.

  
  
• [2] Trevor from LIC September 20, 2007 - 11:19AM

  You guys are right, there are so many possibilities for resorts in Libya! We can have our corporate getaway tours there and drink on the beach while our Libyan cabana boys serve more drinks! We could also outsource call centers there and put Americans out of work and underpay the Libyans! Ooh and Starbucks!

  Oh yeah, and democracy and voting and all that too...

  
  
• [3] Scott F.Butler from Manhattan September 20, 2007 - 11:22AM

  Qaddafi is weak in the region: That is why he's undergoing a "change of heart". But what I really want to know from Mr. Barber is . . .

  Does Qaddafi maintain some of the same eccentricities that once branded him the "Keith Richards" of dicators? For example, does he still maintain an ALL-FEMALE Secret Service/personal bodyguard force?

  
  
• [4] ab from nyc September 20, 2007 - 11:27AM

  So is this apologist for Ghaddafi going to ignore Libya's contribution to the darfur genocide? From Wikipedia:

  "This Arab-African dichotomy, which was not an indigenously developed way of perceiving local relations, was exacerbated after Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi became focused on establishing an Arab belt across the Sahel and promulgated an ideology of Arab supremacy.[20] As a result of a sequence of interactions between Sudan, Libya and Chad from the late 1960s through the 1980s, including the creation of the Libyan-supported Islamic Legion, Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry established Darfur as a rear base for the rebel force led by Hissène Habré, which was attempting to overthrow the Chadian government and was also anti-Gaddafi.[21]

  In 1983 and 1984, the rains failed and the region was plunged into a famine.[22] The famine killed an estimated 95,000 people out of a population of 3.1 million. Nimeiry was overthrown on 5 April 1985, and Sadiq al-Mahdi came out of exile, making a deal with Gaddafi, which al-Mahdi did not honor, to turn over Darfur to Libya if he was supplied with the funds to win the upcoming elections.[23]"

  
  
• [5] Trevor from LIC September 20, 2007 - 11:27AM

  It will become like Dubai: open to foreign investment and MNC influence, bereft of actual democratic politics.

  As long as another country is capitalist, regardless of its human rights record, the United States will no longer view it as an actual enemy.

  See: China

  Russia

  Vietnam

  Brazil

  Israel

  Chile