Sorry, Bahrain. While your protestors have a righteous cause in overthrowing one of the few absolute monarchies left in the world, you can’t beat crazy.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s notorious brutality coupled with his recent pledge that he would “fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet” screams for news coverage.
You might remember seeing footage of the man rambling in front of the U.N. months ago — Gaddafi’s speech was even used as comedy fodder on “The Daily Show” — but the steps he is willing to take and has already taken are no laughing matter. If the idea of deploying a country’s air force with orders to strike its own people sounds reasonable to you, consider that the Colonel’s own U.N. delegation just asked that he be charged with genocide.
We have heard of progress in several other Arab nations, but we’re skeptical Gaddafi would consider giving in as “easily” as the other leaders have. He sees himself as captain, and he’ll go down with the ship if the need presents itself.
Even knowing that, we’ve come to accept that there’s little our government can do to pressure Libya into becoming more democratic: We have relatively little aid going into the country.
It’s too bad our hands are tied because, as we said before, we know it’s difficult to beat crazy, and those protestors are going to need all the help they can get against a man with such a twisted mind.
