Ruth King

While the entire nation was focused on the President’s address and the issue of illegal immigration, Secretary of State Rice announced that the United States was resuming diplomatic ties with Libya. Dr. Rice said: “We have witnessed the beginning of that country’s re-emergence into the mainstream of the international community.”

Hmm. Muammar Qaddafi, author of the incoherent Green Book (which details astonishing facts such as “men do not get pregnant” and black people have more children because “they get sluggish in hot climates” along with other trenchant observations about sports, government and suggested life styles) is now just another mainstream guy.

Has Madame Secretary forgotten his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 1, 1988? Until 9/11/2001, the bombing of Flight 103 was the worst act of terrorism against United States civilian citizens. Of the 270 victims (259 on the plane, 11 on the ground) 189 were American men, women and children.

Has Madame Secretary forgotten….or did she ever know….that Qaddafi has used his nation’s oil wealth to foment terrorism, insurrection and civil war throughout Africa since the 1970s? Did she know ….or care…..that Libya was a way station for shipment of arms to terrorists; that he maintained schools to train many of the perpetrators of the genocides in Africa; that because of Qaddafi’s involvement and support more than a million Africans were starved, tortured, raped and mutilated in Liberia and Sierra Leone; that Qaddafi was best friend and enabler of former Liberian President Charles Taylor who has been found guilty of eleven counts of war crimes against humanity for the devastation he heaped on millions of Africans? Did she know...or care...that in November 2004 Qaddafi gave his annual “human rights prize” to Venezuela strongman Hugo Chavez for “fighting imperialism and the enemies of freedom inside and outside” [i.e. President George W. Bush].

As J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University, writes: “In the wake of the Iraq war, it is completely understandable that Qaddafi should try to mollify the West by dismantling his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, as well as by talking about democracy and human rights. That the West should be seduced by this charade is not only pathetic; it also betrays an ill-disguised double standard that smacks of racism.”

Mainstreaming Qaddafi is not statesmanship; it is not coherent policy; rather it is reminiscent of paying “tribute” to the ruler of Tripoli in the same way that British and Americans did during the Barbary Wars when the Arabs seized American and British vessels and held crews for ransom or sold them into slavery.

Most important, it sends a message of appeasement to our enemies while our soldiers are on the ground fighting terrorists in Iraq.