If like me, you were curious about the bombed-out ruins that formed the backdrop of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi's speech threatening to massacre anti-government protesters yesterday, here's a possible explanation from a 2010 Congressional Research Service report on U.S.-Libyan relations:
Personally, Qadhafi often is described as mercurial, charismatic, shrewd, and reclusive. He is married and has eight children: seven sons and one daughter. An April 1986 U.S. air strike in retaliation for a Libyan-sponsored anti-American bombing in Berlin hit one of his homes in Tripoli, killing his adopted infant daughter and hospitalizing members of his immediate family. The incident reportedly continues to be a source of personal anger and resentment for Qadhafi: he has preserved the bombed out ruins of the home in the military compound where it stood, and he remarked on the death of President Ronald Reagan in 2004 that the former U.S. president had died before he could be prosecuted for the “ugly crime that he committed in 1986 against the Libyan children.”
Gaddafi is now launching airstrikes against his own people. One wonders whether someday he will be prosecuted for that.
Following up on their Egypt coverage, Mother Jones has a great Libya explainer.
