The "Mad Dog" Gets Well

The malleability of American foreign policy is at times breath taking. Yesterday's villains are today's moderates and vice versa. By now many have seen the photo of a smiling Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1984. At the time Saddam was a "moderate" in the region and an ally. His crimes were as well known to our leaders then as they are now as he awaits trial for crimes against humanity.

The media's coverage often follows the state's preferred perspective eschewing a rigorous examination of facts. A general set of patterns can be easily discerned from the documentary record. Preferred dictators are "moderates" who are constantly moving towards "reform." Enemies are "radicals" whose crimes can be fully disclosed and exaggerated for the public. It should be noted that the process of manufacturing public opinion relies on a complacent and domesticated media. Without their willingness to accept the misinformation of the state then the misshaping of public opinion could not work.

A direct correlation between friendly business climate and support for brutal regimes is easily traceable; studies have shown a direct relationship between foreign aid and repression. This relationship is not because our government wants to kill poor people in the world. It is because oppressive dictatorships run economies that are friendly to American business interests. If the dictator allows western business interests then they are a "moderate;" otherwise they are a "mad dog." If they shift their stance towards Western business and there is sufficient interest from the West then they can transform relatively quickly. The Hussein example has been mentioned; once a "moderate" and a "force for peace" in the region.

When Saddam was America's friend in the 1980s another despotic ruler was an official enemy. Muammar el-Qaddafi seized power in Libya in 1969 after a military coup. CIA historian William Blum describes him in his book Killing Hope, "Qaddafi was a designer-monster: a quirky, unpredictable, super-uppity Third World leader, sitting on the world's ninth largest oil reserve; a man with deep-seated pan-Islamic, anti-imperialist, and anti-Zionist convictions; an artless braggart mouthing revolutionary rhetoric so juvenile he could serve equally well as bogeyman or buffoon; a man carrying or supporting enough real terrorist acts so that any exaggeration would be believed." (page 283) The Reagan administration detested Qaddafi, referring to him as a "mad dog" or "arch terrorist."

Their aggressive campaign included bombing Tripoli killing perhaps a hundred civilians including Qaddafi's stepdaughter, invading Libyan air space to provoke attacks, possibly blowing up a chemical factory, landing on Libyan shores and leaving deliberate evidence of their presence, shooting down Libyan planes in the Gulf of Sidra and other similar provocative and illegal acts.

The American media accepted as fact the Administration's claim that Qaddafi was responsible for bombing a Berlin discotheque in 1986. German and French police agencies investigating the matter remained skeptical of the charges and the Reaganites never presented evidence to substantiate their claim. Two people died in the bombing which was used as justification to drop bombs on Tripoli and kill many people. Blum comments, "In actuality, the evidence of Libyan culpability in the bombing was never directly or precisely presented to the world, but little notice was taken of that... The bombs dropped on Libya took the lives of a reported 40 to 100 people, all civilians but one, and wounded another hundred or so. The French Embassy, located in a residential district, was destroyed. The dead included Qaddafi's young adopted daughter and a teenage girl visiting from London; all of Qaddafi's other seven children as well as his wife were hospitalized." (page 281)

The public's attitude at the time was such that when the Administration announced in November of 1981 that "Libyan hit squads" had infiltrated the capital to assassinate the president, people were genuinely scared. This charge, like many others, was never backed up by any facts or evidence. It was part of a government operation to overthrow Qaddafi. Part of that operation included a disinformation campaign to undermine his credibility.

It should be pointed out that at the heart of their charges lay a kernel of truth. Qaddafi is a repressive and brutal ruler. He did have ties to terrorism. The point of this commentary is to point out that the government exaggerated the threat with the media's compliance. (There were a few notable exceptions.) This is a commentary on the American public policy apparatus rather than Qaddafi.

In today's world there are other Qaddafi's out there to attack. Qaddafi is not necessarily embraced, but he is undergoing a public relations overhaul. He is a "moderate" in the doctrinal sense of the word not 20 years after he was a "mad dog ... arch terrorist." On December 15, 2004 the New York Times ran a fluff piece on the "idiosyncratic" Qaddafi's son. His son has "emerged in the past few years as the new, Western-friendly face of this former pariah state." Whatever genuine reforms the son has in mind several facts remain unchanged: Qaddafi is a dictator running a repressive regime and his son has no power. The climate has changed such that in the 1980s the US military was trying to assassinate Qaddafi's family and today the US media publishes puff pieces for them.

How did Qaddafi move from "mad dog" to "idiosyncratic"? It certainly is not because of a personal transformation or commitment to reform. Qaddafi remains on Washington's list of terrorist states. According to the New York Times, "corruption is" a "problem... Transparency International, an independent organization in Berlin that monitors corruption, ranked Libya 108th out of 145 countries." He abuses prisoners and oppresses Libyan people. "Libya is a highly authoritarian state, fraught with tangled bureaucracy, rampant corruption and arbitrary enforcement of laws. Its regime is based on an elaborate fusion of socialism and Islam." The State Department's report on human rights for 2004 remarks that the Libyan "government's human rights record remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous, serious abuses... The reported methods of torture included: chaining prisoners to a wall for hours; clubbing; applying electric shock; applying corkscrews to the back; pouring lemon juice in open wounds; breaking fingers and allowing the joints to heal without medical care; suffocating with plastic bags; deprivation of food and water; hanging by the wrists; suspension from a pole inserted between the knees and elbows; cigarettes burns; threats of being attacked by dogs; and beating on the soles of the feet." There have been some changes however; Qaddafi accepted responsibility for the downing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland and renounced WMD programs to end sanctions and pave the way for Western businesses to enter 'his' country.

After sanctions were lifted he opened Libyan oil to Western oil companies. The Financial Times of England reports, "US oil companies Occidental Petroleum, Amerada Hess and Chevron Texaco were awarded the majority of the 15 exploration licenses issued by Libya on Saturday in a move that clears the way for US companies to return to the north African country" while European companies "were not so fortunate." Business Week reports on the newly favorable climate, "Libya has thrown itself open for investment, and the oil majors of Europe and the U.S. have stormed in, hungry for a piece of the country's 25 billion barrels in reserves." The Times comments that oil companies "along with other Americans, are certainly eager to do business here: the newly opened American liaison office said it receives more than 200 inquiries a week from interested companies." Interesting choice of words, "along with other Americans" implies that we are collectively eager to do business in Libya rather than a few concentrated corporations.

The Bush administration has followed the business community in a relations thaw with Libya. Bush considers himself the heir to Reagan and has surrounded himself with many former Reagan officials; the same who fought against the "mad dog" of the 1980s. Reuters reports "the top US diplomat for the Middle East had 'productive' talks with Libyan officials in Tripoli." According to the diplomat the ultimate goal is to "fully normalize relations... and economic and political modernization." Ironically this is similar to the scenario that played out with Saddam Hussein in 1984 when the Reaganites removed Iraq from the list of terrorist states to remove the cap on the amount of military aid legally allowed for the "butcher of Baghdad." The top US diplomat at that time was of course Donald Rumsfeld.

Qaddafi is an instructive example of how foreign policy really works in America. In spite of public proclamations to promote liberty and democracy abroad the reality is that business interests determine much of foreign policy. Politicians make speeches to overlay cynical motivations with ideals of democracy and freedom for public opinion. In many cases they are public relations managers for American business.

[I used the following news reports for this article:
The Oil Patch is Getting Slippery, Business Week; February 28, 2005
US Oil Companies Awarded Libyan Licenses, Financial Times; January 30, 2005
US, Libya Wrap Up 'Productive' Talks In Tripoli, Haaretz; November 2, 2004
Libya Tempts Executives With Big Oil Reserves, New York Times; January 2, 2005
Qaddafi's Modern-Sounding Son Is a Riddle to the West, New York Times; December 15, 2004]