Gaddafi wants to die
Image by Abode of Chaos via FlickrLibyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi vowed Tuesday to "die as a martyr" in his country rather than surrender power, as he sought to rally supporters against a growing popular uprising that has taken over much of eastern Libya and won the backing of some army units and government officials.I have a feeling Gaddafi will be offering his country for a horse, or better yet a plane on which to leave. The longer he waits the hard it will be for him to secure one. We should be imposing a no fly zone over the entire country now to stop further acts of mass murder.
In a defiant, rambling speech in the capital, Tripoli, the army colonel who has ruled the North African nation for nearly 42 years appealed to supporters to take to the streets by the millions "in order to cleanse Libya, home by home, village by village," of what he described as a misguided movement inspired by foreigners.
But in a sign that his exhortations were falling on deaf ears, Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younis, the commander of a powerful commando brigade and one of Gaddafi's closest associates, announced his defection in the protester-held city of Benghazi and urged other military units to join the revolt, the Associated Press reported.
Gaddafi's justice minister also has defected, along with several ambassadors, including the Libyan ambassador to the United States.
The defections of police, border guards and soldiers were evident on Libya's eastern border with Egypt, where reporters were welcomed into the country Tuesday without visa procedures or passport controls. Young defectors showed cellphone videos of repression in the eastern Libyan towns of Baida and Benghazi, where they said African "mercenaries" hired by Gaddafi shot down scores of men, women and children. They told of rapes, looting and bloody killings over the past week.
Most said they left their posts when a relative or neighbor was killed in what they described as massacres of demonstrators in eastern towns and the capital following a popular revolt that started Feb. 15.
Attiya el-Sabr, 32, a border guard, said he defected Feb. 17 after his brother-in-law was shot in Tobruk.
"The killing of innocents by the thousands" made him switch sides, he said. "Libya is in a security vacuum, and it's uncontrolled now. The civilian people protect the area."
Defecting army units have helped the protesters claim control of nearly the entire eastern half of Libya's 1,000-mile Mediterranean coast, including several major oil fields, AP said.
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Gaddafi has always come across as some one not in touch with reality. His delusions appear to be swallowing him at the moment.
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