Gaddafi is ecccentric but the firm master of his regime, Wikileaks cables say

Moammar Gaddafi, Libya's strongman ruler, is commonly portrayed as an egomaniacal buffoon - an autocrat with an affinity for incomprehensible speeches and a flair for the melodramatic.

But as seen through a trove of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, the Libyan leader has another side: a master schemer who has dominated the country and its fractious tribes for four decades by successfully manipulating everyone around him.

Since reopening an embassy in Tripoli two years ago, U.S. diplomats have gradually come to express an understated admiration for Gaddafi's political skills. Even as they describe him as "mercurial" and "notoriously erratic," embassy officials document example after example of how the 68-year-old strongman has maintained his authority by skillfully marginalizing allies and rivals alike, including his power-hungry children.

Gaddafi "remains intimately involved in the regime's most sensitive and critical portfolios," Ambassador Gene A. Cretz wrote in a Jan. 28, 2009, cable to the State Department in Washington. He said the Libyan ruler's "mastery of tactical maneuvering has kept him in power for nearly 40 years."


more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/22/AR2011022207257.html


Nikolas Kozloff.Author, "Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left"
Posted: February 22, 2011 05:00 PM BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index .WikiLeaks Drags Libya and Venezuela Through the Mud
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You've got to hand it to WikiLeaks: the whistle-blowing outfit sure has impeccable timing. Even as forces loyal to Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi fire on protesters in a mounting massacre and human rights calamity, Julian Assange has released U.S. diplomatic cables which should prove acutely embarrassing to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Venezuela has been a long-time ally of Gadhafi's, and some reports even suggested that the Libyan leader might have recently fled to Caracas in an attempt to save his own skin .



WikiLeaks cables lay bare the tight diplomatic and political alliance between Gadhafi and Chávez. In 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas wrote Washington about an African-South American summit held on the Venezuelan island of Margarita. Chávez had called the meeting in an effort to highlight the historic unity between long-oppressed continents, though such public relations efforts were severely undermined by the roster of participants which included autocrats like Gadhafi and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. According to U.S. diplomats, Chávez and Gadhafi congratulated each other on their "revolutions" during the ceremonies. From there, the rhetoric got more and more ridiculous. "The meeting with Gaddafi," U.S. diplomats wrote, "provided the opportunity for rhetorical assaults on capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism."

Bizarrely, Chávez declared "What Simon Bolívar is to the Venezuelan people, Gaddafi is to the Libyan people." Gadhafi then praised Chávez for "having driven out the colonialists," just as he had driven out those in Libya. "We share the same destiny, the same battle in the same trench against a common enemy, and we will conquer," Qaddafi said. As if these exchanges were not preposterous enough, Chávez then took advantage of the occasion to award Gadhafi the "Orden del Libertador," Venezuela's highest civilian decoration, and presented the Libyan leader with a replica of Simon Bolívar's sword .

The summit at Margarita was merely the tip of the iceberg: for years Chávez and Gadhafi have enjoyed warm ties. As fellow world oil producers and supporters of the Palestinian cause, Libya and Venezuela have seen eye to eye on foreign policy matters. According to Venezuelan paper El Universal, Chávez has visited Libya on five separate occasions. Perversely, Libya reportedly awarded Chávez with something called the "Qaddafi Human Rights Prize" back in 2004. Five years later, Gadhafi named a football stadium in the Libyan city of Benghazi after Chávez.

more:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/wikileaks-drags-libya-and_b_826785.html

Now that Gadhafi is showing his true colors, I wonder if Chavez will speak against him.

From everything I've been hearing, Gadhafi is no longer the "firm master of his regime".
It appears definite that his time is over, but the worry is what will he do before his time is up.
He is not eccentric he is unbalanced.
There is a credible fear, acc. to the BBC, among Libyans that he may use chemical and biological weapons.

Many of his upper-eschelon advisers have turned against him, and are charging him with genocide.
I would not say this shows he is in control.

"Gadaffi" has been very much in control over the past 40yrs...Yes, he is quickly losing control now but one cannot say Gadaffi has not shown various ways to manipulate & outsmart his enemies in order to remain in power for 40yrs.

I hope he does fall from power but I am not ready to say that will definitely happen soon...Obviously there will be no outside help in terms of military support for the opposition so no one really knows for sure where this current uprising goes or if it will even succeed.

I HOPE it does and very fast! And if it does I hope what comes next is not worse for the Libyan People & of course the rest of the world.

:thumbsup:

If they can "admire" a despot like that.