The Colonel

Leader of a coup d'etat removing a royal family from power and placing them under indefinite house arrest. Sent revolutionary hit squads abroad to kill dissidents of his country who had fled the country, they managed to find and kill 9. Invaded a neighboring country. Was a major financier of the "Black September Movement" which perpetrated the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics and also bombed a Berlin discotheque in 1986 killing several and wounding hundreds. Paid "Carlos the Jackal" to kidnap a number of Saudi and Iranian oil ministers to release them for ransom. Supplied weapons to the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. Organized several of his diplomats to leave the UK under diplomatic immunity after they had accidentally shot a police officer dead in front of their embassy who was there to protect the embassy from demonstrators. He actively supported the PLO in their war against Israel with money and weapons. And finally two of his intelligence service officers planted a bomb on Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270. After more than a decade of sanctions he finally agreed to hand over the men and accept the responsibility for the bombing in exchange for the lifting of the UN sanctions.

Who are we talking about here? Yes, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya. I knew this man was dangerous, but the list mentioned above was really shocking to me. Why is that man even still in power? Sovereign state or not, this is clearly an international criminal and an international financier of terrorism. I really can not understand how he can just get away by apologizing and paying $2.7 billion to the families of the Lockerbie tragedy. What...that's it? Done deal? Closed case? Now let's get to the even juicier part of the story, which is probably a good explanation of why he still is in power. He decided to give the countries who lifted their sanctions exclusive rights to oil fields....yes OIL. AGAIN... The same week Britain decided to start diplomatic relations again, BP and Shell announced they'd each invest around a billion pounds into oil exploration in Libya. How amazing is that? Well ok, the guy's being nice now, let's get on with the drilling!! Woohoo!!

And now there is a big case going on in Libya with several Bulgarian nurses on trial because they allegedly infected nearly 500 children with HIV purposely in a Libyan hospital. According to research from the EU the infections happened before the Bulgarian nurses had even started to work there... The Libyan courts are ignoring that evidence and are saying there are enough testimonies from Libyan employees at the hospital who say otherwise (imagine what would happen to those employees if they had given another story...). So the verdict is the death sentence for all the nurses. Now the Bulgarian government has intervened together with the EU by offering to pay $1 million to each family of the HIV infected kids. That's nearly half a billion dollars in total of (ahem....MY) tax money. Libya seems content with that so the courts changed the sentence to a life sentence... Are you kidding me?? Now Bulgaria wants to get them extradited in order to clear them of charges due to lack of substantial evidence. Libya probably just wants a bit more money, before they can do that. What's so horrible about this, is that a large number of health experts around the world all agree the HIV infections probably occurred due to the bad conditions in the Libyan hospitals and that this is just a good way for the government to divert the attention from that fact.

Somebody please get rid of that dude...