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The U.N.'s New Low
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Leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson says Qaddafi’s U.N. rant was the exemplar of hypocrisy—and it’s a shame he had the General Assembly as his platform for vitriol.
Qaddafi’s rant at the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday afternoon is arguably the lowest point in that organization’s history. At one level, it was black humor at its zenith: the world’s worst international terrorist and mass murderer urging the United Nations to investigate all the atrocities with which he is not connected. But it also prompts the thought of how far we have yet to go in the struggle for global justice, when the worst perpetrators can strut in triumph on the General Assembly stage.
One fine day, the world will work out a way of putting dictators like Qaddafi behind bars for a very long time.
We do indeed, as the Colonel said, have a right to live unmolested on this earth. The question of who killed Jack Kennedy and who bombed the plane of Dag Hammerschold are less clear than the many murders Qaddafi has personally ordered of his dissidents (he calls them “stray dogs”) and the passenger airplanes he has ordered to be blown up—PamAm 103 and UTA 772. His secret intelligence operatives have been convicted of these crimes, but everyone knows that they would not have happened without Qaddafi’s approval. His speech today was the exemplar of hypocrisy.
• The Daily Beast’s Leslie H. Gelb: The Hotspots No Obama Speech Can Fix
• Watch: A History of U.N. OutburstsThis man has sponsored every major terrorist movement, from Baader Meinhof to Abu Nidal. His charity lavishly pays compensation to the families of Palestine suicide bombers. His speech condemned the United Nations for failure to support the work of the International Criminal Court but this work is thwarted by no-one more than Qaddafi himself who as president of the African Union is sheltering General Bashir, its latest indictee.
Qaddafi obviously thinks that the best form of defense is attack but his hostility to the Granada episode clearly betrays his own fear that he will himself be toppled. He accused the U.S. of assassinating President Bishop but of course Bishop was assassinated by the Marxist conspirators from whose vicious stupidity the American invasion saved the people of that island.
One fine day, the world will work out a way of putting dictators like Qaddafi behind bars for a very long time. A courageous district attorney in New York might still arrest him, as Noriega was arrested, for crimes like the Lockerbie bombing which would fall within American jurisdiction. His “immunity” might not in law prevail against charges of crimes against humanity. But that will be a distant future: the struggle for global justice goes on. It has managed to put Karadzic and Charles Taylor in the dock but it will be many years before it can feel the collar of the likes of Colonel Qaddafi, whose immunity depends not on his strength, but on the weakness of international law and those who have a duty to enforce it.
Geoffrey Robertson is a leading human rights lawyer and author of the Tyrannicide Brief (Anchor Books) and Crimes Against Humanity (The New Press).
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Geoffrey Robertson QC is a member of the UN’s Internal Justice Council and author of Crimes Against Humanity (The New Press).
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Geoffrey Robertson QC is a member of the UN’s Internal Justice Council and author of Crimes Against Humanity (The New Press).
Hey, Tina! how about a slide show of Qaddafi's fashions? Where does he get these get-ups? Aliens R Us?
Well, I have also been wondering about that. He fancies himself a reincarnation of the ancient Pharoahs. lol He is just a jumped up thug.
Maybe he had been to a toga party?
He looks like he had a pretty rough night.
J Crew (online only)
Trilby, I'm thinkin' he bought he at the same place he bought the clown makeup.
This guy started to sound like Glenn Beck with all his conspiracy theories.. Did Fox offer him a show?
Just imagine Fox Afternoon round up Hannity, Glenn Beck and Qaddafi... awesome roundup for the teabaggers that watch Glenn Beck
http://rightwingsuperturds.blogspot.com/2009/09/glenn-beck-video-compila tion.html
Actually, NPR is more Qaddafi's speed.
How, exactly, did you come to this conclusion??
Details, please....
How, exactly, did you arrive at this conclusion??
Details, please....
Aw, come on, don't put him in the same category as those Fox guys. Even HE has more scruples.
A career politician / world leader's hypocrisy is exposed. Rather than be embarrassed, he goes on the attack against his opponents, accusing them of the same activities he is doing?
Why, we would never put up with such blatant disregard of facts and truth in the US.
We let the rethuglicans run amok for 8 years didn't we?
I think jbo was being sarcastic... As well he/she should be. This lawyer's calling Quaddafi "the worst"? Count the bodies. He's a minor figure.
I think I got it zero. Thanks for the help.
I don't think that Qadafi (sp?) deserves a venue anywhere, even in a place as flawed as the UN. He is scum.
Yes, but he did capitulate after we destroyed Saddam Hussein. He's been meeting our demands, and deserves a bit of a reward for that if we want him to continue. He's a despicable murderer, but unless we want to take him out, we have to reward him when he behaves. The most recent incident with the Lockerbee (sp?) bomber came a bit too late to keep Qaddafi from coming here this time.
You're concerned with this whacko's conspiracy theories? How about his fondness for Obama and calling him his son and wanting him as president forever? Sounds like a democrat to me. You lefties must be so proud that he loves our president more than the media does. Just what does that tell us?
and you believe that trash? come On, Kevlar. you surely can't be serious. lol
This comment illustrates that it takes one "whacko" to know one.
This post tells us that you're off your meds again.
That's funny cause the crack addicted pimp down the block was just saying how much he likes peppermint. I mean jeez Peppermint why would you associate with crack addicts or pimps?
It's time this guy met a SEAL up close and personal.
The U.N. is such a " Respectable " Institution.
Members of It's " HUMAN RIGHTS " Council includes
China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba,
and Senegal known for human trafficking (slavery).
Why does anyone take this organization seriously ?
Beats me... Hypocrisy of Demo-crazy!
Because you have to TRY to engage everyone, even the bottomfeeders, in a global dialogue, or you end up fighting WWI all over again. The ethics lesson of elementary school gym class. Or not: invading and bombing other countries for little or no justifiable reason has worked so well for us, and the people we bomb/invade. Libya, as far as I know, hasn't bombed invaded anyone. We did bomb Tripoli, though, not long ago, based on dubious suspicions about the Berlin disco bombing, and killed Qaddafi's 2-year-old daughter. I'd expect him to spit bile, because Bush would, Obama would, you would, too.
If the talk about globalization isn't inclusive (yes, every member), it isn't real.
Thanks to Mr. Robertson. It is good see evil described as evil. But even more important is why the hell he wasn't arrested for war crimes. The Brits, having just disgraced themselves by a lousy oil deal to release a terrorist, did at least do the right thing with Pinochet. Why are we such wimps?
i find it rather cocky to speak of war crimes, let us not ignore our deeds. If our last pres. finds himself in an investigation we might become the odd man out. Wrong messenger but he told the truth about many issues you choose to ignore.
This clown should have been marked for assassination and still should be.
We can only hope.
I think even Hugo Chavez, (who called President George W. Bush the devil at the UN) finds this talk offensive.
Yes, this bad person should be locked up. Just like the terrorists who perpetrated the 1985 Beirut car bombing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Beirut_car_bombing), funded crimes against humanity against Nicaragua (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/), and supported the Indonesian genocide in East Timor (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/).
Is this the same Quadoffi that George Bush touted as repentant, cooperative and deserving because he had surrendered his nukes to the NeoCons? The same terrorist puppet tool used by Cheney who characterized this freak as a spin off benefit of waging a war in Iraq? Is this the same new found allie of the previous administration who had turned over a new leaf and would lead a revolution accross the Arab world? Pray tell, why ever would President Obama not embrace him as well? It seems this administration wants no part of such relationships. It says a lot.
and McCain last august 17th :
when he had a face-to-face meeting with Gaddafi, which he detailed on his Twitter page with the following message:
Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his "ranch" in Libya -- interesting meeting with an interesting man.
I know that if I want free speech for myself, I have to listen to the equally free and repugnant speech of my neighbor.
Does that mean that I have to rent the hall and pay for the microphone too?
Not that I necessarily agree in relation to this particular event, but I must say, you put that very well. Seriously.
If Manuel Noreiga's only distinction had been being a military dictator running a regime rife with human rights violations he wouldn't have been "taken down."
There are too many like him and Qaddafi who share that job description.
No, Noreiga had to go because his drug trafficking and money laundering enterprises were a threat to powerbrokers who didn't like the way he was playing the game. His was the arrest of a rogue entrepreneur. It could be interpreted as a business decision.
I actually know someone who was involved with capturing Noriega, and another person who was on the "inside" with the prosecution, and you're 100% correct. It was about money, and nothing more.
If Ghadafi is a terrorist for the Pan Am bombing... So was Reagan for attacking Libya a few years before that ( a move most countries condemned)... If the United states was in the middle East, Africa or Western Europe, it would have been at war or attacked everyday for the past Century or learn to live with other people without aggression.. Israel is learning that Slowly but surely... But no. the U.S enjoys and takes advantage of the fact that it lives far far across the ocean, and cant be easily retaliated against...
There are some prominent leaders and country heads only understand force. There is no amount of of diplomatic dialog that would convince the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Sudan, Libya and Al-Qaeda to follow the rule of human decency and personal liberty. Maybe its time to reconsider of diplomatic response with the use Predator drones. the world clearly would be a better place without these madmen.
They are zealots who have a message but do not have a classy way of getting it across.World diplomacy will not succeed with this status-quo.The international community will turn a blind eye (impunity) on the major powers and their protectorates but instantly pounce on the small countries.Qaddafi was trying to make that point but did not have the style.Folks will pick on his out-fit,amplify the irrelevant facets of his message and deliberately leave out the fact that big powers use this forum to bully the rest of the world.Iran was invaded on faulse premises nobody is talking about sanctions.When North Korea invaded the south,The UN sanctioned them,When Iran invaded Kuwait,sanctions followed and rightly so.Who is talking about sanctions now?Where do sanctions start and where do they end?That was somewhat Qaddafi's point.That is, the selective way that sanctions are slamed on member nations.
Yes, he talked for a long time, but lots of what he said was the truth. On CNN Int., here in Europe, they cut him off and anchor, Jim Clancy the jerk made some stupid remarks as usual. So, I switched to Al Jazeera to hear and watch the rest of the talk.
Although many in this thread are responding to Gaddafi's speech with purely personal attacks on the man, some intellectually feeble readers have even stooped to attacking his choice of dress (which by the way is a traditional Libyan Bedouin robe), few are actually engaging with what he said. It isn't fair that 5 countries out of 192 members of the United Nations wield disproportionate power through the security council, power which should be shared by all nations. And yes, world colonial powers that got rich off murder, theft and slavery (a process which underdeveloped the whole third world) should pay reparations to Africa, Asia and Latin America - it's the just thing to do. Analyzing the ideas he presented is far more important and useful then venting personal feelings about the man himself.
I don't know who arranges the place cards and prints the invitations. But the "social directors" at the UN need at minimum consult a manual of diplomatic etiquette before putting on these soirees where vile despots are given a forum to play the clown in front of the world.
But it's more than bad manners at play here...we all know that. We need to hear and see Qaddafi, Ahmadinejad and his kind in full theatrical form to appreciate the real danger they represent. What they say is no joke, they're out to upend the earth, destroy world stability and institute the globalization of a neo-Dark Age for humanity.
We need to absorb the intention, the "flavor" of UN General Assembly president, Ali Treki's introduction to Qaddafi as he presented him to his audience. As reported on the website FP (Foreign Policy Passport):
"Treki introduces Qaddafi as "king of kings" and "leader of the revolution" among a number of other titles."
Is Treki doing stand-up comedy here? I'd say it's more like an endorsement than a celebrity roast...a stain on the reputation of the president of the General Assembly and the United Nations itself.
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