Was Muammar Gaddafi a hero or a villain?

Harryd225 · 03-01-2022 12:03PM #1

I believe he was a hero, before and during the NATO led campaign western media tried to portray him as a monster to promote and justify the war against him by making endless ridiculous claims that he was using mass rape as a weapon of war and that he supplies his troops with Viagra so they are able to keep up with all the rapes, unfortunately the gullible public fell for all of this and war cheering on the US and UK to get in there and civilise Libya.

Fair play to Amnesty International who ran their own investigations and claimed none of it was true apart from maybe some isolated acts by individuals.

Gaddafi led one of the most prosperous countries in Africa with one of if not the highest standard of living in Africa, he was a revolutionary and his memory will not be forgotten.

Human rights organisations have cast doubt on claims of mass rape and other abuses perpetrated by forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which have been widely used to justify Nato's war in Libya.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html%3famp

completedit · 03-01-2022 12:06PM

More than likely a scumbag but had his good sides. Libya was once a country I'd have visited(I was meant to spend a summer there in 2006) whereas today I wouldn't go near it.

The way the west flip flopped on their view on him is so eye-opening.

03-01-2022 12:09PM

He liked to visit schools and handpick young girls and boys who would have to privilege to serve as his personal sex slaves in his "sex dungeon" so yeah....

villain

Victims and witnesses state in the documentary that Gadhafi would choose his targets on visits to schools or colleges, patting on the head those who caught his eye.

His security officials would then take the victim to one of several specially designed suites of rooms, where they would be abused and raped by the dictator. In one such suite at Tripoli University, there is a fully-equipped gynecological examination room, where victims were tested for sexually transmitted diseases before being sexually abused.

"Some were only 14," recalled one teacher at a Tripoli school. "They would simply take the girl they wanted. They had no conscience, no morals, not an iota of mercy, even though she was a mere child."

Some of the girls were held for years, while others were dumped with appalling injuries.

"One just disappeared and they never found her again, despite her father and brothers searching for her. Another was found three months later, cut, raped and lying in the middle of a park. She had been left for dead."

https://www.haaretz.com/gadhafi-s-crimes-revealed-1.5315653

Atlantic Dawn · 03-01-2022 12:10PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409750#Comment_118409750

Not a million miles away from something currently in the news.

Harryd225 · 03-01-2022 12:12PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409750#Comment_118409750

Do you really believe that? You seriously believe it? I thought most people would have realised by now that that along with the claims of mass rape by his troops which were false and lacked any evidence, it was merely used as propaganda to justify the war.

bnt · 03-01-2022 12:13PM

If you failed to remain on his good side, you could end up in Abu Salim Prison. Not a very nice place.

Risteard81 · 03-01-2022 12:14PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058225604/was-muammar-gaddafi-a-hero-or-a-villain

He was a great leader.

Mad_maxx · 03-01-2022 12:14PM

its all relative , compared to the kind of ghouls who led and lead much of the arab world and Africa , He wasnt so bad

he certainly should not have been ousted

cnocbui · 03-01-2022 12:16PM

All dictators are really incredibly nice people who are just misunderstood by the surviving press.

techman1 · 03-01-2022 12:18PM

I think if NATO knew then what they know now and the repurcussions from toppling Gadaffi they would have left him in place. Gadaffi was acting as the european border force stopping migrants using Libya as a staging post to get into Europe. Millions have now used this route into Europe . These migrants are now causing big problems now between France and UK the bedrock of NATO. France is basically trying to dump its migrant problem onto the UK. Gadaffi would have been much cheaper than 6 billion euros the EU had to pay Turkey in order to stop them allowing migrants cross into Greece.

Also Libya was a major oil and gas exporter under Gadaffi, now it is a failed state and that oil production is badly needed by Europe in order to control inflation and reduce its dependance on Mr Putins oil and gas.

Danzy · 03-01-2022 12:18PM

At one stage he confiscated all Bank accounts that held more than a months average wage.

Killing of people was random and often without reason and constant.

He did some good things, he helped Ireland when it needed it, but everything was secondary to his extreme narcissism and desire for control.

His evil outweighed the good things significantly.

03-01-2022 12:18PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409764#Comment_118409764

"that" has absolutely nothing to do with his troops so please don't try to conflate something completely irrelevant to my point

so the witnesses in the BBC doc were just made up?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3518600/

along with the personal gyno suite that he had where his victims were examined for std's and unwanted pregnancies aborted?

Mad_maxx · 03-01-2022 12:22PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409791#Comment_118409791

all true but compared to the rules of Saudi Arabia etc , a civilised forward thinking visionary

03-01-2022 12:26PM

This has been documented since the 1990's - book originally published in 1999

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17290920-gaddafi-s-harem

In 2011, Annick Cojean, senior reporter at Le Monde and special correspondent for Tripoli, wrote a shock article, titled 'Gaddafi's sexual slave', which told the story of Soraya, a twenty-two-year old Libyan woman who had been kidnapped and held captive since the age of 15. Soraya was a schoolgirl in the coastal town of Sirte, when she was given the honour of presenting a bouquet of flowers to Colonel Gaddafi, the Guide, on a visit he was making the following week. This one meeting - a presentation of flowers, a pat on the head from Gaddafi - changed Soraya's life forever. Soon afterwards, she was summoned to Bab al-Azizia, Gaddafi's palatial compound near Tripoli, where she joined a number of young women who were violently abused, raped and degraded by Gaddafi.

In 2012, Cojean returned to Libya to continue her investigation. Her book, Gaddafi's Harem, takes Soraya as its starting point to recount the fates of so many other women. She has gone to remarkable lengths - rape is the highest taboo in Libya - to collect these women's stories. Heartwrenchingly tragic but ultimately redemptive, Soraya's story is the first of many that are just now beginning to be heard.

In Gaddafi's Harem, Le Monde special correspondent Annick Cojean gives a voice to Soraya's story, and supplements her investigation into Gaddafi's abuses of power through interviews with other women who were abused by Gaddafi, and those who were involved with his regime, including a driver who ferried women to the compound, and Gaddafi's former Chief of Security.

Gaddafi's Harem is an astonishing portrait of the essence of dictatorship: how power gone unchecked can wreak havoc on the most intensely personal level, as well as a document of great significance to the new Libya

mikethecop · 03-01-2022 12:37PM

i see the shinnerbot are trying to reduce the crimes of former ally and rouge state

hardly trying to divert from the recent links to putins boys ??

lol

Jequ0n · 03-01-2022 12:43PM

Neither hero nor villain. He simply did what many would have done had they had the same opportunity.

Danzy · 03-01-2022 12:51PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409802#Comment_118409802

In some ways he was but he was incredibly controlling and murderous to his own people as well.

Danzy · 03-01-2022 12:52PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409872#Comment_118409872

At some stage he was an ally. Enemy and ally again of every country in the West, including Ireland.

03-01-2022 12:59PM

Didn't his own people torture and string him up... or was that Western propaganda also?

What is debatable is whether he was the lesser evil.

Hangdogroad · 03-01-2022 01:01PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409764#Comment_118409764

What reputable source are you getting your info on him from?

corner of hells · 03-01-2022 01:07PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409764#Comment_118409764

The ICC in the Hague must have made a mistake issuing arrest warrants for him .

Freddie Mcinerney · 03-01-2022 01:13PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409792#Comment_118409792

Pence gay friend did alternating sex therapy.

Freddie Mcinerney · 03-01-2022 01:15PM

Did he encourage the chefs in Libya to make pasta dishes spicy? Whoever did is great in my book.

Dohnjoe · 03-01-2022 01:21PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118409965#Comment_118409965

Certain individuals can't comprehend it's possible to be critical of the West and critical of opposing dictators, it's not mutually exclusive. That's often the "source" of this.

Anyway these threads are usually just excuses to bash the same old basket of countries

LeBash · 03-01-2022 01:24PM

I suppose a better question, is Libya/Europe/the world better off since he was killed.

I think the answer is no, it's not.

If left alone, the people themselves would eventually have overthrown him if they felt he was bad enough. Plus, I dont think he had a super long lifespan and could have been replaced by a more moderate leader.

Comparing the world to European standards doesn't work. We are super lucky the way we have things. Gaddafi isn't even close to the worst leader in the North of Africa.

Dohnjoe · 03-01-2022 01:30PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118410067#Comment_118410067

The people would have overthrown him?

Not so sure, they haven't overthrown Maduro, Assad, Jong Un, Lukashenko, the Myanmar Junta and any number of unpleasant leaders. Not saying intervention is the answer at all, but it's wrong to assume people can and will overthrow these people.