Gaddafi: Today's Enemy, Yesterday's Friend

The fact that Muammar Gadhafi worked closely with Western intelligence agencies is not new. In fact, it was a widely known occurrence.

Many commentators have been caught by surprise after documents found in the former headquarters of the Libyan intelligence revealed a close relationship with Western intelligence outfits in the past. However, these commentators cannot plead ignorance. The truth that Gadhafi was an ally of the West has been in the public domain for years.

Gadhafi became a friend of the West in 2003, when he renounced any efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, and pledged to assist in the global war on terror. The first nation to accept the olive branch was the United Kingdom and its Prime Minister Tony Blair. Later, the Americans, who had already scaled down their anti-Libyan rhetoric, also acquiesced. In 2002, George Bush first mentioned the Axis of Evil, which included North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Libya was left out despite being the platform for numerous terrorist attacks in Western Europe. Libya was not condemned, and it even hosted a widely publicized Congressional delegation.

Now, when Gadhafi has once again become the enemy, many people are trying to convince the public that Gadhafi has always been a mortal enemy of the West, a cruel dictator who could not be trusted. It is often overlooked that cruelty was Gadhafi’s appealing quality. No one ever asked about his interrogation techniques, as long as the information he sent over was valuable to the West. It has long been suspected that captured terrorists were sent to Libya, where no one had to worry about being accused of human rights violations. No holds were barred in Gadhafi’s fight with Islamic radicals.

Europe also eagerly worked with Gadhafi. The U.K. sent specialists from SAS to train Libyan “security forces.” The European Union, and Italy in particular, were grateful for Gadhafi’s strict policy towards boats filled with African refugees in the Mediterranean. As a reward, Gaddafi received large sums of money from the Europeans. No one asked what happened to the people in those boats.