did you check on al jazeera's report? it is lengthy, and highlights clinton returning threats to ghaddafi, but it seems to corroborate the reports on his making threats.
here is the article, from today's report.
i don't understand, ultimately, your position on libya. what is it?
ken
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/07/201172173956886276.html
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state has said Muammar Gaddaf should resign instead of issuing threats after the Libyan leader threatened on to attack European "homes, offices and families" unless Nato stopped bombing his country.
"Gaddafi should put the well-being and the interests of his own people first and he should step down from power," Clinton said in Madrid on Saturday.
"The NATO-led mission is on track. The pressure on Gaddafi is mounting and the rebels have been gaining strength and momentum. We need to see this through and we are in complete agreement that we will."
NATO said on Saturday that it was increasing the number of air strikes on western Libya, an area largely under Gaddafi's control.
'Catastrophe'
In a telephone address through loudspeakers to thousands of supporters gathered in Tripoli's Green Square, on Friday, Gaddafi warned the NATO-led alliance to stop its war support or face "catastrophe".
In the speech, 100 days after NATO first entered the country, Gaddafi gave multiple warnings to foreign forces that have been militarily supporting anti-regime rebels for months.
"We advise you to retreat before you face a catastrophe... If we decide to, we are able to move to Europe like locusts, like bees," Gaddafi said as a crowd of supporters waved green flags and posters of the leader.
Addressing the West, Gaddafi warned that Libyans could take revenge on Europe for its support of rebel forces.
"We can decide to treat you [Europe] in a similar way," adding, "if we decide, we can also move it [the war] to Europe, to target your homes, offices, families, which would become legitimate military targets, like you have targeted our homes."
"I advise you to ground your planes... and to hold discussions with the Libyan people," Gaddafi said, denouncing an arrest warrant against him issued on Monday by the International Criminal Court [ICC].
French weapons
In his speech, the embattled Libyan leader addressed the thronging crowd of supporters, giving them specific direction surrounding a French weapon drop earlier in the week.
"March on the jebel [Nafusa] and seize the weapons that the French have supplied [to rebel forces]. If later you want to pardon them [the rebels], that's up to you."
Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said in Vienna on Friday that this week's arms drop was meant only to defend peaceful civilians from Gaddafi's forces and thus fell in line with existing UN resolutions on the conflict.
"Civilians had been attacked by Gaddafi's forces and were in an extremely vulnerable situation and that is why medicine, food and also weapons of self-defence were parachuted," Juppe said, speaking on France Inter radio.
Friday's was one of the largest pro-government rallies in recent weeks, coming just days after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi and two others.
Rebel retreat
On Friday, anti-government forces who had advanced to within 80km of Gaddafi's stronghold in the capital were forced to retreat after coming under a barrage of rocket fire from government forces.
A rebel advance five days before to the outskirts of the small town of Bir al-Ghanam had raised the possibility of a breakthrough in the four-month old conflict that has become the bloodiest of the "Arab Spring" uprisings.
Rebel fighters who had been on the outskirts of the small town of Bir al-Ghanam and preparing for an attack were forced to pull back under fire from Russian-made Grad rockets, said a Reuters photographer in Bir-Ayyad, 30km to the south.
He said the rocket barrage was now reaching as far back as Bir-Ayyad, a road junction in the foothills of the Western Mountain range southwest of Tripoli from where the rebels had launched their advance last week.
The reversal underlines the resilience of Gaddafi's forces, who have withstood 15 weeks of bombardment by NATO missiles and warplanes, and attempts by rebels on three fronts to break through their lines.
The Libyan conflict has sent ripples far beyond the North African country of six million people.
The fighting has halted Libyan oil exports, helping push up world crude prices to about $111 a barrel.
AU's stance on ICC warrant
Meanwhile, the African Union [AU] on Friday said it will not execute an International Criminal Court [ICC] arrest warrant issued for the Libyan leader.
"The African Union's stance on the arrest warrant hardly comes as surprise," Yvonne Ndege, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Malabo said.
"This clearly sets African nations on a further collision course with the ICC."
African leaders at the AU summit in Equatorial Guinea said the warrant issued last week "seriously complicates" efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Libyan conflict.
The warrant "seriously complicates the efforts aimed at finding a negotiated political settlement to the crisis in Libya, which will also address, in a mutually reinforcing way, issues related to impunity and reconciliation," it said.
An assembly of the summit decided that "AU member states shall not cooperate in the execution of the arrest warrant," according to a text of the decisions.
On 7/2/11 10:21 PM, Pablo Idahosa wrote:
Cornelius, sometimes, at best, your posts and ramblings are incoherent. In this instance, as in many other cases, they are tainted by the same cannibalized sources you uncritically recycle and reuse, here Sky "News", which is Fox news in in the UK. I'm unsure that they, or the Associated Press, which first put out the "story", have Arabic language specialists parsing Ghadaffi's speech. This been part of our problem here. We can somewhat know people and governments by the consequences of their acts, when we know what those acts, those consequences, and what the intent in both are are. Sometimes it is clear; often times it is not. Speeches in another language few too people understand, but rely upon specious sources to instantly assert predisposed beliefs, shows that the knowledge-belief distinction is still a usable epistemological value. Even the speech that Ghadaffi made that became the basis upon which NATO claimed it wanted to thwart the genocidal intent, turns out to be at best partial cut and paste, and very likely false. News gets recycled as truth, rather than analyzed as fact.
Here is what was said in Arabic
http://www.ljbc.net/details0.p...§ion=hom , and Arabic readers on this forum can check it out for themselves. Here's what might have been said in french from one (who knows, partial?) source, for those who care anymore. Like here, one analysis I saw claims that the Arabic never mentions attacking Europe at all. I do not know. If he did, he is once again foolish; if he did not, it's too late anyway. He should go under the guidance and wishes the people of Libya and the AU, but not under the one more big lie and bombardment from desperate people who have made a hash of crass, self-interested hypocrisy of so-called humanitarian intervention.
Pablo
On 02/07/11 12:07 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:How is the old Gaddafi different from the new Gaddafi? As I observed on 25th of June, 2011 "It's not so much that Gaddafi is fighting " to defend his sovereignty" - he is merely fighting against his own people who want to overthrow him and his system of government. If he were truly committed to defending his sovereignty, he would have brought down a NATO plane or two. But he's afraid to do that, since that would be tantamount to declaring war on NATO. For the same reason, he dare not commit any terrorist act on NATO soil. That would also be an act of war, a declaration of war, and the war on terrorism would be waged on him ( not just protecting Libyan civilians) " http://groups.google.com/group/usaafricadialogue/msg/94d3b1af8ed53a80 And amazingly, Gaddafi who should know better after the "Mad Dog" Reagan episode, has fallen into the same trap once more, with his eyes wide open or maybe still slightly covered by some of that desert dust (of battle) with bombs exploding all around him he now threatens Europe with a promise of Terror-ism on NATO territory. He is definitely getting too big for his shoes. He must be thinking that his mortal frame is more powerful than the combined forces of NATO...... http://www.google.com/#hl=en&xhr=t&q=Gaddafi+threatens+terrorism+in+Europe Chapter xviii Of Machiavelli " The Prince " is on " How Gaddafi should keep his promise ( rendered in Swedish " Hur en furtse bör hålla sina löften" http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince18.htm And so, back to the question : How is the New Gaddafi different from the Old Gaddafi? The answer is this : there is only one Gaddafi: the same old Gaddafi. Nothing has changed. The unchangeable Gaddafi is back to his old tricks again and promising more of the same not in the desert but on the greener turf of Europe which might want to call his bluff – because should he now, even once fulfil his threat, I fear what is to be feared: that would give Europe and NATO enough legal justification to drop an avalanche of angry bombs on his head live and direct wherever the radar will find him hiding in Tripoli or in the desert. And whereas his nearest and dearest kith and kin may want him alive, so does the ICC, so that they can try him for his terrorism and his many crimes against humanity, in Libya, Europe and in many parts of Africa. (Just recently Chairman Ping was expressing distress about France supplying weapons to Gaddafi's rebels; Ping did not express similar distress when Gaddafi was bank-rolling other rebels movements in various other places in his world and supplying them weapons too. Understandably, Ping wasn't Africa Union Secretary-General then and had not received any money or baksheesh from Gaddafi, personally or impersonally. The baksheesh and pittance that some of those who are blowing the moribund's trumpet hope to receive before he kicks the bucket or the flow of dollars all dries up in the dust. Are you with me? Yes, formerly rehabilitated into the bosom of the West he has now relapsed into the true image of his former not so glorious self, just because it's Obama and not his Brother Reagan in the White House. Because Reagan, like John McCain , by now would be singing this Beach Boys song : Bomb! Bomb! Bomb! Bomb! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg Yes, its Africa Union's so called "King of Kings" threatening to retaliate with terrorism in Europe. What say his ardent supporters here in the USA-Africa Dialogue Series? Do they justify and endorse his public threat? Are they prepared to aid and abet terrorism – to advocate terrorism not in the name of Allah, but in the name of Muammar their "King of Kings" – ready to be accessories after the crime of terrorism - in Europe - and to be placed on the usual list of terrorist suspects and sympathizers? It's a question one would like to put to Secretary-General Ping : Is Africa's so called " king of Kings" serious about his own personal long-term survival as the eternal Big Brother of Libya? How is his threat different from the sort of thing one would expect from al-Qaeda – who anyway know better than to issue such a threat, even if Gaddafi is now their new mouthpiece in Tripoli? Not surprisingly, at that Final Call Press conference of 15th June, 2011, Farrakhan's A. Akbar Muhammad introduced as opening speaker, no other than one of the most incongruous of criminal defenders namely Ramsey Clark, about whom, the least said, the better: http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=Ramsey+Clark&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
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