Word: gaddafi
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Libya's immediate reaction to the air clash was relatively mild. The Tripoli government claimed that eight U.S. F-14s had attacked its planes and that one F-14 had been shot down, and at first did not acknowledge the loss of any Libyan aircraft. Colonel Gaddafi, in Aden to sign a political and economic cooperation agreement with the radical regimes of South Yemen and Ethiopia, called for Arab mobilization against the U.S. But his government said that it would take no action against Libya's 2,000 American residents, most of whom are oil-company employees...
...described as "preposterous" reports that the U.S. had provoked the incident, explaining, "There could not have been a provocation because the exercises were in international waters." Provocation is, of course, a loaded diplomatic term. There is no doubt that the site of the U.S. action was a challenge to Gaddafi's assertion that he controlled the Gulf of Sidra and that staging the exercise there had been intentional. When asked whether the naval exercise was meant as a lesson to Libya, one State Department official replied: "Look...
...Government's exasperation with Gaddafi had been building for a long time. Using Libya's vast oil wealth, he has fomented unrest throughout the Middle East and black Africa. In December 1979, at the time of the Iranian hostage crisis, a Libyan mob attacked and burned the U.S. embassy in Tripoli. The Carter Administration quarreled sporadically with Gaddafi; it was also embarrassed by Gaddafi's bizarre efforts to cultivate influence in the U.S. through Jimmy Carter's wayward brother Billy...
...Reagan Administration has been trying to put Gaddafi in his place by various means for some time. On May 6, the U.S. asked Libya to close its Washington embassy-or "people's bureau," as the Libyans call their embassies-within five days, charging that its diplomats had intimidated Libyan dissidents in the U.S. and played a role in the attempted assassination of a student in Colorado. The same day the State Department issued the first of a series of statements urging U.S. citizens to leave Libya and avoid visiting it-a warning ignored by U.S. oilmen. Later...
Particularly irritating to successive U.S. Administrations has been Gaddafi's interpretation of maritime law. The U.S. claims only three miles of ocean as its territorial waters, while Gaddafi insists on a twelve-mile limit. But since 1973, he has also claimed the waters of the Gulf of Sidra, which indents about a third of the Libyan coastline, as an internal sea. In some cases, a nation's sovereignty over a body of water is indeed recognized by international agreement, provided that the mouth of the bay or gulf concerned is no wider than 24 miles; the mouth...