Word: gaddafis
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...Gaddafi's reputation as an international meddler was firmly established in 1977, when he intervened to support the nightmare dictatorship of Uganda's Idi Amin. He has invaded Chad twice, prompting French President Francois Mitterrand to send French troops to the landlocked African country. Libya and France signed an agreement in 1984 to withdraw each nation's forces. France did so, but Gaddafi promptly embarrassed Mitterrand by reneging. Libya fought a minor border war with Egypt in 1977 and supplied materiel to coup leaders in Burkina Faso in 1983. Gaddafi is suspected of having mined...
Although most Arab leaders mistrust Gaddafi, he sees himself as a visionary from the desert who is destined to restore Arabs to their lost glory. In his fevered imagination, he expects to succeed in the destruction of Israel and the continued harassment of its principal sponsor, the U.S. "It is too easy and simplistic to dismiss Gaddafi as mad," said a Western diplomat in Tripoli. "He genuinely believes the cause is just, so there's no deflecting him. He'll pursue his fight with the U.S. until he dies...
...scene dispelled any doubt that the Nicaraguans had blatantly penetrated Honduran territory. Yet the size and significance of the invasion remained in dispute, and even some Administration officials conceded that it had been somewhat exaggerated, given that Sandinistas and contras regularly tangle along the border. Nevertheless, like Muammar Gaddafi's fitful missile attack on the U.S. fleet in the Gulf of Sidra, the Nicaraguan incursion provided a suitable pretext for showing U.S. military might in the region...
...early Monday morning after he heard that Libya had fired two errant SA-5 missiles at U.S. planes flying off the Libyan coast. For 36 hours, Regan and other top aides had been waiting for news from the Gulf of Sidra, where three U.S. carrier groups were skirting Muammar Gaddafi's "line of death." Vice Admiral Frank Kelso, commander of the Sixth Fleet, had orders to fire if fired upon, but he had yet to make his move. "It was frustrating," Regan says. "Like watching a baseball game through a knothole. We could technically see the action, but we couldn...
Ever since Reagan took office in 1981, Gaddafi has been the Administration's archfiend, an erratic adversary whose sinister hand was perceived behind a tangle of bloody atrocities. As early as 1981, the CIA accused Libya of being the most prominent sponsor of international terrorism, and Reagan talked ominously about Libyan hit squads sent out to assassinate U.S. officials. That same year, F-14 fighter jets shot down two Soviet-built Libyan fighters after a sudden dogfight over the Gulf of Sidra. Last June, when TWA Flight 847 was hijacked and 39 Americans were held hostage, the Administration saw Gaddafi...