Word: gaddafis
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...demise of the F.R.C. and Abu Nidal says a great deal about the changing climate throughout much of the Middle East. One powerful curb on Abu Nidal's activities is the apparent turn to moderation of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who is seeking to bring his country out of isolation. Last October Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak bluntly told the Libyan that improved relations with Cairo depend on Gaddafi's abandoning his support of terrorism. So hostile has Gaddafi become to terrorist groups that some reports place Abu Nidal not in a hospital but under house arrest in Tripoli...
...terms of shock value, asserting that Libya has supported the cause of international terrorism ranks right up there with calling the Pope Catholic. Except in this case, the asserter was Colonel Muammar Gaddafi himself. To hear the Libyan leader tell it, in an interview with the Egyptian weekly al- Musawwar, he went to the aid of unspecified terrorist groups in the conviction that they were practicing revolutionary violence for the Arab cause, which is good stuff. Imagine Gaddafi's horror, then, when he discovered that his hijacking, trigger-happy clients actually meant to exercise "terrorism for the sake of terrorism...
This absurdity was most in evidence during and after the April 1986 U.S. bombing of the military barracks in Tripoli, Libya. That was when Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was the villain of the month. Although Gaddafi and his family were known to be living in the barracks and although the attack killed many soldiers and some civilians -- including, Gaddafi claimed, his 18-month-old adopted daughter -- American officials were at pains to insist that they did not intend to kill Gaddafi himself. President Reagan said, "We weren't . . . dropping these tons of bombs hoping to blow that man up" -- although...
...national interest make actual killing harder? Or easier, by allowing us to "do that kind of thing" while preening that we really don't? I'm not sure. Removing the most surgical tool of war does make the resort to war more difficult. Given our flighty negative enthusiasms -- Gaddafi yesterday, Noriega today -- that may be no bad thing...
Correspondent Priscilla Painton had been in New York City only a few months when it began to dawn on her that perhaps all roads led to Atlantic City. When Gaddafi-linked terrorists threatened to attack the U.S., what city were they rumored to have chosen? When casino owner Donald Trump insulted hotel queen Leona Helmsley, what were they fighting over? When Cher made a concert tour comeback after eight years, where did she open? The answer every time: Atlantic City. So Painton set out to discover the lure. "The only thing I knew about Atlantic City was that Louis Malle...