AMERICA OUGHT TO BOMB LONDON, NOT KABOL, SAYS COLONEL QADHAFI
DOHA 24 Oct. (IPS) Libyan leader Mo’amar Qadhafi, commenting on the ongoing
US-led war against the ruling Taleban and the "Al-Qa’eda"
organisation, said Tuesday that Washington has the right to strike back for the
September 11 terror attacks on the United States, but should bomb London and not
Kabul, branding it the "capital of terrorists".
"If America knows who committed that horrifying act, they have the right to respond with a direct military act without going begging to the (United Nations) Security Council, Mauritania or anyone else", the Libyan leader said in an interview with Qatar-based satellite TV channel Al-Jazira.
He said Mr. Osama Ben Laden, considered by the American as the prime suspect in the 11 September terrorist operations, cannot be condemned for the attacks because he has not so far admitted that he carried out this act".
"It was not the work of one crazy man, a hashish smoker or a heroin addict. It was very well planned", Colonel Qadhafi said referring to the use of hijacked passenger aircrafts to hit the World Trade Center twin towers in New York and crushing another one over the Pentagon building in Washington D.C.
"Right now it is not known who hit America", the Colonel observed, frequently ruffling his thick brown robes while sitting at a desk in front of a large bookshelf full of volumes bound in green.
"If the United States is serious about fighting terrorism, it should fire its cruise missiles at London, "the real capital of terrorists", rather than Kabul.
He accused London of harbouring terrorists, alluding to Arab Islamists who have taken refuge in the British capital and allegedly operate from there.
"No one supports the American strikes against Afghanistan. Even the European allies, with the exception of Britain, have their reservations", he said, also branding the United Nations Security Council as the world's "biggest terrorist organisation" because of the American control over the Organisation.
"When the Security Council meets, it terrorises us all because it is under the control of the United States". "It's not a Security Council, it's a terror council", he said, adding that the fight against terrorism "had been confused with striking Afghanistan".
"Terrorism cannot be attacked with missiles. Terrorism is an idea and you cannot attack an idea with missiles", he argued.
However, the maverick Qadhafi acknowledged the principle of retaliation in self-defence, arguing that if he had possessed missiles in 1986 when the United States bombed his house, he would have responded the same night by hitting the White House.
"Despite the confrontation, struggle, and disagreement with the United States, we must show solidarity with the American people", he said.
Ignoring repeated questioning on whether or not he considered Ben Laden and his Al-Qaeda network to be terrorists, the Libyan strongman instead accused the United States of leading "a policy of double-standards" towards Afghanistan, striking it to target Ben Laden while having considered him a fellow fighter during the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
"We used to call them mujahideen and applaud them, but once Ben Laden said the American army was on the tomb of the prophet Mohammed (in Mecca, Saudi Arabia), then he became a terrorist", he pointed out, referring to the US military presence in Saudi Kingdom, home to Islam's holiest sites.
"They were used as mercenaries to fight a war in place of the United States which didn't want to send its men and sent those naive ones instead", he said, repeating his condemnation of the attacks on New York and Washington, branding them a "horrifying, destructive act that left a huge number of victims and caused economic crises which we are all suffering".
However, he noted, the international community needed to agree on a definition of terrorism before the world could join together in fighting it.
"We also disagree with one another on what happened in the United States, what is happening in Afghanistan, and what is even happening in Iraq" he said. "This is because we have not so far defined terrorism".
"If we know what terrorism is, we will all resist it", he said, adding that for him, terrorism is "the threat of fleets, sanctions, embargoes".
On the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Mr. Qadhafi said he was ready to support the Palestinians and Syrians in freeing their land from Israeli occupation.
"If Syria goes to war tomorrow to liberate the Golan, we'll be with them. If Gaza airport was open to arms shipments, we'd send the Palestinians arms tomorrow", he assured, without much conviction though. QADHAFI AFQANESTAN 251001