The bum does it again

The Colonel with one of his female bodyguards.
(Photo courtesy: AFP © AgenceFrancePresse)
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Moammer Gaddafi of Libya is the kind of schmuck I would love to meet some day. Only to ask, how does he manage to look like what he looks like, a schmuck.

When God lines up the worst folks from the planet for rounds of lashes, the mighty pair of Moammer will be on the line for sure, and he deserves about a thousand just for wearing that ugly pair of sunglasses in a summit meeting.

The Army captain toppled King Idris in the summer of 1969 and since then neither Libyans and nor the rest of us here have managed to push him to the back of our minds for this guy pulls one stunt or the other to demand a piece of history being written.

Here’s the latest. At the ongoing Arab League Summit, he was smoking while important speeches by heads of states were on.

“As Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali opened the summit with an address at the podium, Gaddafi — dressed in flowing white robes — asked an aide for a cigarette and lit up. He smiled broadly and puffed away as photographers took pictures,” CBS reported.

At last year's summit in Tunis, Gaddafi pulled the same stunt, smoking a cigarette on the conference floor, a violation of the Arab League protocol. Asked later why he did it, he replied, "I am disgusted. It's because of what's going on in reality."

He walked out of the 2003 Summit, angered by its refusal to take up his prominently preposterous proposal for a single Palestinian-Israeli state called "Isratine."

He basically hates Arab League, so this is a very mild form of the legendary things he does to peoples he hates. The BBC profile lists some of 'em:

• He sent his army into Chad way back in 1985, although with characteristic nerve he has never admitted to it. US severed its relations with Libya in January 1986.
  
• Britain had already done that after he got Libyans attacked in central London in 1984. One innocent policewoman lost her life.
  
• Libya is a poor Arab country on the Dark Continent, because Gaddafi has squandered the oil-rich Libyan money in things he indulges in like designer clothes, designer shoes, designer shades and terrorism.
  
• Americans had bombed Tripoli, the capital, to kill him for being such an ass, but he survived. His daughter was among the 101 dead.
  
• Soon after the bombing, a ship was stopped by French police and found to be carrying arms from Libya for the IRA.
  
• Libya, it is largely understood, ordered the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, when a Pan Am plane was brought down over Scotland.

But last year he paid off the victims’ families and bought peace with America and UK.

He is now the lovable bum of international politics, who thinks he’s not given enough importance by Arab League, even if you keep the rest of the world aside.

People would love to hate some quirky old man in chic shades, accompanied by a phalanx of gun-toting female bodyguards. Yes, he feels insecure surrounded by male bodyguards in a country where most women stay behind the four walls of their husband’s house.