On
November 6, 2007 Senator Richard Lugar, the Ranking Republican on the
Senate Foreign Relations infomittee, called for rapid nomination of a U.S.
ambassador to Libya; “We have to get up to speed…we cannot allow that
nation's success story to falter in any way.” Rapprochement with Libya has
not changed the behavior of the Libyan regime; instead, it has undercut
reform and bestowed legitimacy upon leader Muammar Qadhafi.
U.S.
rapprochement with Libya has evolved into appeasement of Qadhafi. On
September 26, 2007, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met in New
York with Libyan External Security chief Musa Kusa, once barred from the
U.S. because of his links to terrorism. Kusa masterminded the bombing of
Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, and played a role in the liquidation of Libyan
dissidents in Europe during the 1980s. Libyan External Security runs
Islamic Call Society (Jamiyat ad-Dawa al-Islamiya), an organization
responsible for Islamic evangelism in Africa and elsewhere. ISC was a
conduit for Libyan involvement in the conflict in Darfur and the civil war
in West Africa. Instead of meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State, Kusa
deserves to be tried for crimes against humanity.
To be
sure, the Libyan model has helped deepen Iran and Syria’s intransigence.
Qadhafi exposed to them America’s lack of resolve and demonstrated that,
with enough intransigence, American diplomats will eventually fold on
every issue.
For
this, and other crimes, Qadhafi deserves American justice — not American
empathy — from a senior senator. According to Lugar, two years ago,
Qadhafi infoplained to him that “a great deal has been given up and not
much has been attained.” Qadhafi has succeeded in imposing primitive
Bedouin values on Americans. He was allowed to escape American justice in
the Lockerbie crime by paying blood money. He manipulated naïve U.S.
diplomats who treat human tragedy as a background to more important
discussions of house and apartment amenities in their new Tripoli abode.
Qadhafi, meanwhile, has paid only a small price. As he explained, “what we
paid with the right hand we retrieved with the left hand.” When it infoes
to Lockerbie no financial infopensation can replace the loss and love of a
spouse, sibling, or a child.
Lugar
should feel outrage, not empathy, toward Qadhafi. Two years ago, Lugar
personally lobbied Colonel Qadhafi to release my brother Fathi Eljahmi.
Where is Fathi now? He has been ininfomunicado since the last week of
August 2006. He is held in an undisclosed location by Libyan State
Security where family visitation is forbidden. He is held in total
isolation and without adequate medical care for his heart condition,
hypertension, and advanced stage diabetes. In 2002, Fathi, then age 61,
was arrested for publicly calling for democracy. We hope he is still
alive.
Fathi
was released in 2004 after Senator Joseph Biden urged Qadhafi to release
him. He was re-detained, because he publicly continued calling for
democracy, and held Qadhafi personally responsible for the Lockerbie and
UTA bombings, and for West Africa’s war.
Fathi
is a Libyan citizen, who advocated for Americans who were unjustly harmed
by the actions of the Libyan dictator and his apparatus of terror.
Conversely, some American diplomats and lawmakers intellectualize these
deaths in order to strike a deal with a tyrant, and trumpet up a façade of
success.
Ultimately, political change in Libya cannot be realized without outside
help. Qadhafi believes — and with good reason — that he can dupe
Washington into legitimizing him without sacrificing anything in return.
It would be a major blunder for U.S. policymakers, though, to continue
down the path of concession. The more Washington offers, the more Qadhafi
will demand. If the White House is truly interested in reform, it should
once again embrace genuine democrats like my brother, not offer
prestigious Secretary of State visits upon their captors.
Mohamed Eljahmi -
Libyan-American activist.
* The article was first
published by: Nationalreview.info - 20 Nov. 2007
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