Speaker 1: Mmm, hello friends, I am Robert Evans, and this is
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you everything
Speaker 1: you don't know that's the very worst people in all
Speaker 1: of history. And today is part two of our epic
Speaker 1: two parter on Momar Kaddafi, the Colonel, the dictator of
Speaker 1: Libya and one of, if not the craziest people to
Speaker 1: ever run a country. In part one, we went through
Speaker 1: how Momar conquered all of Libya, overthrew the existing government
Speaker 1: with the help of a bunch of friends he made
Speaker 1: in high school. We talked about his Amazonian bodyguards, we
Speaker 1: talked about his crazy theories on how the world ought
Speaker 1: to run, and how the start of his brutal, repressive
Speaker 1: state kind of went against everything that he claimed in
Speaker 1: his rhetoric to want for the world. So now we
Speaker 1: are getting in two more about Mama Kadafi. This episode
Speaker 1: is going to include how he spent his fabulous oil wealth,
Speaker 1: how he became maybe the richest man on earth, and
Speaker 1: how he delivered probably the craziest speech ever delivered at
Speaker 1: the United Nations. And oh, this is going to feature
Speaker 1: a little cameo from a guy you may have heard of,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So let's get into it. Uh. Now, the
Speaker 1: entire oil and gas industry of Libya was under Colonel
Speaker 1: Kadafi's personal control. He managed that part of the country
Speaker 1: very hands on. By the time of his death in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, he was thought to have amassed a
Speaker 1: fortune squirreled around the world of over two hundred billion dollars,
Speaker 1: which put him way ahead of Jeff Bezos at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was probably the richest man in the world when
Speaker 1: he died. It's hard to say, because he hit a
Speaker 1: bunch of money in all sorts of places. Libya was
Speaker 1: making something at its height like a billion dollars a
Speaker 1: day in the oil revenue, and a lot of that
Speaker 1: went to fund projects. But it seems like that he
Speaker 1: was treating his people a little better than than Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 1: You could argue that, I mean, they all had healthcare.
Speaker 1: The Libyans did have a better healthcare plan than Amazon employees. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um So, Kadafi spent a huge amount of Libya's wealth
Speaker 1: supporting terrorists and revolutionary groups around the world. Um. There
Speaker 1: was no real through line between them other than that
Speaker 1: they were all rebelling. He supported the Ira, the Basque
Speaker 1: separatists in Spain, Iraqi Kurds. He was actually the only
Speaker 1: Arab leader to support the Iraqi Kurds. He backed the Sandinistas,
Speaker 1: the Red Brigades in Italy and Japan, Carlos the Jackal,
Speaker 1: numerous groups across Africa. Almost every bomb used by the
Speaker 1: ira during the height of their terror and like the
Speaker 1: eighties and the nineties, was believed to have been made
Speaker 1: using Simtex explosives shipped out of Libyan ports. He was
Speaker 1: the man for international terrorists. So if terrorists were indie films,
Speaker 1: He's like Harvey Wines. He is. He is the Harvey
Speaker 1: Wine Stain of terrorism. You nailed it. Yeah, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: the Harvey Wine Stain of terror. Yeah. And the ira
Speaker 1: Is has been Affleck Yeah oh yeah, absolutely yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: there we go. I apologize. I all right. You guys
Speaker 1: deserve better than be compared to benaff Like, that's not fair.
Speaker 1: The ira has better tattoos, yeah, um, and they're better
Speaker 1: at music. I don't know if Ben Affleck has a band, right,
Speaker 1: he has to. He has to have a terrory bet
Speaker 1: he plays a guitar every now and then at a party, okay, um.
Speaker 1: So Kadafi also supported a bunch of legitimate governments across Africa,
Speaker 1: sending the money and even troops to help them in
Speaker 1: their wars. In return, he convinced almost thirty African nations
Speaker 1: to cut off contact and diplomatic ties with Israel. UM
Speaker 1: Colonel Kadafi's greatest African coup was convincing Jean Benell Bokasa,
Speaker 1: the Emperor of Central Africa, to convert to Islam. Kadafi
Speaker 1: personally handled his conversion ceremony and gave him one million
Speaker 1: dollars as a gift. This money, and Kaddafi's money in general,
Speaker 1: was sorely needed by Bocasa because he had almost bankrupted
Speaker 1: the Central African Republic with an outrageously expensive, eighty million
Speaker 1: dollar coronation ceremony. We're going to talk about Macaza Sunday.
Speaker 1: So there's like Roman eagles made out of throw just
Speaker 1: that detail. It was just brilliant. Becasa converted back to Christianity,
Speaker 1: the religion of eight of his people, three months later.
Speaker 1: It was at a lastic victory. Yeah. Um. Libya occupies
Speaker 1: an awkward geographical and cultural position. It's part of Africa,
Speaker 1: but its population is Arab. Kaddafi initially hoped he might
Speaker 1: be the leader of a vast Arab resurgence across the
Speaker 1: Middle East and North Africa, but he quickly alienated everyone
Speaker 1: else in the Arab world. So once that door was closed,
Speaker 1: he decided to try his hand at uniting Africa instead.
Speaker 1: So he had to chow options. He figured, yeah, m
Speaker 1: he was aiding in a united Africa or the Arab world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was his goal. Why because he never he never
Speaker 1: Libya was too small for him. He didn't just he
Speaker 1: wanted to be leader. And he looked at the Middle East,
Speaker 1: you like, He's like, no, they're not going to go
Speaker 1: for it. It was more like as a kid, he
Speaker 1: was he was really into Gamil Nasser, who was like
Speaker 1: the president of Egypt, who was like an pan Arab
Speaker 1: nationalist all basically reuniting the Ottoman Empire kind of deal, right,
Speaker 1: and that was Kadafi's dream for a while. But all
Speaker 1: of the other Arab leaders came to hate him. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was like, okay, those guys hate me, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go somewhere where I haven't burnt bridges as much. So,
Speaker 1: like his best buddy was Idi Amine and he was
Speaker 1: friends with right, yeah, you know what I mean. He
Speaker 1: must a guy to hang out. Yeah, he gave soldiers
Speaker 1: to Idi Amine, which didn't end well for him because
Speaker 1: his army was not good at being an army at
Speaker 1: any point in this which is yeah, they were terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like a shitty gift. It's a shitty gift.
Speaker 1: It was better than Idi Amine's army. Okay, did he
Speaker 1: give armies often and people would have to pretend to
Speaker 1: like it and then like give the army to someone else,
Speaker 1: like re gift the army. He kind of gave armies
Speaker 1: to a couple of people and then they got badly
Speaker 1: beaten and then he didn't have much of an army
Speaker 1: at least, and they were in an national sanctions against him,
Speaker 1: so he couldn't give away his army anymore because he
Speaker 1: was running low on tanks. Not great. Uh So. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you go searching through the wild woolies of the
Speaker 1: Internet for documentaries about Momar Kadafi, you will find a
Speaker 1: number of very positive takes, many of which are homemade
Speaker 1: by guys in their rooms. There is a reason behind this, though,
Speaker 1: because a lot of his legacy in Africa was positive.
Speaker 1: He established a five billion dollar fund that invested in
Speaker 1: legitimate businesses across the continent. The Guardian claims he did
Speaker 1: more than any other leader to establish the African Union.
Speaker 1: So it's not all negative. Again with Kadafi, it's always
Speaker 1: a mix of Again, it's him, he's the problem. He
Speaker 1: is the problem. Like if he like wrote everything he
Speaker 1: wanted to have done down and then they just like
Speaker 1: put him somewhere where he couldn't hurt anybody. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: the desert. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's why he went to
Speaker 1: the desert that one time. There was a lot of times.
Speaker 1: He has never stayed there, which is the problem. Right,
Speaker 1: he should have stayed there if he just said, hey,
Speaker 1: there should be an African Union, and then once everyone
Speaker 1: was like yeah, that is a good idea, he fucked
Speaker 1: off to the desert. He never would have been murdered
Speaker 1: in the street and I'm out and I'm out, like
Speaker 1: George Sans in the in the Seinfeld episode one joke. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would have been a better way to Kaddafi. Um.
Speaker 1: But instead he did all of this ship um. So
Speaker 1: he was He was popular though in a lot of
Speaker 1: parts of Africa outside of Libya, even when he wasn't
Speaker 1: popular inside of his own country, but to the West.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties, Momar Kaddafi was the goddamn boogeyman.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty six, a bomb went off in a
Speaker 1: Berlin discotheque. Several people died. Ronald Reagan called Kaddafi a
Speaker 1: mad dog, and he was portrayed as sinister and a
Speaker 1: deadly figure pulling strings around the world, which is like
Speaker 1: half true. He may have been involved in the discotheque bombing.
Speaker 1: Um probably was to some extent. You know, maybe he
Speaker 1: didn't know about it. And again, the way Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: sort of has his hand in every Indy film or production. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: probably somewhere there was some money in there. He probably
Speaker 1: winsteined a bunch of different tape reactions. Yeah. Sanctions weren't
Speaker 1: placed on Libya during the Reagan administration, which cut the
Speaker 1: nation's revenue by a third overnight. Uh. This was the
Speaker 1: start of the dark times for Momarkadafi. On April fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nine eighteen, US bombers took off from the UK and
Speaker 1: dropped sixty tons of bombs on a Libyan airfield, naval academy,
Speaker 1: and Momar Kadafi's Bob Alzizia compound. Several civilians were killed
Speaker 1: in the bombing. Kadafi claimed his four year old daughter, Hannah,
Speaker 1: was also killed. This is the first time the world
Speaker 1: heard about his daughter, and it's hard to say what's true.
Speaker 1: Reporters from multiple major outlets have attempted to track down
Speaker 1: the truth of Hannah. We don't know. Basically, the possibilities
Speaker 1: are she's either dead, a practicing doctor not real, or
Speaker 1: two different people. That's a hell of a thing to
Speaker 1: be of one of those things. Yeah, Like after his
Speaker 1: regime fell, they found her room and her passport that
Speaker 1: never her and there was like some in the room
Speaker 1: that she may have been working as a doctor in Libya,
Speaker 1: but nobody knows what happened. So they found her passport
Speaker 1: that must assisted well. But he gets to issue passports. Okay,
Speaker 1: So is this again going back to like Seinfeld. Is
Speaker 1: this like a Seinfeld desk thing where he does a
Speaker 1: lie and then has to like continually back it up.
Speaker 1: May the point that he's making passports for this fake
Speaker 1: dead person. It is obviously totally possible that when NATO
Speaker 1: bombed his home, his daughter died in the bombing because
Speaker 1: they bombed his home. It's also totally possible that the
Speaker 1: guy in charge of the government faked having a daughter
Speaker 1: or faked his daughter dying and then hit her from
Speaker 1: the world under a different in the passport. She was
Speaker 1: like two years older than he claimed she was. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what he's like, Yeah, it's very hard to tell
Speaker 1: what happened with Hannah. Um, whatever happened to her. The bombings. Actually,
Speaker 1: we're kind of a pr coup for Kadafi. Uh. He
Speaker 1: built a massive statue at the bomb site to commemorate
Speaker 1: the attack, and he would for years afterwards hold press
Speaker 1: conferences and meet with dignitaries in front of it. The
Speaker 1: statue is called Golden Fist Clinching an American airplane. Is
Speaker 1: the statue of a golden fist crushing in American statue.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing statue. Ye, oh my god. It could
Speaker 1: also be like a tribute to King Kong. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of things that statue could stand in for. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's so good, it's amazing. Now. Kadafi's actual military response
Speaker 1: to the US bombing was to fire two missiles at
Speaker 1: an American Coast Guard base on an Italian island and
Speaker 1: miss Both missiles landed in the ocean. Yeah, which maybe
Speaker 1: he just wanted to funk with the ocean. Yeah. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he hates the ocean. If you remember from part one,
Speaker 1: Momar Kadafi's terrified of the ocean, right so, rightfully so
Speaker 1: uh so. The wonderful book Libya, The Rise and Fall
Speaker 1: of Kaddafi argues that Reagan's obsession with Kaddafi actually helped
Speaker 1: the colonel. He'd been widely unliked before this point. After
Speaker 1: the bombing, he could credibly claim to be a leader
Speaker 1: of Arab and African resistance to the Western imperialist powers.
Speaker 1: That said, the sanctions increasingly fucked up life from Momar
Speaker 1: Kaddafi and mainly for the people of Libya. Their anger
Speaker 1: made Kaddafi worry that at some point they might take
Speaker 1: their rage out on him, so he announced a bold
Speaker 1: reform package. First off, he abolished the people's Counsels and
Speaker 1: the revolutionary committees, and he claimed that all of Libya's
Speaker 1: problems had been the fault of those assholes, because you know,
Speaker 1: he's not in charge, so he threw them all under
Speaker 1: the bus. From the bus. Good step one. To drive
Speaker 1: this point home. On March third, nine, nineteen days before
Speaker 1: I was born, Momar Kaddafi gathered a bunch of supporters
Speaker 1: and foreign diplomats at the Furnash prison in Tripoli. He
Speaker 1: got into an enormous bulldozer and then drove it into
Speaker 1: the jail's massive gate to break it down. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: bulldozer could not break the gate of the jail, so
Speaker 1: Kadafi backed up and rammed the prison wall until it
Speaker 1: collapsed outwards onto the crowd of diplomats and supporters. Then
Speaker 1: a sewage pipe ruptured and ships spilled into the street.
Speaker 1: That's like something that would be on the Simpsons. That's
Speaker 1: like something Homer Simpson would do. Oh my god, that's great. Eventually,
Speaker 1: so Yakete Sacks has still been playing. It never stopped.
Speaker 1: That was the Libyan national anthem for forty years. Four
Speaker 1: prisoners eventually rushed out through the hole in the wall.
Speaker 1: Uh Momar Kadafi announced people's don't triumph through building prisons
Speaker 1: and raising their walls even higher, to the stunned silence
Speaker 1: of his country, half of whom were buried in rubble.
Speaker 1: Oh no, Kadafi opened up his country to a small
Speaker 1: amount of privatization. People were allowed to run personal businesses.
Speaker 1: Hotels started to open up in Tripoli. Things actually seemed
Speaker 1: like they were moving forward in a positive direction. But
Speaker 1: then December, one night, PanAm flight one oh three went
Speaker 1: down over Lockerby, Scotland after a terrorist bomb detonated on board.
Speaker 1: Two hundred and seventy people died, including eleven on the ground.
Speaker 1: Uh In nineteen ninety, the Lockerby bombing was credibly linked
Speaker 1: to Momar Kadafi's Libya. A computer chip and the bomb
Speaker 1: debtonator matched debtonators found previously on Libyans who've been arrested
Speaker 1: in Senegal. Um Kadafi denied any wrongdoing and anything to
Speaker 1: do with the bombing. He refused to hand over the
Speaker 1: accused bombers. He said the evidence against Libya is less
Speaker 1: than a laughable piece of a fingernail, which is weird. No,
Speaker 1: it's weird. It's weird to compare that to a fingernail.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like the same size the chip, the chip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, maybe that's what he was going after.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it's a yeah, it's a weird.
Speaker 1: It's a weird thing to say. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things I have to assume. It's like something you say
Speaker 1: when you're guilty, when you don't know how to defend yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So. The nineteen nineties were a bad decade from
Speaker 1: MOMR Kadafi's regime. Libya spent most of that time under
Speaker 1: a strangling set of international sanctions. Kadafi also had to
Speaker 1: fight off in his Lamist uprising that threatened topple his regime.
Speaker 1: Um he spent years doing that. There was like a
Speaker 1: brutal little almost civil war between the Islamists and the
Speaker 1: Kaddafi regime. Uh The economy collapsed due in part to
Speaker 1: sanctions and in part to the war, and also in
Speaker 1: part to expensive projects like the Great Man Made River scheme.
Speaker 1: So Kadafi believed that all great peoples need a great
Speaker 1: riverbya does not have many great rivers or any great
Speaker 1: rivers naturally, but it does have the largest underground reserves
Speaker 1: a fossil fresh water. So Kadafi's plan was to pipe
Speaker 1: water from underneath the deserts to the coastal cities. This
Speaker 1: was an enormous engineering task, the largest irrigation plan ever
Speaker 1: carried out six hundred miles of pipe. It's an enormous
Speaker 1: fucking thing. It took up fifteen percent of the government's
Speaker 1: budget during the years that it was under construction, and
Speaker 1: it was under construction for a very long time. This
Speaker 1: is again something that actually turned out to be a
Speaker 1: good idea because now that it is complete, it currently
Speaker 1: provides something like of Libbya's fresh water and supports a
Speaker 1: huge amount of their agriculture. I mean, a river is
Speaker 1: water that hasn't been corrupted by the ocean becoming the ocean.
Speaker 1: He just keeps trying to ocean. Yeah exactly. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but it took a long time to finish this man
Speaker 1: Rade River, and during the nineties it was just incredibly
Speaker 1: expensive when they didn't have a lot of money to
Speaker 1: spare this big dig. What they had the Big Dig
Speaker 1: in Boston where they had construction for like a decade,
Speaker 1: and it was awful and everybody hated it. It sounds
Speaker 1: like He's big dig. So oh, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: it sounds like Kadafi's Boston. M Yeah, I'm not an
Speaker 1: East Coast guy, right. Have you been to the East Coast? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been to the East Coast terrible where like the
Speaker 1: East parts, I feel like you need to give it
Speaker 1: another shot. No, I actually I liked Boston the one
Speaker 1: time I was there. Its like a lovely city. Um.
Speaker 1: I wasn't there during the Big Dig unless I was,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't driving, So yeah, no, I I enjoy
Speaker 1: the East Coast unless it's the summer, in which case
Speaker 1: I don't. Y'all, summers are the worst. Yeah, the winters
Speaker 1: are also kind of the worst. I'm fine with winter,
Speaker 1: but I come from Texas, so if it's hot outside,
Speaker 1: I expect there to be air conditioning. And no one
Speaker 1: on that coast is figured out a c at least
Speaker 1: that's the way it seems when you travel right. There's
Speaker 1: also mosquitoes, and that's kind of a deal breaker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta deal with those in the south too, so
Speaker 1: I guess I don't notice that so much. But I'm
Speaker 1: not a summer guy anyway. Let's talk about mar Market office.
Speaker 1: Um so. Yeah. Libya's government, um during this sort of
Speaker 1: giant slump in the nineteen nineties, tried a number of
Speaker 1: different tactics to fix the economy. In nine, he established
Speaker 1: a Tourism Secretariat and dedicated the nation's gorgeous coastline to tourism.
Speaker 1: This again, is not a crazy idea. Libya is a
Speaker 1: beautiful country, especially around the coast. Um. The problem is that,
Speaker 1: of course Libya was still subject to massive international sanctions
Speaker 1: and alcohol was illegal, but of which kind of put
Speaker 1: a damper on a vacation destination. You need the booze, Like,
Speaker 1: if you can't offer anything else, you need the booze there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's okay if there's not a lot of variety in
Speaker 1: the food, but I need to be able to drink
Speaker 1: on the beach. Yeah. Like if I were going, if
Speaker 1: I went into the convenience store and it was just
Speaker 1: Italian suits and milk powder, I'd be like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: there's vodka, so I can make this work. I can
Speaker 1: have a vacation. Yeah, I have a good time. But
Speaker 1: if there's no alcohol, then it's like what am I
Speaker 1: gonna do? Yeah? What are we even? Why am I
Speaker 1: even here? Um. At one point, a journalist asked the
Speaker 1: head of Libya's national tourism agency, who would want to
Speaker 1: go there for vacation. The head of the tourism agency answered,
Speaker 1: perhaps reformed alcoholics come dry out in Libya. I've been
Speaker 1: drinking to hit rock bottom. Come to Libya. He also said,
Speaker 1: and then there are those who like adventure, so which
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get ninety of people who like adventure also drink. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think people when they say I like adventure,
Speaker 1: they mean like zip lining and then drinking Margarite's afterwards.
Speaker 1: Um so like Saddam Hussein. By the mid nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: Kadafi seemed to have soured on being a dictator. He
Speaker 1: turned to the warm embrace of writing, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: published a collection of short stories titled Escape to Hell.
Speaker 1: The eponymous story appears to be written from the perspective
Speaker 1: of a dictator fleeing his own unhappy people. It's like
Speaker 1: he knew. It's like he knew. I'm gonna start reading
Speaker 1: from Momarkat Daffy's short stories, which I should have plugged
Speaker 1: at the end of the last episode, because this is
Speaker 1: really the best thing we got here. This sounds wonderful.
Speaker 1: So when we get back, we're going to just dig
Speaker 1: right into mo Mars, but first by things. Products. Yeah, everything,
Speaker 1: And we're back and we're about to get into the
Speaker 1: part of the story I'm most excited about, where we
Speaker 1: talk about Momar Kadafi's career as a short story. Right,
Speaker 1: it sounds delightful. So the collection was of course called
Speaker 1: Escape to Hell, which was the title of a story
Speaker 1: in it about a dictator fleeing his own people. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to read one selection from Escape to Hell. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I was about to say that sounds like a John
Speaker 1: Carpenter movie. It does, it does, and the hell in
Speaker 1: this is the Desert. He's talking about how he hates
Speaker 1: being in charge so much that he wants to escape
Speaker 1: to hell the desert because it's nicer than being around
Speaker 1: his people people loves the desert. I mean, he's a
Speaker 1: better one like That's these people are desert people, so
Speaker 1: that it makes sense. Hates the ocean, loves the desert.
Speaker 1: Who can stand against the crushing current and the blind
Speaker 1: engulfing power. How I love the liberated masses on the
Speaker 1: march they are unfettered, with no master, singing and marry
Speaker 1: after their terrible ordeals. On the other hand, how I
Speaker 1: fear and apprehend them. I love the masses as much
Speaker 1: as I love my father. Similarly, I fear them no
Speaker 1: less than I fear him. In a Bedouin society where
Speaker 1: no government system exists. Who can deter a father from
Speaker 1: persecuting any of his children. Yes, how much they love
Speaker 1: him and how much they fear him at the same time.
Speaker 1: That is how I love and fear the masses exactly
Speaker 1: as I love and fear my father. He knew what
Speaker 1: was coming. And there's a great there's a line in
Speaker 1: there where he talks about like how all he knew
Speaker 1: how to do was tear down the old government, and
Speaker 1: he didn't know how to do stuff like be a plumber,
Speaker 1: so like why should people expect things to work? But
Speaker 1: he's like, dude, you're the one who stayed in power.
Speaker 1: So yeah. At this point he's like tony soprano, like
Speaker 1: that's all he can do, and he sort of knows
Speaker 1: eventually it's you know, they're going to come back to
Speaker 1: bite him on the road. Yeah, exactly, and he forgot
Speaker 1: how to use the brakes. Um. He calls these all
Speaker 1: short stories, but they are really just collections of rants
Speaker 1: with no cohesive plot structure or characters. Safe for almost
Speaker 1: one story, Suicide of the Astronaut, which I am convinced
Speaker 1: might be the greatest thing ever written in any language.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a great band. It is a great
Speaker 1: name for a band, and it's a great short story.
Speaker 1: And Dave and listeners, I don't have any option but
Speaker 1: to read the story and its entirety, every single word
Speaker 1: of it. I have no choice in the matter. I
Speaker 1: could no more cut out my own tongue than I
Speaker 1: could keep Colonel Kadafi's brilliance hidden from the world. Are
Speaker 1: you ready, David Bell, for suicide of the astraid? I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'll ever be ready. Yeah, do it?
Speaker 1: H Having traveled far and wide and giddy outer space,
Speaker 1: and since budgets can no more support the great expense
Speaker 1: of outer space programs, and now that man has landed
Speaker 1: on the Moon but found nothing much except that the
Speaker 1: two astronauts have exposed the wild guesses and vain hypotheses
Speaker 1: of scientists that there were sees and oceans on the Moon,
Speaker 1: which led to the competition to own them and designate
Speaker 1: names for them by the insolent great powers, who nearly
Speaker 1: went to war on Earth for the sake of dividing
Speaker 1: the Moon that real resources, especially the marine ones. And
Speaker 1: having roamed around the planetary system taking pictures of all
Speaker 1: the planets, and after giving up hope of finding intelligent
Speaker 1: life or any suitable place for living there, man returned
Speaker 1: to the Earth frustrated and suffering from giddiness, vomiting, and
Speaker 1: fear of perdition. That's the first sentence. Holy shit, Okay,
Speaker 1: hold on, I need to unpack that. So this is
Speaker 1: the story takes place after this. This is like, so,
Speaker 1: you know how we went to the Moon and we
Speaker 1: found all this the oan we almost went to war
Speaker 1: over the Moon. Yeah, well you can forget about all that.
Speaker 1: We're done with space. We're done with that, okay, next sentence,
Speaker 1: he has now realized the fact that the Earth is
Speaker 1: unique and incomparable as a source of life, which in
Speaker 1: simple words means food and water, and that which is
Speaker 1: indispensable to life is secured by the atmosphere of the
Speaker 1: Earth at etera. Thus man had to return to the
Speaker 1: Earth from his outer space escapade. Right all right, paragraph too.
Speaker 1: Back on the Earth, the astronaut took off his space
Speaker 1: suit and put on his familiar one, which is suitable
Speaker 1: for walking and living on the Earth. Now that his
Speaker 1: mission with the Space Corporation had come to an end,
Speaker 1: he began to look for an earthly job. He applied
Speaker 1: for one at a carpentry workshop, but he failed the
Speaker 1: test because he lacked the essential no how of what
Speaker 1: he thought was a simple trade. Also, he had to
Speaker 1: go at the lathe workshop at a blacksmith sporge building
Speaker 1: and plumbing. He even tried painting and whitewashing. He had
Speaker 1: not studied fine art or music or weaving, as they
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with his scientific specialization the Space Corporation.
Speaker 1: This is a Neil Breen film. People, some people, most
Speaker 1: people won't know what that means. People would do. This
Speaker 1: is a this is a bad B movie plot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It's amazing that he thinks an astronaut would
Speaker 1: have trouble getting a job anywhere, because, like, I've had
Speaker 1: to hire people on a number of occasions in my life,
Speaker 1: and I know that if anyone had walked in and
Speaker 1: said I was an astronaut and was in space, that
Speaker 1: would be the end of the internet. Yeah. If the
Speaker 1: word astronaut is on a resume, yeah you got it.
Speaker 1: Even if they can't do anything, I just have them
Speaker 1: there all day to be like, so, what's space like? Well,
Speaker 1: and I just I assume anyone who can be an
Speaker 1: astronaut can pick up any other skill, right, Yeah. We
Speaker 1: decided when we were in elementary school collectively that the
Speaker 1: best job as astronaut, which means any job less good
Speaker 1: than an astronaut, an astronaut can do like oh yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, even if you're a surgeon, they'll pick
Speaker 1: it up. Being an astronaut is basically being really smart
Speaker 1: but in space. Yeah, so like, yeah, any anything they
Speaker 1: can do, like if they can do it in space, yeah,
Speaker 1: they can handle it here. Yeah, I assume an astronaut
Speaker 1: can do anything, but Mombarcadafi assumes he can't get a
Speaker 1: job at a woodworking shop, which, well, this is the
Speaker 1: future where we were already on the moon and stuff,
Speaker 1: and this is like, this is like the Ridley Scott astronauts.
Speaker 1: These are like the space truckers. That's why I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure he's imagining. He just watched Aliens and the right there.
Speaker 1: It's extremely possible this might be in that cinematic universe.
Speaker 1: Is this Are you saying that that that mo market
Speaker 1: off He's suicide of the astronaut is is in the
Speaker 1: Aliens cannon? It might be. So far, I've seen no
Speaker 1: reason not to say that. All right, let's see where
Speaker 1: it goes. Let's start with paragraph three. Um, So he
Speaker 1: had to leave the city a frustrated failure and set
Speaker 1: off for the countryside, where he looked for work as
Speaker 1: a farm hand in order to support himself and his family.
Speaker 1: One of the farmers asked if he was attracted to
Speaker 1: the Earth by which he simply wanted to know if
Speaker 1: the astronaut liked farming. But the astronaut answered, the attraction
Speaker 1: of the Earth decreases as we go up, and our
Speaker 1: weight also decreases gradually until we get to the point
Speaker 1: of weightlessness. Then and there we get free of the
Speaker 1: Earth's attraction or gravity as we call it. But soon
Speaker 1: afterwards we get attracted by another planet, and our weight
Speaker 1: begins to increase gradually. And so on. I hope I
Speaker 1: have answered your question. Hold on, So the astronaut was
Speaker 1: asked how how how do you like the Earth? He
Speaker 1: thought that he the guy was asking him about how
Speaker 1: weighed down by gravity to the Earth. Would you say
Speaker 1: you are right, which would be an insane interview question.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, that's that's yeah. The farmer showed signs of
Speaker 1: someone who did not comprehend and looked as if he
Speaker 1: wanted more explanation, and the astronaut, hoping to impress the
Speaker 1: simple farmer in order that he would take him on
Speaker 1: as a farm hand, went on parading his space knowledge.
Speaker 1: The volume of the Earth is about twenty times less
Speaker 1: than that of Jupiter's and that twelve years on the
Speaker 1: Earth equal to one year on Jupiter, and that Jupiter
Speaker 1: spot is big enough to hold the Earth in its center.
Speaker 1: You may also be interested to know that saturness seven
Speaker 1: forty four times bigger than the Earth, it is only
Speaker 1: about nine times heavier than the Earth. So we know
Speaker 1: now why this astronaut can't get a job. We figure
Speaker 1: that he's literally talking about as far from farming as
Speaker 1: he can just keeps given space facts. Okay, so I
Speaker 1: think I understand the point of I don't know if
Speaker 1: we want to talk about this. At the end, I
Speaker 1: think I understand what Momar is trying to say. We'll
Speaker 1: let me continue with the astronauts rant. The diameter of
Speaker 1: the Earth is about fifty times bigger than that of
Speaker 1: the Moon's, and its volume is about eighty times bigger
Speaker 1: than that of the Moon's. The pull of the Earth's
Speaker 1: gravity is six times greater than that of the Moon's.
Speaker 1: The Earth is about a hundred and fifty million kilometers
Speaker 1: away from the Sun, whose light takes eight minutes to
Speaker 1: reach the Earth at the speed of three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: kilometers per second. The volume of the Earth is about
Speaker 1: one million, three hundred thousand, eight hundred times smaller than
Speaker 1: that of the Sun's and the mass of the Earth
Speaker 1: is also three eight times smaller than the mass of
Speaker 1: the Sun, whose density is thirty times bigger than that
Speaker 1: of the Earth's. The Earth come third, and distance from
Speaker 1: the Sun. Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun.
Speaker 1: Venus comes next, and then the Earth et cetera. Venus
Speaker 1: is about forty two million kilometers away from the Earth,
Speaker 1: which is about four to tho kilometers away from the Moon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you had a car that ran this is still
Speaker 1: the fucking astronaut explainings to the farmer. If you had
Speaker 1: a car that ran at a hundred kilometers per hour,
Speaker 1: it would take you one hundred and forty six days
Speaker 1: to get to the moon. But if you had no
Speaker 1: car and decided to walk to the moon, it would
Speaker 1: take you eight years and a hundred days to get there.
Speaker 1: I think I have answered the question fully now, as
Speaker 1: you see, I am well informed in matters concerning the Earth.
Speaker 1: As soon as he had heard this last repetition of
Speaker 1: the word earth, the farmer became aware of himself and
Speaker 1: closed his mouth, which had been wide open during the
Speaker 1: whole story of the astronaut's journey from one planet to another.
Speaker 1: From the time he left Earth until he returned home.
Speaker 1: The farmer did not comprehend much, but he too felt
Speaker 1: dizzy because he fell under the spell and felt that
Speaker 1: he was also coming home from a space journey with
Speaker 1: no tangible gains concerning his farm. What matter to him
Speaker 1: was the stance between one tree and the other, and
Speaker 1: not the distance between the Earth and Jupiter. He was
Speaker 1: also interested in the volume of the yield of his farm,
Speaker 1: and not in the volume of mercury. He felt very
Speaker 1: sorry for the begging, pathetic astronaut and had the desire
Speaker 1: to give him some alms, but he was unable to
Speaker 1: take him on as a farm hand, and so, having
Speaker 1: lost all hope of finding any breadwinning job on Earth,
Speaker 1: the astronaut decided to commit suicide. That's the story. That's
Speaker 1: the end. That's the end. No, we don't even learn
Speaker 1: like how we carry that out. So he's writing this
Speaker 1: like a fable basically. Yeah, I think that was the goal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh my god. He should have written movies. He should
Speaker 1: have written movies. He probably could have gotten something made. No,
Speaker 1: I would watch a ninety minute adaptation of suicideh the Astronaut.
Speaker 1: If there are producers listening to this show. I will
Speaker 1: make sure that script gets written. Probably we can we
Speaker 1: can do this. Um, so he's trying to say. I
Speaker 1: mean it's pretty it's pretty clear what he's trying to say, right,
Speaker 1: I think so. I I think the point this feels
Speaker 1: it felt obvious, but maybe it's not. It's that he's
Speaker 1: basically like I think about people like Elon Musk, who
Speaker 1: is like, we're going to space and that we're sitting here, like, hey,
Speaker 1: we need like clean water and affordable they drink. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's what he's saying, is the end of that,
Speaker 1: like we go to space and we we want to
Speaker 1: acquire this sort of knowledge, but it's useless to the
Speaker 1: practicalities of actually living and like farming, and like the
Speaker 1: idea that an astronauts job is essentially useless once we
Speaker 1: learned that there's nothing out there for us, that the
Speaker 1: Earth is the thing, is the thing we should be
Speaker 1: taken care of and working on, and and the most
Speaker 1: useful skills are it's down to just growing food. I
Speaker 1: think that's what he's trying to say. I in a
Speaker 1: really dumb story, in a really dumb story, and like
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get on a rant about space
Speaker 1: programs here. I'm one of those people who thinks that
Speaker 1: we're going to get killed by a rock if we
Speaker 1: don't get better at space. I think it's good to
Speaker 1: explore space, absolutely. I just think that um our expenditures
Speaker 1: on the space program are not why America does not
Speaker 1: have good social programs. Like if someone with the charism
Speaker 1: of Kennedy could start a program that's just like everybody
Speaker 1: gets water. Yeah, like we want to be star Trek.
Speaker 1: But like Star Trek started with her, they were like,
Speaker 1: let's figure this ship out, let's make sure no one's starving. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then maybe we can start going into space and
Speaker 1: figuring that out. Which, yeah, that's a reasonable message. Kadafi's
Speaker 1: is insane. Yeah, I mean sorry that technically Star Trek
Speaker 1: started because it was a Third World War, and then
Speaker 1: Cochrane invented the warp drive and Vulcan sad, we'll be
Speaker 1: doing a whole episode on zeph from cock okay for
Speaker 1: uh yeah, so that's the suicide of the astronaut. Good god, Yeah,
Speaker 1: life anging right, wonderful. So by the late nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: it was clear to mo markt Dafi that Libby's only
Speaker 1: option was to make nice with the West and convinced
Speaker 1: them to lift sanctions. This started in nineteen nine when
Speaker 1: Kaddafi finally handed the Lockerbie bombing that was the plane
Speaker 1: that got blown up until two seventy people. Uh he
Speaker 1: handed the suspects in that bombing over to be tried
Speaker 1: under Scottish law in a neutral international court. UM. This
Speaker 1: was a start, but it took three years for things
Speaker 1: to really ramp up, and it wasn't until the nine
Speaker 1: eleven terror attacks that Colonel Kadafi got his big break.
Speaker 1: So September eleventh, two thousand and one, was the best
Speaker 1: day ever for three groups. Sam Been Laden and al Qaeda,
Speaker 1: all of the Whales in the world, and mo Mark Dafi.
Speaker 1: Despite being an observant Muslim himself, Kadafi had been fighting
Speaker 1: Islamist terrorists and trying to warn the world about them
Speaker 1: for years. Uh So when nine eleven happened, he publicly
Speaker 1: condemned it, and he told the world like, this is
Speaker 1: what I've been warning you about for a long time.
Speaker 1: I'm against those guys too. He arranged a blood drive
Speaker 1: to help victims of nine eleven. He declared the US
Speaker 1: invasion of Afghanistan and active self defense UM and at
Speaker 1: this point, the Bush administration was eager for a foreign
Speaker 1: policy win, so you know, they decided to start talking
Speaker 1: with Kadafi about opening Libya back up to the world
Speaker 1: and dropping the sanctions. This wound up leading to in
Speaker 1: two thousand three, Libya renouncing its plans to build nuclear weapons. UM.
Speaker 1: Western corporations, particularly oil and gas companies, were hugely excited
Speaker 1: for the possibilities that Libya represented because there's a shipload
Speaker 1: of oil inside Libya. UM and in general, it seemed
Speaker 1: to be a major coup for the Bush administration. Um
Speaker 1: it later came back to bite them in the ass. Uh.
Speaker 1: It seemed like it seemed like it vindicated their policy,
Speaker 1: Like because we fucked with Saddam Hussein and you know,
Speaker 1: murdered him. Uh, then that's why Kadafi gave up his nukes.
Speaker 1: So clearly, fucking with one dictator might make the others better.
Speaker 1: But of course, then America and the other Western countries
Speaker 1: intervened to get Kadafi killed in two thousand eleven, which
Speaker 1: provided a very good reason for North Korea and Iran
Speaker 1: to not give up their nuclear weapons programs. So that said,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to condemn anybody who tries to stop
Speaker 1: a country from getting nukes because we got enough of those, uh,
Speaker 1: and that that did work in the short term. Did
Speaker 1: you say all the whales whales love nine eleven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a well documented it's another ocean thing. This is
Speaker 1: another reason to stay away from the ocean. Well, the
Speaker 1: actual reason that you can read up on this. I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not just making a joke. Uh. Scientists who
Speaker 1: listen to whales you can tell the stress levels and
Speaker 1: the whales based on the kind of songs that they sing.
Speaker 1: And they noticed that in the weeks after nine eleven
Speaker 1: their stress levels plummeted to the fact where they weren't
Speaker 1: stressed at at all. They were super happy. They're all like,
Speaker 1: we did it funk nine eleven. Yeah No. And it
Speaker 1: turned out that what it is is that the the
Speaker 1: like sonar and whatever equipment on planes that that that
Speaker 1: it uses to communicate with air traffic, like that stuff,
Speaker 1: whales can hear it. And it's like whales always have
Speaker 1: a headache because there's always planes everywhere. We are the
Speaker 1: noisy upstairs, And for like a week or so after
Speaker 1: nine eleven, there was no more noise. So nine eleven
Speaker 1: was the best thing ever for whales. Yeah, and Kadafi. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is really an anti ocean podcast, which I had
Speaker 1: not intended when I started writing it. Yeah. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure over time it will gradually shift to being mostly that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the ocean is a bastard. Yeah. Um, So we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the rest of momarkt Daffi's Western rehabilitation
Speaker 1: of his image tour and his trip to speak to
Speaker 1: the United Nations in New York City. Kadafi in New
Speaker 1: York City, it's like a fucking crocodile dundee, but with
Speaker 1: the market office straight. Yes. Uh so we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to that. But first products, and we're back from products.
Speaker 1: Let's continue talking about mom market Daffi. So we left
Speaker 1: off he just sort of agreed to give up his
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. Eleven had brought him closer to the United States,
Speaker 1: and this whole Western rehab tour culminated in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine with a trip to New York City to
Speaker 1: speak in front of the United Nations. Now, this was
Speaker 1: not as simple as it might sound. True to his
Speaker 1: Bedoin roots, Kadafi brought an enormous tent with him wherever
Speaker 1: he traveled. His initial plan was to arrent it in
Speaker 1: New Jersey on a piece of land owned by the
Speaker 1: Libyan embassy, but the State Department said, no, you can't
Speaker 1: put up a giant tent. There's a ton of people
Speaker 1: with guns in America and they might just shoot you.
Speaker 1: Like it was one of those like there's way too many.
Speaker 1: I can see that request coming in. Then being like
Speaker 1: he wants to what a tent? Oh god, no, does
Speaker 1: he not know everyone has a rifle and there's angry
Speaker 1: people about. Yeah. So he tried next to find a
Speaker 1: large enough plot of open land in New York City
Speaker 1: for the tent, but everyone he asked turned him down
Speaker 1: because he's a violent dictator. Finally, Momar Kadafi was able
Speaker 1: to find one friend in America who would rent him
Speaker 1: some land. Donald J. Trump, Mr. Trump rented him a
Speaker 1: large plot of land in Westchester County. Here is how
Speaker 1: a two thousand and nine Guardian article described the erection
Speaker 1: of the tent. Workers were seen yesterday erecting a tent
Speaker 1: and satellites in the glamorous neighborhood of Bedford on an
Speaker 1: estate owned by Trump. Local officials tried to stop them,
Speaker 1: saying it was illegal to build a temporary residence without
Speaker 1: a permit. An ABC News helicopter filmed a large tent
Speaker 1: on the hundred and thirteen acre Seven Springs estate with
Speaker 1: rugs and patterned wall hangings. Green and yellow fabric lined
Speaker 1: the walls in a pattern dotted with images of small
Speaker 1: brown camels, according to a local newspaper website image. Last night,
Speaker 1: a State Department official told AP the tent might be
Speaker 1: used for entertaining by Kadafi, but he would not be
Speaker 1: sleeping there. And here is a picture of Momar Kadafi's tent. Okay, why,
Speaker 1: oh my god, why didn't this come up during the election?
Speaker 1: Oh it did, David. It seems like if someone's running
Speaker 1: for president and someone's running against him, and that person
Speaker 1: running against him says he let Momar Kadafi camp in
Speaker 1: his backyard. I feel like that's enough. Right, How did
Speaker 1: we get here? That is too big a question for
Speaker 1: this podcast. It's just, oh my god. Yeah, what a tent? Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good it's a pretty good tent. Barbecue
Speaker 1: website like, there's nothing in it though, I don't think
Speaker 1: they'd finished setting it up yet. Okay, it looks like
Speaker 1: it would be a good place for like a wedding
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, I'm legitimately jealous of the tent. Nobody's
Speaker 1: going to claim that moll Mar Kadafi did not have
Speaker 1: good taste intense. So the town was furious about this
Speaker 1: and banned Kadafi from putting up his tent. The whole
Speaker 1: incident caused an outcry that forced the Trump organization to respond.
Speaker 1: They said that the land was quote least on a
Speaker 1: short term basis to Middle Eastern partners who may or
Speaker 1: may not have a relationship to Mr Kaddafi. We are
Speaker 1: looking into the matter. Mr Kadafi never got to stay
Speaker 1: in the tent. In two thousand sixteen, then candidate Trump
Speaker 1: bragged about the whole affair. Don't forget I'm the only
Speaker 1: one I made a lot of money with Kaddafi if
Speaker 1: you remember which a lot of people made money. How
Speaker 1: did how did I think? He was a big fan
Speaker 1: of Death of the Astronaut, So he's probably just kind
Speaker 1: of psyched to have his favorite author in town. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the colonel did get to give his speech at
Speaker 1: the United Nations, and my god, what a speech it was.
Speaker 1: He was scheduled to speak for fifteen minutes, He spoke
Speaker 1: for more than ninety and now we're gonna hear the
Speaker 1: whole speech right now, but we're gonna get into the
Speaker 1: cliffs notes. Uh. He had himself announced as quote, Leader
Speaker 1: of the Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiria,
Speaker 1: President of the African Union and King of African Kings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a hell of a title. It wasn't until seventeen
Speaker 1: minutes into the fifteen minute speech that he hit on
Speaker 1: his main point, urging that Africa be given a seat
Speaker 1: on the Security Council, which is not an unreasonable demand.
Speaker 1: He also complained that permanent seats on the Security Council
Speaker 1: were unfair and undemocratic, which is also reasonable. Then he
Speaker 1: demanded the un be relocated to Libya, which is a
Speaker 1: little bit less reasonable. Again, he's the problem. He's always
Speaker 1: the problem. After that, Kadafi went sort of off the
Speaker 1: rails with a list of rapid fire demands that were
Speaker 1: half reasonable, half bug fuck nuts. He demanded thorough investigations
Speaker 1: into the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. And JFK.
Speaker 1: So that had just been bugging him for a while's
Speaker 1: been bugging him forever. He just wanted to know. He
Speaker 1: proposed Israel and Palestine be merged into a single state
Speaker 1: called ezra Stein. Okay, so what's happening here? Um, what's happening?
Speaker 1: You ever see the in the scene in the movie
Speaker 1: Army Gatting when they have the demands. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that it's the first time he's gotten like this
Speaker 1: much of an audience. So he's like fifteen minutes now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go for ninety and I'm gonna say yeah.
Speaker 1: He's like, it's like being Yeah, it's like a phil
Speaker 1: student in a like stuck in an elevator with Spielberg,
Speaker 1: Like he's just gonna throw every pitch he's got out.
Speaker 1: I love it. It starts with like, yeah, Israel and
Speaker 1: Palestine should be one country, which a lot of people
Speaker 1: would be like, oh yeah, wouldn't that be nice if
Speaker 1: that word is ra Stein. That's not what anyone would
Speaker 1: call it. Oh my god. He supported the Taliban's call
Speaker 1: to establish an Islamic state. He demanded war crimes trials
Speaker 1: for the invasion of Iraq. He demanded seven points seven
Speaker 1: trillion dollars in reparations for Africa, which honestly seems kind
Speaker 1: of low ball in it um, and he insinuated that
Speaker 1: swine flew was a biological weapon. Insinuate just threw that in.
Speaker 1: He just dropped that in there. It was a whirlwind,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to say right now, probably the greatest
Speaker 1: speech the UN has ever seen. The whole event earned
Speaker 1: Colonel Kadafi a spread and vanity fair titled Colonel Kaddafi
Speaker 1: a Life in Fashion. I'm just going to read you
Speaker 1: their fucking introductory paragraph. Since completing his transition from international
Speaker 1: parietist statesman, Colonel Momarca Daffi, the longest serving leader in
Speaker 1: both Africa and the Arab world, has brought color in
Speaker 1: his own is centric panash to the drab circuit of
Speaker 1: international summits and conferences. Drawing upon the influences of Lacroix, Libaracci,
Speaker 1: Phil Specter for Hair Snoopy and Idioman, Libya's leader, now
Speaker 1: in his sixties, is simply the most unabashed dresser on
Speaker 1: the world stage. We play homage to a sartorial genius
Speaker 1: of our time. I'm going to show you a picture
Speaker 1: of him standing next to President Barack Obama, and Barack
Speaker 1: Obama is not fucking having it. And it's amazing. This
Speaker 1: will be up on the website. Oh my god, you
Speaker 1: owe it to yourself to see it. How would you
Speaker 1: describe his outfit, David, Oh, he's like a star for
Speaker 1: Callier or something. He's like a T and Star trek
Speaker 1: where they had thirty minutes to pick it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like sequence and color. You never want your fashion
Speaker 1: to be described as snoopy and idiom. And Barack Obama's
Speaker 1: body language in this is amazing. He's just like, I
Speaker 1: got to get away from this guy as soon as possible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's weird to see a picture of a president rethinking
Speaker 1: their career. Yeah, yeah, but this is the moment, of course.
Speaker 1: Not long after Kadafi's visit to New York City in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven came the Arab Spring. This brought about
Speaker 1: a revolt against Kadafi. The revolts started in the eastern
Speaker 1: city of Benghazi because of the arrest of of an
Speaker 1: activist who was organizing a protest march. Basically, the revolts
Speaker 1: spread quickly throughout the country as Kadafi's forces arrested and
Speaker 1: murdered dissidents. The whole time, Kadafi seemed to baffle at
Speaker 1: what was happening. After all, Olivia was quote the state
Speaker 1: of the masses. It was the people's state, and the
Speaker 1: people couldn't rise up against themselves. He wasn't in charge,
Speaker 1: of course, what were they doing. Unfortunately for Kadafi, NATO
Speaker 1: sided with the rebels and created a no fly zone
Speaker 1: that grounded the Libyan air force. You know, Kadafi was
Speaker 1: kind of winning up until that point. His hard courted
Speaker 1: Western friends abandoned him, so his Western charm tour came
Speaker 1: to nothing. The African nations he'd supported also all abandoned him,
Speaker 1: as did his fellow Arab leaders. NATO moved on from
Speaker 1: a no fly zone to launching air attacks against the
Speaker 1: Libyan army and sending an adviser to train the rebels.
Speaker 1: After a very bloody year of fighting, the capital of
Speaker 1: Tripoli was taken. Colonel Kadafi went on the run, but
Speaker 1: his convoy was blown apart by NATO jets on a
Speaker 1: highway outside of his old hometown. Kadafi was found by
Speaker 1: the rebels, wounded and hiding in a sewage pipe. He
Speaker 1: was shot dead on October two thousand eleven. His corpse
Speaker 1: was displayed inside a freezer for several days. Yeah this
Speaker 1: is Cadafi style. Yeah, you you live by hiding your
Speaker 1: dead enemies in a fridge, and you die by having
Speaker 1: your enemies put you in a fridge. Wow. So nothing
Speaker 1: in particular sparked this, um. I know, the Arab spring
Speaker 1: originated in Tunisia with the overthrow of the guy who
Speaker 1: was in charge of Tunisia at the time, who I
Speaker 1: think was a friend of Kadafi's, and that sort of
Speaker 1: started the domino effect that you know, convinced people in
Speaker 1: Libya it was time to start agitating for change. And
Speaker 1: it was possible when it started he could have launched
Speaker 1: real reforms because there's a long history that we got
Speaker 1: into some of them. This of Kadafi is saying there's
Speaker 1: going to be reforms and then nothing happened. It seemed
Speaker 1: like it was time though. Yeah. It was like the
Speaker 1: drunk guy at a party where it's like at a
Speaker 1: certain point, everybody's like, okay, you gotta go. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: he had said, like, hey, you know what, I built
Speaker 1: that giant underwater river and now I'm going to step
Speaker 1: down and try to forget all the people I had
Speaker 1: killed and just remember the river, that might have worked. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, he did enough good. He could have hid
Speaker 1: behind it. Yeah, but he did so much bad stuff too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that his repression of the rebellion was very brutal.
Speaker 1: A lot of people locked up, a lot of people executed,
Speaker 1: huge numbers of people killed and bombed. Um. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: by the time the rebels got to his comp hound,
Speaker 1: there was no chance they weren't just going to shoot
Speaker 1: that guy straight off. This podcast is not the place
Speaker 1: to get into whether or not NATO intervention in Libya
Speaker 1: was a good idea. Uh. It hasn't been a clean thing, obviously, UM.
Speaker 1: But I do want to point out some numbers, one
Speaker 1: of which is that the two thousand eleven civil war
Speaker 1: against that dethroned Kadafi, there was an estimated twenty thod
Speaker 1: people dead from that. Uh. There was another civil war
Speaker 1: that started in two thousand fourteen, and the estimate for
Speaker 1: that is about ten thousand deaths. We're looking at thirty
Speaker 1: maybe forty thousand people dead as a result of the conflicts. UH,
Speaker 1: and those deaths probably, I mean, it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those things. If NATO hadn't stepped in, it's possible Kadafi
Speaker 1: would have just stopped the rebellion cold in its tracks. UH,
Speaker 1: and there wouldn't have been that many deaths, but it's
Speaker 1: also possible that it would have wound up like Syria,
Speaker 1: where more than half of a million people have died
Speaker 1: because there was no no fly stone established. So it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to say whether or not Libya is better
Speaker 1: or worse off as a result of the intervention, but
Speaker 1: they do now have a sort of functioning to mock Grissy,
Speaker 1: and Kadafi is out of power. Um, it has not
Speaker 1: been a smooth transition to democracy because again, when Kadafi
Speaker 1: left power, there were no political parties, there was no
Speaker 1: no one who knew how to run anything in the
Speaker 1: country because the people who were in charge when Kaddafi
Speaker 1: died were people who had been his friends when he
Speaker 1: was a teenager, that had been running things the whole time.
Speaker 1: None of the younger people really knew how to do anything.
Speaker 1: So like it has been a messy road. They're doing
Speaker 1: their best. He didn't set them up for success, which
Speaker 1: part of his point, because it does seem like he
Speaker 1: had to go. But that's yeah, it's a tough thing
Speaker 1: to to figure out. Then, Yeah, it's not as when
Speaker 1: people say it was a mistake to intervene, it's not
Speaker 1: something that you can say that easily. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say it was the right thing to do either,
Speaker 1: but it's a complicated morally. It's that Yeah, because again,
Speaker 1: anybody who has should get involved, we should something should
Speaker 1: be done. Yeah, And he was, you know, a very
Speaker 1: repressive leader. He executed a lot of people, um, which
Speaker 1: we talked about in this sometimes and made a lot
Speaker 1: of people watch and televised a lot of executions, um,
Speaker 1: and they were pretty brutal. He would have a lot
Speaker 1: of people hung on television. So he was he was
Speaker 1: a bad dude and probably would have killed a substantial
Speaker 1: number of people if he'd succeeded in stomping down the revolution,
Speaker 1: because he did when there was that Islamist rebellion against him,
Speaker 1: he killed like people in one massacre. So like, you know,
Speaker 1: if he had had his way with the revolutionaries, there
Speaker 1: could have been more than thirty thousand dead. It's hard,
Speaker 1: it's hard to weigh that, like how many deaths versus
Speaker 1: how many and this alternate didn't get involved, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a bleak question. And he's a hard guide away
Speaker 1: because presumably in a hundred years, we don't know what
Speaker 1: Libby is going to be like, but hopefully they'll still
Speaker 1: have that giant fucking underground river he built, so who knows? Yeah,
Speaker 1: at you of the fist they do. It's in a
Speaker 1: war museum in the city of I think miss Ratta.
Speaker 1: They took it as like a trophy for like cameer
Speaker 1: that time we overthrew the dictator. Here's a statue, right,
Speaker 1: I mean the river is cool, but that fist, that
Speaker 1: fist statue, it's like a like a Banksy sculpture. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It is great. Um. Well, that is all the time
Speaker 1: we have for Momakadafi today, Dave, thank you for joining
Speaker 1: me in this epic tale of whatever the hell we
Speaker 1: call MoMA. Thank you for having me. This is a blast.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, Colonel Bell, you want to plug the
Speaker 1: things that you have to plug? Yeah, I'll plug things. Um.
Speaker 1: You can find me on the Twitter at a movie
Speaker 1: who look in uh where I tweet stuff. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: also co run a podcasting and a Twitch network called
Speaker 1: game Fully Unemployed g am E f U l O
Speaker 1: Y it's a I guess a pun. Yeah. We have
Speaker 1: a Patreon, Patreon, dot com slash game fully Unemployed check
Speaker 1: us out. Um. Yeah, and you can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at I write okay, which is just two letters.
Speaker 1: You can find our podcasts, Twitter, and other social media
Speaker 1: stuff at at Bastards pod. You can find us on
Speaker 1: the internet at behind the Bastards dot com, which is
Speaker 1: where the pictures and sources for this particular episode will
Speaker 1: be uh. You can also find my book on Amazon,
Speaker 1: A Brief History of Vice. David himself appears in it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go into too much detail, but
Speaker 1: there's a hospital visits and a milkshake and a milkshake
Speaker 1: so if you want to see how those things are
Speaker 1: connected by my book, A Brief History of Vice. Um.
Speaker 1: Other than that, I got nothing. Next week we'll be
Speaker 1: back with another bastard or potentially several bastards to talk about,
Speaker 1: so please join us next Tuesday and every Tuesday from
Speaker 1: now until the end of time. I love like you.
Speaker 1: Statistically