Make Love, Not War . . .

Muammar al Gaddafi

(Image from Wikipedia)

Wednesday's hard copy of the Korea Herald relayed a Reuters story out of Benghazi, Libya titled "West wants humanitarian aid, military to end Libya conflict" (April 20, 2011), a rather ambiguous-sounding title, and no wonder, for the article went on to offer the following, rather bleak assessment:

NATO bombing has damaged Gadhafi's amour but not enough to break the stalemate . . . (page 14B)

An online news sources had actually made much the same point nearly a month earlier:

Western warplanes hit Libya for a fifth night on Thursday, but have so far failed to stop Muammar Gaddafi . . . or dislodge his amour from a strategic junction in the east. (Maria Golovnina and Michael Georgy, "Western air strikes fail to dislodge Gaddafi amour," Reuters, March 23, 2011)

The attacks on continued, though even Western generals had grown pessimistic by three weeks later:

Western generals are increasingly pessimistic that the military stalemate can be broken despite NATO air attacks on Gaddafi's amour. (Maria Golovnina, "Libya rebels repel attack on Misrata, Gaddafi appears," Reuters, April 9, 2011)

At that time, however, NATO simply increased its attacks:

NATO stepped up attacks on Gaddafi's amour over the weekend . . . (Michael Georgy, "Libyan rebels reject African Union peace plan," Reuters, April 11, 2011)

And as we know from the offline Reuters article cited from the Korea Herald above, which I suspect was the reporting of Maria Golovnina or Michael Georgy (or both), the attacks on Gadhafi's amour have continued, albeit without much success. His amour would appear to be very powerful.

Well, I'd always heard that the man had charisma, and he's always claimed that the Libyan people love him, but I wonder if this more recently reported amour might not be referring to Gadhafi's amour-propre, for his self-esteem is -- by all accounts -- entirely impervious, a consequence of his extreme narcissism, and if so, then no amount of bombing can damage "Gadhafi's amour"!

Perhaps we should try appealing to the Colonel's inexhaustible vanity . . .