Gaddafi Foretold End of Arab Dictators?

[Formaldehyde]

Qaddafi Warns Chuckling Arab Leaders in 2008 That Their End Is Near

As Muammar Qaddafi's regime buckles under the weight of a combined NATO and rebel assault, social networking sites are awash with scenes and memories from the Libyan leader's four-decade rule. Earlier this week, for example, a photo of Qaddafi, embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and ousted Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali grinning at a summit in Libya darted around Facebook and Twitter.

Today, Adel Abdel Ghafar, a graduate student in Australia, surfaced one more gem: a video of Qaddafi warning Arab leaders at a 2008 summit in Syria that they might soon suffer the same fate as Iraq's Saddam Hussein and be overthrown by foreign powers. "A foreign force occupies an Arab country and hangs its leader while we are looking and laughing," he declares, according to the video's English translation. "In the future it is going to be your turn too," he adds, to laughter from the audience. An Al Jazeera report at the time noted that some of the Arab officials "looked stunned" by Qaddafi's words "while others broke into laughter at his frankness." The clip below shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (who's currently facing international censure for suppressing his own uprising) giggling, though an apparent edit to the video makes it hard to say with certainty that he's laughing at Qaddafi's warning.

Qaddafi, who had been repairing his broken relationship with the U.S. since 2003 by renouncing his weapons of mass destruction program and partnering with the U.S. on counterterrorism operations, also cautioned that America's friendship could not be trusted. "Even you, the friends of America, no, I will say we, we, the friends of America, America may approve of our hanging one day," he said, in a declaration that seems particularly relevant today as the U.S. demands that Qaddafi cede power to the rebels. Qaddafi's comment about the vulnerability of Arab leaders takes place around 1:37 in the video below, and his line about America around 2:35.

Link to video.

I don't think Gaddafi comes across as being any sort of nut in this video. He seems to be a very powerful and eloquent speaker. But I do find it ironic how many Arab leaders who have been recently deposed, or are facing being deposed, laughed at his comments.

But what do you think? Was he merely stating the obvious? Was he a ranting lunatic? Or were his words incredibly prophetic given what has occurred since then?

 

[Perfection]

Uh, he didn't foretell that it would be the Arab people who deposed them.

 

[Formaldehyde]

They likely wouldn't have without the aid of US and Europe.

 

[Tee Kay]

The Libyan Rebellion could've fizzled out/crushed (a la Syria, Bahrain, Iran) without NATO intervention.

Edit: crosspost

 

[Bugfatty300]

Somewhat prophetic but he was clearly talking about US invasions and regime changes ala Iraq and Afghanistan which the Arab Spring was not.

 

[Tee Kay]

Edit; never mind

 

[Perfection]

They likely wouldn't have without the aid of US and Europe.

I dunno, I don't see how Europe and the US were instrumental in the US and Europe.

 

[Artifis]

Self-fulfilling prophecies FTW.

 

[Perfection]

Self-fulfilling prophecies FTW.

How is that self-fulfilling?

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

Well being a head of state for about 40 years or so does tell you something. Mad experience and a sense of history of his region and the Middle East.

 

[Perfection]

Or maybe if you drone on forever you'll eventually get something right by pure luck.

(not saying he was right though)

 

[Artifis]

How is that self-fulfilling?

He was warning them, and it came to him.

Perhaps it's not so much self-fulfilling as it is hugely and cosmically-amusingly ironic.

 

[Perfection]

I don't see how it's ironic for so someone to say something is going after him and people like him and then have that happen to him.

 

[Artifis]

Did he really say that? I admittedly didn't watch the whole video so I must've missed that.