The Unbreakable Leo

Today, Libya’s President Moammar Gadhafi gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Personally I’m always interested in what he has to say. Moammar Gadhafi might be the only leader who not only says what’s on his mind, but also speaks up for those who are afraid to speak for themselves in fear of loosing their economic aid from countries like the United States.

Both CNN and BBC dedicated a large block of their programming to inform the world just what they thought of him. “A terrorist and a madman” said Jim Caferty from CNN. “An odd speech” stated a BBC correspondent. But as many of us know, corporate media outlets never offer a diverse number of opinions. So for all of us who consider ourselves as free thinking citizens of the world, I take up one side of the discussion to offer a rebuttal to all of those who remain blissfully unaware of how world history continues to shape the modern world.

His speech was rather long for my taste, he none the less mentioned some things that people don’t pay attention to in our world of white dominated media. One point that he made which was an excellent point was about the structure of the United Nations. Even Hugo Chavez has made some similar remarks in the past. Gadhafi begin reading from the UN charter preamble stating “Armed force can ONLY be used when it’s a common interest of all nations. Since this was signed, 65 wars have broken out.” As the camera cut to other members of the assembly, mainly European nations, they looked upon with amusement. He continued by stating, “According to the charter, all nations are equal, large and small. But do the smaller nations have the power of the veto?” Honestly he makes an excellent point. The other 180 nations that have signed onto the charter are almost held hostage but the 10 members of the Security Council. These 10 nations are mainly comprised of the most powerful countries on earth either economically or militarily. Fortunately since the creation of the charter, the world has changed to say the least. If things in the world have changed though, should the place that reflects the diversity of the world change as well to accommodate that change. If not, then we are truly living in the past with a unholy superiority complex. “Why is it that all the articles that come after the preamble of the charter contradicts the preamble? This is what we are against,” he said at one point during his speech.

Watching CNN, for some reason I found myself almost in awe by the way they commented on the speech. A few things that he made remarks about seemed to go over the heads of many of the reporters. At one point Gadhafi talked about how he was tired and let-lagged. How most of the countries that were represented are asleep right now and that maybe the UN should move to India or China. Donna Brazile from CNN called him crazy from these statements. Well Ms. Brazile let me break it down for you. Everyone is the world is tired of bowing down to the American Empire. Like it or not we are an Empire that patrols the world, taking what we want and leaving the scraps for the natives. Gadhafi is tired because he had a 15 hour flight from Libya. He wishes to have a more fair and just UN, not some kind of European aligned dictatorship which it has become. Interestingly enough, when Gadhafi and Chavez make comments about how the UN and power of the veto are unfair and undemocratic, the majority of the UN Assembly applauds. This is the most they can do without loosing their funding from the US that keeps their destroyed economies alive. Economies that we helped destroy thanks to globalization.

I must say that one of the biggest applauds given during his speech was when he actually said one bad thing about Obama. Gadhafi made a comment about that fact that Obama gave his speech and walked directly out of the building, like he was Elvis himself. All of the other leaders stick around and listen to everyone else’s speeches. Sorry Barak, but this is also part of the job. That kind of attitude is exactly what the world can’t stand about America.

Many people in the world don’t like Libya and what it stands for. Although in America we seem to not like a lot of things that we know nothing or have very limited information about. From now on it should be a prerequisite that all people applying for jobs with international news outlets should have an intermediate understanding of the world and more then just the watered down history of America they learned in our already malnourished education system. Hugo Chavez and Moammar Gadhafi my not be friends of the American government, but they speak a lot of truth when given a public forum to share their ideals.