Strong on hallucinogenic drugs Gaddafi is going to go like Hitler

“Gaddafi’s time is up. He is going to go like Hitler, he is going to commit suicide,” AFP quoted Mustapha Abdeljalil as telling Stockholm-based Expressen newspaper on Wednesday.

“Gaddafi’s time is up. He is going to go like Hitler, he is going to commit suicide,” AFP quoted Mustapha Abdeljalil as telling Stockholm-based Expressen newspaper on Wednesday.

The leader of Nazi German empire, Adolf Hitler, committed suicide by a gunshot in his bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945.

The former Libyan minister added that he expects Gaddafi to remain in power despite expanding pro-democracy protests against his repressive four-decade rule.

Abdeljalil tendered his resignation on Monday to protest the excessive use of force against Libyan protesters.

Libyan protesters continue to pour into the streets of Tripoli and other major cities while the US and other Western powers monitor the situation.

Iranian Press TV interviews investigative journalist Wayne Madsen regarding the Libyan uprising.

Press TV: Let us get a perspective from Washington. We are joined by Wayne Madesn, who is an investigative journalist. Many thanks for being here with us on Press TV. Before we touch on some of what Muammar Gaddafi said and some assessment of what is going on in Libya.

I do think we should take a moment and assess the developments in terms of the oil sector here. Of course Libya is a key oil supplier especially for Europe and some big American firms are in there doing business with Libya too. We are now hearing that these oil depots and terminals are actually falling out of the control of Muammar Gaddafi. The certainly an international aspect to this isn’t there when it comes to the oil?

Madsen: Absolutely, and we know that the Obama Administration has been criticized for what’s viewed as a very cautious approach to the events in Libya probably because we know with past events such as the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster of British Petroleum that the Obama Administration has very close connections with the oil industry. Obviously they are placing those interests ahead of the human rights disaster that is unfolding right now in Libya.

Press TV: What do you think might happen now? I think you listened to Muammar Gaddafi’s speech and he did touch up on the oil. It seems almost as a threat. If I let the oil go then complete chaos ensues you don’t know what might happen.

Madsen: Well having been in Colonel Gaddafi’s tent in October 2009, which was during the year he was celebrating the 40th anniversary of his revolution. I was part of a US delegation that went over there, and he is a master of these long and rambling speeches. I almost fall asleep during his speech in his tent. Of course

I was afraid to because I was sitting directly across from him in the front row. I noticed he had on both sides of him individuals with automatic weapons. So I was later told part of the former East German security forces that helped train his personal guard. So these are the people who he is relying on in the very end.

Former Eastern Germany security personnel and we know that he has several other paramilitary forces at his disposal. But clearly this was vintage Gaddafi. The last telephone speech he gave to Libyan state television. And there was one the other day where he went on this whole rambling story about Libyan history, and that he is opposed by al-Qaeda and Bin Laden and that they are going to turn Libya into an Islamic Emirate. This is classic Gaddafi.

I would also note that he is blaming these individuals with the opposition as being on hallucinogenic drugs. Now one thing that was made very clear to me by some people who were willing to talk when I was in Libya is that Colonel Gaddafi is a long time user of hashish. So he knows full well about the effects of hallucinogenic drugs.

Press TV: The drugs keep coming up in conversations don’t they? His son as well spent a good percentage of his speech talking about this as well. One point he compared himself to the Queen of England. We know he rambles. Could we at least pick up on a few key themes that he is discussing here and could we somehow figure out or at least try and guess what his next move may be.

When he was describing those similarities to the Queen I guess he was putting himself in the role of King Gaddafi the paternal guide for the country, and not really an authority in himself. At some point he described himself as just a symbolic leader. Do you think any of that has any significance?

Madsen: Yes it does from the advantage point of what he has always said. He claims that the power in Libya belongs to the people, and these people’s committees that exist down at the local level, regional and national level.

He says he is just the leader of the revolution, but the Libyan people are the real masters of their destiny. It’s pure non-sense because one of the first things I noticed when I was in Libya was that his portrait was everywhere.

It was huge portraits on the sides of buildings draped over passes on the highways and in every hotel lobby and in stores. It was everywhere. It reminds me of a classic cult of personality dictatorship, which is one that you obviously would experience in a place like North Korea for example. So this is of course is a tool used; the idea the people rule.

Now he always would have these tent meetings and the audience would stand up and praise Gaddafi. The man loves that kind of attention but it’s clear that all these demonstrations were staged, and these people were obviously rewarded handsomely for praising him in public.

Press TV: I mean in the advantage point from Washington, Muammar Gaddafi is more different than Hosni Mubarak who is a man who has had good ties with the US for 30 years, and with much of the Western world.

This is a good relationship that has only been good for a few years when it comes to Muammar Gaddafi. How does that change the diplomatic equation in terms of being able to put pressure on him?

Madsen: Well I think this is a little bit more unusual in dealing with someone like Ben Ali in Tunisia or Mubarak in Egypt because of his past adversarial relationship. I recall when I was with the US National Security establishment in the 1980s Muammar Gaddafi was public enemy number one. President [Ronald] Regan called him a mad dog.

We bombed Libya for various regions but in the last few years Gaddafi has established himself as an ally against the war against al-Qaeda and his government was participating just as much as the government of Mubarak in the CIA rendition and torture program. Several CIA planes flew into Tripoli dropping people off and picking people up, who were part of that program.

Obviously I think the Obama Administration is as much interested in allowing Gaddafi to hold on long enough so any documents or witnesses to that torture program can be infiltrated from Libya so there is no smoking gun evidence left.

Just as we saw with trying to keep Mubarak in power for enough time to clear the records of the CIA’s program there. I would also note that something very interesting happened last month in Libya. Gaddafi returned the royal property of the old Senussi family. This is the Libyan royal family.

A month ago Gaddafi returned property to the Senussi family, which was the former Libyan royal family he overthrew in a coup. Many people saw that has an attempt by Gaddafi to maybe be thinking about some sort of soft transition or at least who was going to take over after he left.

Now all money was with his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi but his financial ties to Britain and some of the more influential people in Europe may have caused some problems for some people in Libya, who saw Saif as being way too close to the very types of people his father was condemning in that long speech the other day: the British, the Americans, the Imperialists and on and on.

His son has very close connections with some of the wealthiest families in Europe for example. He was a graduate of the London School of Economics and counts as one of his friends Daniel Rothschild of the very influential Rothschild family in Britain.

Another one of his associates his Lord Peter Mandelson. So obviously there were grumblings in Gaddafi’s inner circle about the succession. But I don’t think Gaddafi himself planned to step down.

The fact that he sees himself as the King of all Africans, I really believe if he is now executed or he doesn’t commit suicide that he is likely to ask for asylum in one of the Sub-Saharan African countries that he has lavished with all kinds of assistance. So it would possibly be Zimbabwe, possibly a country like Zambia, and a few others where he has some extent of financial interest.

Meanwhile, Libyan demonstrators have taken control of major oil terminals in the northern port cities of Ras Lanuf and Marsa El Brega as protests gain momentum across the North African country.

Several eastern cities have now fallen in the hands of the protesters. Libyan security forces have reportedly killed some 1,000 people during recent pro-democracy demonstrations against the authoritarian reign of 68-year-old Gaddafi.

Gaddafi’s regime is facing mounting international condemnations over its brutal crackdown on demonstrators as the death toll from Libya’s revolution continues to climb.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on the Libyan ruler to show restraint and immediately stop the violence against demonstrators.

The UN Security Council has also condemned Libya’s deadly crackdown on the pro-democracy protesters.

The African Union on Wednesday strongly condemned the indiscriminate and excessive use of force by Gaddafi’s security forces against mass rallies.

The African body announced that it would send a mission to Libya to investigate the situation there.

About the author

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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