Gaddafi now acting like a mad dog cornered

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is no longer in denial that many Libyan people hate him. It must have dawn on him already for even the Arab League has turned against him.

Grim reality finally stunned Gaddafi when British, French and US forces, with the pleadings of the Arab countries, launched strikes from the air and sea against Gaddafi’s forces under a UN Security Council resolution to impose a no-fly zone hoping that a ceasefire may ensue after a month-long skirmishes between loyalists and rebels.

Like a mad dog cornered, Libya’s strongman vowed to retaliate with military and civilian targets in the Mediterranean, warning that the interests of Mediterranean and North African countries were now ‘‘in danger.’’

The more that this despot should be forcefully removed and silenced for he is not only a menace to his own people, but also becoming dangerous and harmful to neighboring countries that has got nothing to do with his problems.

By condemning the allied Western attacks on his country as “barbaric, unjustified Crusaders’ aggression,” Gaddafi vented his ire by continuing his assault on cities like Benghazi and Misrata where innocent men and women face brutality and death from the might of his air and land armaments and his heavy-handed loyalists.

In defiance, Gaddafi has also ordered arms depots to be opened up so that the loyalists could take arms and defend themselves and their infamous Brother Leader, as Gaddafi is called.

Hopefully, Operation Odyssey Dawn will be short lived and successful and will see the end of Gaddafi’s regime, to prevent the number of casualties and refugees from increasing,

The questions now foremost in the minds of people watching events unfold in Libya are: Will this UN-sanctioned military action in Libya create a better political, economic and social order in the country? Will military intervention result to a better understand and cooperation between Libya and the Western world and Libya vis-à-vis the Arab League? Can the next Libyan leader be trusted?

We can only pray that Libya will not go the way Iraq and Afghanistan has gone, suffering from a protracted war.

Indeed, restoring peace and stability, freedom and democracy in a nation has never been an easy task.

Just ask the Western powers.