What Qaddafi Said

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Video

Muammar al-Qaddafi's 2009 Interview with CFR President Richard N. Haass

Muammar al-Qaddafi on why Libya decided to give up its chemical and biological weapons program, his perspective on terrorism, and how he would respond if Iran develops a nuclear weapon.

February 22, 2011

Muammar Qaddafi has no official post so that he can pout and resign from it, like other presidents did. Muammar Qaddafi is not a president. He is a revolutionary leader. Revolution means perpetual sacrifice until death.

This is my country, the country of my forefathers and of your forefathers. We planted it and watered it with the blood of our forefathers. We are more worth of Libya than those rats and hirelings. Who are those hirelings, paid for by foreign intelligence services?! God damn them! They brought shame to their children, their families and their tribes, that is if they have children, families and tribes.

But they don't have tribes, for Libyan tribes are honorable, fighter and combatant tribes, and they are rallying around me during this month.

All the tribes ... They are all shouting the same thing. They are all confronting. We have confronted America -- with its might and power. We challenged the the great nuclear states of the world and we came out victorious. They bowed their heads here. Italy kissed the hand of the son of the martyr, the sheikh of all martyrs, Omar al-Mukhtar. This is a glory beyond all glories. Not just for Mnifa [Mukhtar's tribe] ... but for all Libyans, Arabs and Muslims.

This is the victory they want to tarnish.

Italy, the empire at the time, was smashed on Libyan soil along with its hordes.

I am greater than the positions held by presidents and notables. I am a fighter. A mujahid. A combatant. A revolutionary from the tent. From the desert. All cities, villages and oases united with me in a historic revolution that brought glories to the Libyans, that they will enjoy for generation after generation. Libya will remain at the top, leading Africa and Latin America and Asia; indeed, the whole world.

This handful of alien hirelings cannot stop this triumphant course -- these cats and mice that jump from street to street, alley to alley, in the dark.

I have paid the price of staying here. My grandfather, Abdul Salam Buminyar, was the first martyr to fall in al-Khums during the first battle in 1911. I cannot betray this great sacrifice. I cannot leave my grandfather's pure remains in al-Marqab. In the end, I will die pure as a martyr. The remains of my father are in al-Hani. He was mujahid, a hero among the heroes of al-Qardabiya and Tala. And my uncle, Sheikh al-Saadi, lies in the cemetery of Mnaydar. I will not leave these pure remains; these are mujahids. Bashir al-Saadawi said, "Freedom is a tree in whose shade no one can sit except the one who planted it with his hands and watered it with his blood." Libya is a tree in whose shade we sit, for it is we who planted it with our hands and watered it with our blood.

I am addressing you from this steadfast place. This house in Tripoli which was raided by 170 planes led by the great nuclear states, America and Britain and NATO. 40 Boeing planes were assisting in refueling the campaign. They bypassed all the palaces and all the houses -- all your houses, they left your houses behind -- looking for the house of Muammar Qaddafi. Why? Because he is president of the republic? If he were a president, they would have treated him like they have treat other heads of state. But Muammar Qaddafi is history, resistance, liberation, glory and revolution. This is recognition from the greatest power in the world, that Muammar Qaddafi is not a president, or an average person we either kill with poison or start a protest against to topple him.

When bombs were falling here in this place, pounding my house and killing my children, where were you, you alien riffraff? Where were you, you who sport beards? ... Where were you? You were with America, applauding your American masters, while Muammar Qaddafi and his family were in this place being bombed.

170 planes bypassed kings, presidents, bypassed the palaces of all the Arab world and came to Muammar Qaddafi's tent and house. This is glory that should not be squandered by Libya or the Libyan people, or the Arab nation, or the Islamic nation, of Africa or Latin America, or all people who desire freedom and human dignity and who resist tyrannical might.

We resisted the tyrannical might of America, Britain and the nuclear states. We resisted the tyrannical might of NATO. We did not surrender. We remained steadfast right here.

Now, a small group of young men, who were given pills, are raiding police stations here and there like rats. They raided barracks. They used relative safety and security that Libya had enjoyed, and they raid unwary barracks, because we are not in a state of wars for us to tighten security on our warehouses and forts. ... They raided some forts and stations and burned the files which contained their criminal records, and attacked the courts that held their files and the police stations where their interrogation records where kept.

But these young men bear no fault. They are young -- sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old. They sometimes mimic what is happening in Tunisia and Egypt. This is normal. Sometimes they hear that in some city in Libya, a group of young men attacked a courthouse and they say: "Let us go and attack the courthouse in our city." It's mimicry. They say, "they got hold of weapons. Why don't we get hold of weapons?"

However, there is a small sick group, implanted in the cities, and is giving out pills, and sometimes money, to these young men, and thrusting them into these side battles.

Those who were killed were members of the police and armed forces as well as these young men, but not those who were manipulating them. Those are in their houses or abroad, enjoying safety, comfort and leisure with their children, while manipulating your children and giving them pills, telling them: "go, get weapons. Raid, burn, you heroes!" So that your children die and we start fighting each other.

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