Colonel Gaddafi's Coalition of the "Willing" and Dance Party The BBC has a story up now on Tony Blair's meeting with Libyan Leader (and Fez Wearing Icon) Gaddafi today. I swear they look like models for "International Male" or there should be a caption that they got together on "Disco Night". For somebody who came of age (and YES, became a Man [if you know what I mean]) in the Reagan era, the idea of Gaddafi suddenly visiting the UK and being welcomed is, to say the least weird. There was no more feared third-worlder in the western world than Gaddafi, with the possible exception of Khomeni -- whose status really improved when he politely died. Yes, we launched a punitive strike against Libya after a disco bombing in German in 1986 and really taught Gaddafi's tent a thing or two about messing with the U.S. of fucking A. I remember the GOP touting how they had kept Gaddafi quiet after that, as long as you didn't remember that Pan Am used to exist. Meanwhile, we gave substantial aid to our trusted friends, Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noreiga, and the Hezbollah [including some harmless freedom fighters like the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden]. That all worked out for the best didn't it? God knows that we've made bestest buddies with Gaddafi because he saw where the money was at, and conveniently fail to correctly state that the nuclear program he gave up pretty much consisted of a tub of water and a portable radio. We could NEVER have treated the Butcher of Baghdad like the implacable Madman of the Middle East right. Right? Right?