Is Qaddafi Next?

Is Qaddafi Next? - The Daily Beast

I'm only posting this because I have one other tech post for the weekend.

Unfortunately I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the unrest in both Egypt and Tunisia. In Tunisia at least the President has left the country after some unrest there. Hosni Mubarak, the longtime President of Egypt, at least is still holding his own. He however was forced to shake up his regime within the past week thanks to Egyptian unrest.

Now this post from The Daily Beast that I found via Instapundit takes aim at potential unrest in Libya which could threaten longtime head of state (well actually according to Wikipedia, "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution") Muammar al-Gaddafi or if you prefer using the article's version of his name Muammar Qaddafi.

And with Libya's immediate neighbors convulsed by public protests over the brutality and kleptocracy of their ruling familes, a newly leaked cable from the U.S. Embassy in Libya suggests that strongman Muammar Qaddafi has created a decadent, money-hungry family dynasty that could find itself the target of the next Arab revolution in the streets.

The latest batch of American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks includes a secret message to Washington last February from U.S. Ambassador Gene A. Cretz, who wrote that Qaddafi's family—notably, two of his especially wayward sons—had "provided enough dirt for a Libyan soap opera" and could endanger the country's stability.

The dirt, he said, included a series of alcohol-fueled New Year's Eve parties sponsored by one Qaddafi son in St. Barts—Beyoncé reportedly earned more than $1 million to perform at the party to welcome in 2010—and domestic-abuse charges against another Qaddafi son in London; he was accused of beating his wife in a London hotel suite, reportedly sending her to the hospital with a broken nose.

 To be sure, I'm not upset about longtime incumbents around the world losing their power. Although until writing this post I was uncertain about how long the President of Tunisia had served before he fled that nation this month.


What can be said? It looks like the people of Libya will do the one thing many in this nation hoped to do. Referring to those people who still hold grudges against al-Gaddafi/Qaddafi here in the states.