I thought the US was against (and fighting) those who give a "safe haven" to terrorists...

[sohndrsmith]

... Does anyone else find it odd that Gaddafi* has ANY freedom, access, etc. to entry - much less able to pitch tents or enjoy enjoy taxpayer funded police protection???

What am I missing here? Aren't our soldiers fighting and dying because of the US stance on terrorism and those who protect/aid terrorist factions? Seems alarmingly duplicitous to me. I don't care if Gaddafi is "nuts" or "humorous" or any of that. Doesn't the fact that he is in this country, under protection of law enforcement, etc. just shoot our credibility all to heck?

This is truly confounding to me.

*(As an aside - why can't anyone figure out how to spell this guy's name? Reuters: Gaddafi. CNN: Gadhafi. Politico: Qadhafi. NYT: Qaddafi... so on and so forth. It's annoying when attempting to find info on the Google machine.)

[Romulox]

1. terrorists *without oil*. nt

[sohndrsmith]

4. ....ah. Good point. n/t

[atreides1]

2. Not sure what our soldiers are dying for

I've been waiting for someone to explain it to me.

They're not fighting and dying to protect the US Constitution, they're not fighting and dying to protect our freedoms, they're not fighting and dying to bring democracy to those less fortunate then we are?

So, just what the hell are they fighting and dying for?

Anyone?

[sohndrsmith]

6. I've wondered the same thing myself. But I do know that we regularly declare

that we are against those providing "safe haven".... in terms of the wars we are in. But I'm with you - terrorism always has and always will exist. All I know is that we are fighting because we went out and made war.

That's the only accurate (and most horrific) reason we're at war still. We stirred up a hornet's nest of a massive, misdirected, personally chosen, misplaced, wrong war against an undefined, unknown, ever-changing enemy called "terror". Then again, we were given so many reasons of "justification" that it's clear those who started this war don't even have a clue. Unfortunately it not only didn't work out well, but we made things far more complicated, destructive and chaotic that we can't figure out how a solution that would work/make sense.

Oh - wait, I forgot we won the war in Iraq, so that war is over, thank goodness. (Good grief.)

[tledford]

3. The Roman-alphabet spelling of Qaddafi's name varies because...

...it is transliterated from a non-Roman alphabet, Arabic. So any Roman-alphabet representation of his name is an approximation, just as many Asian people have names that are spelled many different ways using the Roman alphabet.

Anyway, I have a question for you: George W. Bush was a terrorist when he was President of the United States, responsible for the murders of at least 600,000 innocent Iraquis. Would you expect him to have no police protection if he were visiting Libya?

[sohndrsmith]

8. Thank you for the explanation! Still - you'd think our most (or more) credible news organizations

would collectively come up with a consensus re spelling as a matter of course. Guess not...

As far as your question (a good one at that): No. I don't think Iraq should be expected to provide protection for Bush, much less entry into their country. I would expect him zero rights or protections in Iraq because - as you point out - he is very much a terrorist. I wish this country would refuse him for that very reason. Or at least prosecute him. He's the most lethal terrorist than the rest combined, it seems to me.

[eShirl]

5. Isn't he supposed to be a convert to not-terrorist?

including cooperating with anti-terrorism efforts, etc

[sohndrsmith]

9. I clicked on your link and got a listing of live video/tv/news feeds.

Which is cool, but I didn't see anything regarding Gaddafi/Qadhafi. Do you have a credible news source link for that issue?

Even if true (and I seem to be having faint recollections reading or hearing about something similar), does that mean he suddenly is not responsible for crimes of terrorism? Doesn't happen like that to us regular old people/citizens. We don't get to chose not to go to jail if we volunteer to speak out against whatever crime we committed (arguably, I think that might be a far more productive requirement for non-violent or lesser crimes - unless, of course it were used as a motive or for repeat offense).

I imagine family members, friends or colleagues of those who perished on Flight 103 would have serious problems with the "he's okay 'NOW' " explanation, especially in the absence of formal punishment imposed and served for that specific crime of terrorism.

[quinnox]

7. I prefer Qaddafi

that spelling seems the coolest