The man Ronald Reagan called “the mad dog of the Middle East” is living up to that title these days, launching bloody assaults on his own population and reminding us of why we hated him for so long. Moammar Gadhafi is the man behind the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, killing 270 people (190 Americans). He is also behind the 1986 bombing of the La Belle discotheque in Berlin, killing several Americans and wounding 229 people. By the time Reagan left office, we had a total trade ban on Libya and had, in response to the attack on La Belle, bombed targets near Tripoli and Benghazi.
Two decades later we have come full circle, watching Gadhafi on TV with horror. On Tuesday he said “I call on those who love Moammar Gadhafi, who represents glory . . . to come out of your houses and attack” the anti-regime demonstrators. He would not resign, he said, because “Moammar Gadhafi is not the president, he is not a normal human being.”
That is clear, but for most of the past decade we made believe he was.