"..I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid." - Moamar Gaddafi
_ArKLyte
UN should fight for rights, says Berlusconi
12/22/03
Robin Gedye, Foreign Affairs Writer
"I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened
in Iraq, and I was afraid." - Moamar Gaddafi
The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, believes the United
Nations should intervene militarily wherever dictatorships abuse human
rights.
He delivers a passionate defence of America's intervention in Iraq in
an interview in today's Spectator magazine in which he suggests it
should mark the start of an era in which a "community of democracies"
intervenes in the internal affairs of countries ruled by despots.
Mr Berlusconi said he told President George W Bush during an informal
chat in the margins of last June's G8 summit in Evian that the concept
of "liberty" that emerged enhanced from the ashes of the September 11
attack should become a guiding light for the world's democracies.
"I said, given the enormous and paradoxical success of fundamentalism,
why don't we reform the UN? Let us say to Mr X or Y in this or that
dictatorship, you must recognise human rights in your country and we
give you six to 12 months to do so, or else we intervene.
"We can do this now because there is no countervailing power," he said
referring to the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union.
"We are able, with Russia and America, to look at the states of the
world and assess the dignity of the people and we give them democracy
and liberty. Yes! By force if necessary, because that is the only way
to show it is not a joke. We said to Saddam, do it or we come. And we
came and we did it."
A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi said the prime minister had been
telephoned recently by Col Gaddafi of Libya, who said: "I will do
whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and
I was afraid."
Mr Berlusconi said Europe needed to spend more on defence to
participate fully with America in creating a new world order based on
freedom and democracy.
He said that while Italy might have had "many doubts" about the
American intervention in Iraq, it came out in support when "we saw
that America and Britain, our traditional allies" were determined to
proceed.
He said he was convinced that Saddam had either hidden, exported or
destroyed his weapons of mass destruction, as any leader would have
done if faced with the immediate prospect of invasion by an unbeatable
foreign power.
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"Ah yes, we must mollify angry fanatics who seek our destruction
because otherwise .. they might get mad and seek our destruction."
- Ann Coulter 9/26/2002