Jennifer Bryson
Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2001

Faisal Al-Kasim, moderator for the Al-Jazeera talk show "The Opposing Direction," conducted the interview, lasting nearly two hours, in Tripoli.

Discussing the attacks of Sept. 11, Qadhafi said it was clear that this had not been the work of "one crazy man, or one person on hashish, or on heroin, or on drugs, or drunk."

Instead, he thought it had been a studied, planned operation.

More than once Qadhafi said that America is justified in responding to these attacks, and yet he criticized America for the extent and duration of its strikes against Afghanistan.

He said: "America has confused responding to its enemy for the attack of September 11 with opposing terrorism," and asserted that America should differentiate between the two.

Qadhafi said: "We're all against terrorism, but one can't respond to terrorism by means of missiles." According to Qadhafi, "terrorism is an idea ... a concept which is not fought by means of missiles."

He maintained that terrorism should be fought "in other ways."

He did not, however, detail what these "other ways" might be, beyond noting the need for "a new politics."

Qadhafi did not respond directly when Al-Kasim addressed that fact that Libya itself has been a target of American counter-terrorism.

Qadhafi went on at great length about the need for a definition of terrorism, saying "no one has a definition for terrorism," and maintained that this conflict will continue if the international community cannot agree on a definition.

However, his own remarks on terrorism were broad, rather than reflecting a particular definition of terrorism. He discussed the conflict in Chechnya and questioned who the real terrorists there are.

Later he asserted that "the biggest terrorist organization existing now is the [U.N] Security Council ... because it is under the control of America."

Qadhafi said that the term "terrorism" is applied to many things today: economic sanctions, colonialism, poverty, illness, killing innocents, AIDS and anthrax, and he again stressed his view of the need for an internationally-accepted definition of terrorism.

Qadhafi distanced himself from Osama bin Laden. He spoke of bin Laden as a "dangerous person for America," although he questioned why Americans are now labeling a "terrorist" someone they themselves once called a "mujahid" (freedom fighter).

And yet at another point in the interview, it was Qadhafi who identified the former mujahideen as terrorists.

Qadhafi said that those who volunteered to fight as mujahideen against Soviets carried out an "acceptable" act against the Soviet army, but returned to their counties -- including Libya -- as "madmen, crazy men ... unwilling to listen to any dialogue or discussion."

He said: "They departed as humans" and returned "as terrorists." He even asserted that they had become "infidels" to Islam. When asked if he would say the same of the former anti-Soviet-mujahideen who have returned to, and are now, in Afghanistan, he said yes. In response to a question about the role of oil in American foreign policy, Qadhafi said that America wants "to have its hand on" oil.

He said that America is in the Middle East for oil and to "support the Israeli presence." Qadhafi spoke out strongly against the stationing of American troops in the Middle East. When Al-Kasim interjected that Qadhafi's comments agreed "with what bin Laden says, with bin Laden's thoughts in this regard" Qadhafi was nonplussed, but he insisted that America must withdraw from the region.

Near the end of the interview, Qadhafi criticized American foreign policy of the past few years in general terms, but said that he thought "America might wake up now."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Al-Qaeda
Middle East
War on Terrorism

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