Friday, May 26, 2006

Libya comes in from the cold

Three years after Libya renounced terrorism and abandoned its program to acquire weapons of mass destruction, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced that the United States is restoring full diplomatic relations with the North African country and soon even reopen it's embassy in Tripoli after 27 years. Rice said that the United States intends to remove Libya from the list of designated state sponsors of terrorism. Libya also will be omitted from the annual certification of countries not cooperating fully with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.

Now, I've no doubt that this renewed diplomatic "association" with Libya will sit well with the families of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster, the German disco and those killed during the invasion of Chad, but I will say from personal experience, that now that sanctions are lifted that it's far easier to "monitor" any potential threats from inside a country expecially in the guise of enterprise, commerce and industry, than it is from outside (or clandestine insertions into) countries like Iran, China or North Korea.

While the garishly dressed Gadaffi (the original nutter Colonel) probably won't win the Nobel peace prize any time soon. I think that the current political climate that has now been engineered will only benefit the world in the long run.

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