Looks like the rebels have all but taken control of Tripoli.
Adieu, Moammar. About the only good thing you ever did was dismantle your nuclear weapons (the only other country to have done so to date is South Africa). Other than that, you'd better have a good explanation for running your country into the ground.
2 comments:
Ukraine also dismantled its nuclear weapons.
Perhaps I should have been a bit clearer on that. When the Soviet Union broke up, most of the republics did indeed eventually give up their nuclear arsenals which were still Russian designed and controlled. One of them was Ukraine. There are still others which allow launch pads under foreign control -- much as Canada did for the US well into the 1980s.
What I was referring to was a country that built its arsenal from the ground up. And in that sense, Libya and South Africa are the only two to have disarmed their nukes. On the other hand, South Africa has also rid itself of chemical weapons. Libya -- has signed the treaty, but definitely has not disarmed the mustard gas and heaven knows what else. If the rebels win and it looks like they just might, that's the first thing they need to do to placate its Arab neighbours as well as the EU right across the sea.
One last thing to consider: There were only ever supposed to be five countries to have manufactured nuclear weapons: The US, the UK, France, Russia and Mainland China. Of course, we know North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel has them, and almost certainly so does Iran. More worrisome are the countries that are still weapons capable : Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. All allies of each other, but you never know when a nutcase might take power in any of them.
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