Another battle "won" in the war on terrorism

So it seems I needn't be quite so distraught at the end of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's defiant intransigence from the West, brought to a symbolic end today by a visit from British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

While I do regret the open kowtowing to Western hegemony, embodied by Libya's recent decision to allow inspectors into the country to investigate its WMD program, I am heartened by my newfound knowledge that this is a meaningless concession on Libya's part.

As Michael Meacher, former U.K. environment minister, discloses, it's an empty gesture, since Libya's much-demonized WMD program doesn't appear to actually exist. However, as a nice quid pro quo, performing this public humbling enables Libya to rejoin the global economy, particularly the Western (especially U.S. and U.K.) market for oil and gas.

Obviously I can't fault Qaddafi for wanting his country to escape the sanctions that have crippled the economy. It's not dissimiliar to Cuba, for which I'd be the first to call for an end to the idiotic U.S. embargo. Of course, I could never imagine Fidel Castro submitting to such an open humiliation, but then Qaddafi hasn't been subjected to nearly so many U.S.-organized assassination attempts, or to the wrath of U.S. hegemony for so long.

Also of interest in this piece are how, fairly recently, America and Osama bin Laden have been bedfellows, both sponsoring the "terrorist" Kosovo Liberation Army against Serbia in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

Not that it's exactly "news" that there has previously been a U.S.-bin Laden connection. But it is good to see that we didn't sever all ties to him when he first took up the cause of jihad against America.