‘The Mad Dog of the Middle East’ | The Weekly StandardAs I sat transfixed in front of a television this week, watching the revolution unfold in Libya—it beats the hell out of House reruns—I was transported back to a simpler time in the history of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, as its leader prefers (Muammar Qaddafi isn’t wordy just in speeches). Long before the Day of Rage became a staple of the region, or “Thursday” as they now call it in the Arab world, I traveled to Libya at the end of 2009.
I tasted the fruits of Tripoli, though not the fermented ones. Libya, like so much of the joyless Maghreb and Middle East, is a country that survives on near beer. I strolled along empty plastic bottles, also known as the beach. The only other beachgoer I spotted was a fellow who was openly relieving himself in the Mediterranean, and from the look of the mounds of trash on the shoreline, this likely improved the water quality. I sampled the charms, such as they are, of the Old City. At least I think it was the Old City. It’s hard to tell sometimes in Libya, where everything, from the Soviet-bloc-style tenement architecture to the used toilet someone tried to sell me at the souk, has lived beyond its expiration date.
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