Qaddhafi on the origin of America, on NATO, Iran and the Ummah

Apologies for the poor translation from Mathaba, but it is a good read!

(you can read the whole speech here)

Excerpts from Libyan Leader Speech at Student Festival in Syria (2008/04/03)

In the name of God. I am delighted to be with you today, thank you for the warm welcome. It's an honour to be invited by the Arab and African youth, to be with them and talk to them...

[...] About two hundred years ago, America was formed by thieves, robbers, prison fugitives, paupers and criminals expelled from Europe, they crossed the Atlantic Ocean and turned up in America...this is the basis of their existence; then, adventurers, immigrants and protesters followed...given the reason the doctrine of protesters "protestants" is dominant in America, since they were persecuted by the Catholics...by the church in Europe; however, they formed a nation...here it is a very powerful nation imposing itself, not only by what's right...even with what is false, it's imposing itself [...]

[...] We are like Italy only or Spain or France and not like Europe , we the Arabs [are] like one of the European countries , that means one country, one people and one language. The Italians do not speak the Spanish language, as if they are nations . We are one nation like any one of these nations , and in spite of that, imagine , there are united countries in Europe and we are a nation but not united.

They are uniting nations .. the Italian, the Saxonian, the Spanish, the German and the Greek.. They are unifying nations with different languages and origins, combined together at the present time under Europe. Europe has to defend itself. It has to live in the era of globalisation and be strong , therefore countries inside Europe must unite regardless of their origin, language, religion or color because this no longer prevails .. what prevails now is demographic.

In Africa, we have about 1000 tribes, 1000 Ummah or 1000 states; there are Sultanates and kingdoms in Africa; we have different languages .. we have about 1000 spoken languages in Africa, besides colonialism's languages which have been imposed on us, such as Spanish, Portuguese, English and French. We have African languages: Arabic, Housa, Swahili, Folani and Binbara; there are lots of languages; they are about 1000 languages.But Africa is uniting now .. demography unites it. We are in Africa .. Africa must unite like Europe. As I have said, two third of Arabs are in Africa; the remaining one third are outside Africa .. To where this one third must go? There is a question mark[...]

[...] When the Americans attacked Libya in '86 , there was an Italian island called (Lampedusa ) where the American 6th Fleet has a radar station that directs the raids on Libya, we destroyed it with rockets in the morning. we destroyed the installed station in Lampedusa and we informed the Italians- our friends then- Italy today is not that of the past - they said to us it was understood as a responsive act , but you have to understand that Lampedusa is part of Italy which is also part of NATO and aggression on Lampedusa is an aggression on the entire NATO and if you want to escalate the situation you have to take into account that you are going to face NATO , and we as your friends advise you that Libya can not confront NATO which includes America and Europe with all atomic bombs and -ballistic missiles.They said , we as friends advise you not to escalate the attack because then the NATO would respond against Libya which does not have an alliance like NATO , and that was true. The same thing happened against Iraq as a single country[...]

[...] Even Iran -I am not talking politics of course- it's not a talk on behalf of a certain state, Muammar al-Qadhafi, Syria, Libya or the Arab League .. My talk is analytical and academic .. There are concerns about Iran also, because who is with Iran?!I am saying the national state is not able to survive any more.. the so call national state .. These tiny states will never be able to defend themselves unless they unite in one space; they can never protect themselves even at the levels of economy, competition, defence and security .. They can never survive.What are the capabilities of Iran, when it's under attack of the super powers? Its capabilities might enable it to defend itself; but at the end, they are limited compared to those of the countries that might attack Iran .. Similarly, Iraq had the strongest army, but it was limited before the west forces .. Like NATO when attacked Iraq. Iran is the same thing; it's not within a space.If Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India .. etc were all united in one space and of common defence, it wouldn't be easy to attack Iran. If you attack it, you attack all the countries uniting with it.You can never attack Italy, because Italy is a part of NATO and the European Union. Similarly, you can never attack any state of the United States of America; because it's a part of the United States of America, the super power .. What will you do?! .. You can never attack it. [...]