Col. Gaddafi implored Italian PM Berlusconi to intervene in Gaddafi's final months.

[Selatius]

Source: Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) - Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi wrote to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in August begging him to halt a NATO-led intervention that was helping a rebel uprising drive him from power, French weekly Paris Match reported.

If authentic, the missive reveals Gaddafi's desperation as, days after going on the run, he reached out to a man who had been a close friend and his most solid ally in Europe until Italy joined the West's campaign to back Libyan rebels.

The magazine's website showed a copy of the letter, dated August 5 and in printed Arabic, with handwritten lines scrawled on it, purportedly by Gaddafi and marked to the attention of his aide Abdallah Mansour. It read: "Send on this message as coming from me, by means of this document, after correction."

The words "new friends" at the bottom were then crossed out and "friends and allies" written above it in the same hand.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/gaddafi-begged-italys-help-letter-report-140555885.html

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What a fool of a man. He should know better than most that alliances are made strictly to gain or hold power at this level of the game. Berlusconi was not going to intervene for your safety.

[DetlefK]

1. What did he expect Berlusconi to do?

If Berlusconi, one the heads of government who wields the least respect in the world AND is one of Gaddafis closest friends, had called for a halt to the campaign, what would have happened?

There would have been political confusion for a few days, but the bombing campaign would not have stopped for a minute.

Berlusconi was clearly the wrong guy to go to. Gaddafi should have chosen an internationally respected mediator and not a 70 year old chauvinist who likes to party with teenage prostitutes and is neck-deep in corruption trials.

[formercia]

2. Two peas in a pod

Bunga Bunga, Zenga Zenga.

[pampango]

3. "Help! What Gaddafi wrote to his friend Berlusconi"

It appears to be genuine – and it makes sense that Gaddafi would write to Berlusconi. The Libyan leader had enjoyed a long and supposedly close friendship with his one true ally in Europe. The story goes that Berlusconi was taught the expression 'bunga, bunga' by Gaddafi.

The Italian prime minister admitted the friendship in a speech he made to supporters in September. He said he had felt "very bad" about joining the Nato campaign to help the Libyan people oust Gaddafi. While observers considered the claim disingenuous, Berlusconi even said he had even considered resigning over the issue.

What is not clear is whether the letter published by Paris Match ever reached Berlusconi. It was handed in to the magazine by an Italian couple who had become friends of the Libyan leader while running an agency that provided personnel for conferences Gaddafi held on his trips to Rome.

At one such 'conference' in 2009, a group of 200 young Italian women were invited – all of whom had to be beautiful and at least 1.70m tall – to to be told by Gaddafi that they should become Muslims. On leaving, each woman was given 50 euros and a copy of the Koran.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/86413,news-comment,news-politics,help-what-gaddafi-wrote-to-his-friend-berlusconi

That kind of "conference" is one that Berlusconi would sponsor as readily as Gaddafi did. ;)

[Ohio Joe]

4. Yup, definitely a fool

Doing whatever he could to continue his war on his own people instead of giving up power.

[Xolodno]

5. He could have helped himself...

...by raiding the treasury, accept exile...and bailed. Instead he chose to believe the lie he manufactured for himself that the people loved him like a deity.

Its too bad you can't study this psychologically on dictators, there seems to be a point where they start believing their own lies.