"All My People Love Me" - Says Gaddafi" ? What A Joke

All my people love me," Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi insisted Monday, ignoring mounting global pressure to step down and perhaps head into exile after four decades at the helm of his country. "They love me. All my people with me. They love me all. They will die to protect me," the veteran Libyan leader said in halting English during an interview with the ABC television channel, the BBC and The Times of London (They Love Their Soil Almohtram Qaddafi neither You Nor Any Puppet Of the West). "No demonstrations at all in the streets," claimed Kadhafi, who has ruled his north African country for more than 41 years. "No one is against us, against me for what?" (I think He Got Mad fearing the ouster.)
Those remarks and the Libyan leader's callous lack of concern for the plight of his people were roundly condemned by US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. "It sounds just frankly delusional, when he can talk and laugh to an American and (an) international journalist while he is slaughtering his own people," Rice said at the White House. "It only underscores how unfit he is to lead and how disconnected he is from reality."
Kadhafi sat down in Tripoli for the interview as world powers ramped up pressure on his regime. He scoffed at a question about whether he would ever use chemical weapons to maintain power. "We got rid of all that," Kadhafi said. "This is a thing of the past and we have already finished this. "Is it reasonable that any sensible man would use such a weapon against even his own enemy? Let alone his own people," he said.
There has been global outrage at a brutal crackdown on opposition demonstrations against Kadhafi's regime which erupted nearly two weeks ago in the wake of the upheavals in its neighbors Egypt and Tunisia.
Pro-democracy forces now control vast swaths of the east of the north African country, but rights groups say at least 1,000 people have been killed in the crackdown.
After initially groping for a response, the United States has now openly called for Kadhafi to step down, suggesting he should go into exile. "The people of Libya have made themselves clear: it is time for Kadhafi to go now, without further violence or delay," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a UN Human Rights Council meeting on Libya in Geneva.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said "exile" was "one option" that would satisfy US demands for Kadhafi to go, amid the uprising.
But Kadhafi hit back, saying he had been let down by the United States. "It is betrayal, they have no morals. I'm surprised that we have an alliance with the West to fight Al-Qaeda, and now that we are fighting terrorists they have abandoned us," he said, according to ABC television. "Perhaps they want to occupy Libya," ABC quoted him as saying, adding Kadhafi had insisted he could not step down because he is neither a president nor a king.
He also challenged those who have suggested he has stashed money abroad to produce evidence of such funds and said he would "put two fingers in their eye," the BBC reported.
Kadhafi invited the United Nations or any other organization to conduct a "fact-finding mission" in Libya.
The BBC's Jeremy Bowen said the interview had taken place in a restaurant in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and Kadhafi had seemed relaxed throughout.
Kadhafi laughed off a question about whether he would comply with calls to step down, saying: "Why do I leave my homeland? Why do I leave Libya?"
Kadhafi also alleged the people who had come onto the streets were under the influence of drugs supplied by "outsiders". He added people had seized weapons and that his supporters were under orders not to shoot back.
"It's Al-Qaeda," he told Bowen. "They went into military bases and seized arms and they're terrorising the people. "The people who had the weapons were youngsters and they're starting to put down their weapons now as the drugs that Al-Qaeda gave them wear off."
But witnesses said Kadhafi's forces had hit back Monday, with fighter jets bombing ammunition stores in the eastern town of Adjabiya, around 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) south of the capital Tripoli.
Two planes also attacked a munitions dump at Rajma, just south of the city, a military reservist told AFP.
The brutal crackdown on opposition protests has killed at least 1,000 people and set off a "humanitarian emergency," the UN refugee agency UNHCR has said, warning of a mass exodus from Libya.