Will the pressure get to Ghadafi or does his psychopathy make him immune to the pulls of conscience and reality?

That man is the DEFINITION of denial.

Fitting for one so close to the river in Egypt.

I see a Libyan version of the overthrow of Ceaușescu in Romania. Exceptionally bloody and brutal on both sides.

I think his paid supporters will crumble very soon (by the 12th?) as he is out of funds and no longer has control of the oil. That’s why he wanted the oil port.

Conscience and reality have no influence. I can see him slipping away by boat/yacht in the middle of the night, pulling an Idi Amin.

I figured he’d go nuts on the protestors before now. He hasn’t lived in the real world for a long time.

Trying to figure out crazy people makes you crazy. :-/

He is simply his own personal soup mix of nature/nurture/conditioning/warped beliefs.

Same recipe for all psychopaths, only differences in degree.

I have no idea of what he will do, but I can imagine him dying in Tripoli still unbelieving.

He is just sitting it out until his death. He does not want to live another way of life. So he is just trying anything to. this is all or nothing for him.

Ghadafi has what psycologists use to call “paranoia, with delusions of ganduer, and a persecution complex.” He will hang on to the very last, regardless of WHO dies because of it.

only his assassin will know for sure.
And even he won’t.

denial….just like charlie sheen

I think your well-described question says it all: his psychopathology makes him immune to reality.

What makes you so sure that he is pathological? Yes he is a brutal dictator trying desperately to hold on to power, but certainly not the first such person and unlikely to be the last. Do you expect him to say that he is aware that the country is turning against him but he intends to beat them into submission?

@LostinParadise: Perhaps not to say it, but possibly to think it. That is, in essence, my question.

Or can one speculate that any brutal dictator, perforce, is bonkers. Hitler did, at the end, take his own life rather than face being captured. Yet many of his nasty underlings pleaded innocence to the bitter end. Not much repentance at the Neuremberg Trials.

The will to power seems to be a constant. It is not something that either of us care much for, but in every time and in every place there are those who crave it beyond anything else and will do whatever it takes to hold on to it. Is this pathological? I don’t know. It is said that all power corrupts. What are we to make of this?

I think he is going to fight until the end because in his deluded mind he is and always will be the rightful leader of Libya. He sees himself as doing all the right thing for his people and will not stop until someone or something takes him out.

He seems to be in denial of the fact that “his people” do not support him anymore. He is refusing to admit that an uprising is even occuring. He has also stated that his people love him, which is clearly not the case. I think that he knows that there is an uprising, since he has sent planes to bomb his own country, but he is in a state of disbelief that this is actually happening. He is refusing to admit to the world that there is a full scale revolt, because he does not want to admit it to himself. He is rejecting our reality and substituting his own.

Whether or not the pressure gets to him depends upon whether the pressure is contributing to his denial, or if denial is being made impossible by the pressure. If denial becomes impossible, he will most likely stop the denial and either leave power or try to crush the revolt. If pressure contributes to the denial, he will stay in denial and most likely die still not publicly accepting reality.

More pressure is needed. The UN should mandate a no-fly zone immediately. We cannot keep watching the death of civilians who long for freedom and who get killed by hired goons.

The waffling of the civiled communities is certainly disheartening. Each day that passes seems to give more power back to Ghadafi.

NATO, UN, EU, Arab nations, etc pontificate. Libya is being destroyed.

The Arab League supports imposing a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Gaddafi’s government forces attacking rebels. I see no reason the UN would think otherwise.

it is like belling the cat. Everyone agrees that the cat needs a bell, but who will impliment it?

@gailcalled – NATO will implement it, as soon as the UN gives the authorization. The planning in Brussels has already begun.

@mattbrowne: I hope that the urgency will overcome the inertia.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/10/gaddafi-libya-nato

@gailcalled – The Arab League has formally asked the UN Security Council. An important step.