‘Mad Dog’ Gaddafi barks his final defiance…

Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi, whom Ronald Reagan once dubbed the ‘Mad Dog of the Middle East’, yesterday gave the world a reminder of why the moniker was so decidedly apt when first coined in 1986.

By turns defiant and supplicating, hysterical and composed, animated and defeatist, Gaddafi ranted and raved for an hour and a half on State TV, before storming out of his bomb-scarred Tripoli compound and driving off into an eerily deserted streetscape beyond, accompanied by literally a handful of ragged followers

It was his second television address since the start of the current unrest this week – the first being to momentarily brandish an umbrella (of all things) to ‘prove’ that he was still in Tripoli – and the Libyan leader used it to insist that he would not flee his country, preferring to “die a martyr” instead.

Among other things he declared himself "the leader of the revolution... Revolution means sacrifice until the very end of your life."

"I will fight until the last drop of blood with the people behind me. I haven't even started giving the orders to use bullets - any use of force against authority of state will be sentenced to death," he said.

Surprisingly oblivious to the country’s rising death-toll – and forgetting that at least two Libyan pilots had deserted upon being ordered to ‘bomb protesters’ – Gaddafi spoke as though his regime had yet to resort to violence.

He gave protesters an ultimatum until Wednesday to remove all placards and barricades. After that, he said, the police and army would move forcefully against them. Opposition activists will be executed: "They will beg for pardon, but they will not get any."

Referring to protestors as ‘rats’, ‘cockroaches’, and ‘drugged teenagers’, Gaddafi turned to his own Green Book to spell out that the consequences of their ‘anti-Constitutional’ behaviour – unilaterally decided by himself 42 years ago – was death.

However, Gaddafi omitted to mention that he had recently suspended the same Constitution, which is therefore not currently in force. Elsewhere, the contradictions were too extraordinary to pass unnoticed. At one point he vowed vengeance and death to all who opposed him; the next he promised ‘Constitutional reforms’, and even offered to share the country's oil money out among all civilians.

"If you love Muammar Gaddafi you will go out and secure Libya's streets," he roared, before the camera panned away to show an almost entirely empty hall.

Were it not for the chilling horror of the unfolding violence throughout the country – with reports of untold atrocities, including mercenaries burning soldiers alive for refusing to obey orders – Gaddafi’s performance yesterday would have had touch of pathos about it.

As things stand, however, it merely compounded the impression that the ‘vintage’ Gaddafi - almost forgotten since the days of the notorious ‘Line of Death’ incident of the mid-1980s – had never really gone away, despite various international attempts to ‘rehabilitate’ him.

Above all, it sealed the global perception of a regime that is days, if not hours, away from disintegrating altogether. The speech ended, observers and pundits compared notes across the international press, and inevitably the verdict was the same: the Gaddafi regime was clearly desperate, with its back against the wall, and nowhere left to run.

All along other indications of imminent collapse poured out of Libya all day yesterday – from the ‘ghost’ Libyan navy ship that allegedly drifted into Maltese territorial waters, to the Royal Navy frigate dispatched to Sirte to assist in evacuation, to millions of exiled Libyans gathering in capitals around the word to demand Gaddafi’s resignation.