What a difference seven years makes.
In January 2004 Congresswoman Candy Miller traveled to Libya as part of a congressional delegation that marked the first official U.S. visit to Tripoli in decades. At that time, Miller was very hawkish regarding the Iraq war and the Bush Doctrine (anybody remember that?) and she wrote a daily diary – essentially a print blog – for The Macomb Daily as the lawmakers traveled around the Middle East.
Miller recounted that trip last week when she put out a press release condemning Moammar Gadhafi’s “unspeakable atrocities” against Libyans who are trying to overthrow him. But Miller’s memories of the trip took on a decidedly different tone than she displayed in 2004.
“Our delegation met with Col. Moammar Gahafi in his tent, in front of which was his bombed-out home left as a shrine with a gold statue of a fist crushing an American airplane,” she said last week. “We saw firsthand the dictatorial regime.”
But in her Jan. 27, 2004, dispatch to The Macomb Daily, Miller was hopeful that Gadhafi was a new man after (supposedly) surrendering his biological and chemical weapons and ending Libya’s nuclear program.
“I truly believe there is a sincere desire for peace and renewed relations between our two countries,” she wrote.
And here is how she summed up the meeting with the Libyan dictator: “It is my belief this opening is proof the Bush Doctrine is working. After our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the resolve of our nation to go after rogue states and stop their pursuit of the most dangerous weapons cannot be questioned.
“As we departed, I told Gadhafi that everything grows from a seed. Each of us can be a seed for hope, peace and a better future. It is my fervent hope that we can make that peaceful future a reality.”
I would say that sometime over the past two weeks Gadhafi crushed that seed in the dirt as he ordered his military to mow down the protesters.
