The Colonel's Kids, or Gaddafi Family Values

The latest in a series of posts on the families of the dictators who rule over millions in the Middle East:

It's Good to be the Colonel - or one of his offspring

There are Middle Eastern despots and then there are Middle Eastern despots. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (or Qadhafi or Khadafy or...) has been in that elite class since he grabbed power in September of 1969. Now, over 35 years later, he is still the Colonel... and his kids are running amock.

The blog Beautiful Atrocities has a remarkable archive of posts on the family's exploits:

• There's son Mutassim (a.k.a Hannibal, as in Lecter), with his penchant for speeding through Paris, trashing European hotel rooms, attacking police in Rome, crashing his yacht in Sardinia -- and getting away with it.
• Then there's son Saadi, the Libyan answer to Uday Hussein. Saadi evidently has delusions of soccer greatness, insisting on playing for the Libyan national team and firing the team's coach. He managed to join the European team Perugia only to be kicked off for illegal doping. When the crowd at a Libyan soccer match started chanting against him, he ordered his bodyguards to fire into the stands - killing several people.
• Daughter Aisha, known as the Claudia Schiffer of North Africa, has made headlines for joining Saddam Hussein's legal defense team (she has a law degree from Libya's Al-Fatih University).
• Son Sayf (Arabic for "sword") is a 32-year-old bachelor and oft-mentioned heir to the Colonel's... well, throne. He keeps tigers in his apartment in Vienna and hangs out with Jorge Haider.
• First-born Muhammed and his brother Mualassim have fallen out of favor with the Colonel.

It's all a riot until you imagine growing up in Libya with this dysfunctional family dominating the country... and terrorizing the national soccer team. And you have no way to hold them accountable.