Delusions of grandeur, toxic despotism and paranoia: a team of CIA profilers has been studying the character and behavior of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi since the late 1960s, writes the German media ZDF. Here's what's more important.
Muammar Gaddafi is the son of a poor camel herder from the area of the Libyan city of Sirte. His childhood passed in times of colonialism and foreign domination. Gaddafi began his political career as an idealist - at first he promised to hand over all power to the people. But the abolition of the constitution and the seizure of all power were among the first measures taken after the coup led by his organization "Union of Free Officers" in 1969. The new Libyan dictator immediately declared the Western world an imperialist threat, recalls the German public media ZDF.
Muammar Gaddafi: Rule under the sign of megalomania
In the United States, the emergence of the new despot caused immediate alarm. In 1965, the CIA created an entire department for the study of political figures, including Gaddafi. The founder of this department was psychiatrist Gerald Post (1934 - 2020).
"Dr. Post was a pioneer in this field," says Kenneth Dekleva, Post's younger colleague and former advisor to the US State Department. "His research has significantly helped to understand how terrorist groups function," adds Dekleva, explaining how so-called profilers work: "We analyze rulers like Gaddafi by examining their body language, their public appearances, their behavior."
Diagnosis: malignant narcissism
The profilers' description of Gaddafi sounds like a model for understanding many of the world's despots. According to them, the Libyan dictator suffers from malignant narcissism. This is usually understood as a combination of various personality disorders, ranging from narcissism and aggression to paranoia and antisocial behavior, explains the German public media.
Such qualities lead to fatal developments in the political behavior of despots like Gaddafi. They respond to any threat to their power with brutal purges, the publication points out, giving an example of this: After the attempted uprising in 1975, only a few people from his former organization, the "Union of Free Officers", survived. The rest were executed or sent into exile. Gaddafi responded to student protests with torture and public mass executions.
Toxic despotism
Gaddafi's paranoia finds expression in his desire to organize total surveillance and control over everyone. In totalitarian regimes, this is a common response to real or imagined threats. Gaddafi also uses these methods. The fact that he survived several assassination attempts, including a US military bombing of his presidential palace in Tripoli in 1986, probably also fueled his absurd belief in his own greatness and invulnerability.
“Charismatic autocratic leaders are characterized by a high degree of steadfastness. This is the case, for example, with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Bashar Assad“, Kenneth Dekleva tells ZDF. The psychiatrist and former US administration adviser also says that such despots are usually rational, unscrupulous and unwavering. "In my opinion, Gaddafi also falls into this category", he adds.
Childhood traumas
Gaddafi's behavior, characterized by cruel despotism and toxic masculinity, was as incomprehensible to the world as his strange appearance and exotic clothing, ZDF notes. According to the media, these features are explained by Gaddafi's early childhood and the psychological trauma associated with the occupation of Libya by foreign forces.
"Western observers did not always see sense in the actions of the Libyan dictator. But it must be borne in mind that people in some cultures only respect that leader who is strong and charismatic. By standing up to the aggressor, this leader makes the entire nation proud of itself. In Gaddafi's case, this aggressor was America," Kenneth Dekleva explains to ZDF.