Not every madman gets to ride the Cadillac of golf carts.
Moammar Khadafy rolled in style to a hate-America rally in Tripoli yesterday in a US-made Club Car, billed as the “finest golf cart ever built.”
The Precedent i2L model car, which sells for just under $10,000, is capable of speeds just under 20 mph and typically has amenities like a 6-quart Igloo cooler. Khadafy’s version probably didn’t include the optional “Ball Washer Field Kit.”
“He’s got good taste. He may not have anything else,” said Steve Gerard of Vic Gerard Golf Cars, which sells the same models in Farmingdale, NJ. “It’s got a reputation of being the Cadillac of golf cars.”
Khadafy used the Augusta, Ga.-made car yesterday to arrive at a General People’s Congress in his capital, where he told hundreds of chanting supporters that the Libyan revolt against him was a “conspiracy to control oil” — and dared President Obama to intervene on the rebels’ side.
“I think Obama is reasonable. He is not a Yankee like Bush or Clinton. He can avoid another Iraq or Afghanistan,” Khadafy said.
“But if they want to challenge us, we accept the challenge.
“We will enter a bloody war, and thousands and thousands of Libyans will die if the United States or NATO enters.”
Earlier yesterday, Khadafy made his own grab for oil. Just after sunrise, hundreds of his loyalists in 50 SUVs, some with mounted machine guns, attacked from six directions a key drilling city in rebel-held eastern Libya.
At least 14 people were killed in the ensuing firefight in the town of Marsa al Brega, al-Jazeera reported. Bombers dropped at least two explosives where rebels fought back at a university campus.
At the same time, Khadafy’s warplanes hit an ammunition depot on the outskirts of the nearby rebel-held city of Ajdabiya, witnesses said.
In other developments:
* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has spoken with Khadafy about creating a bloc of friendly countries to help mediate a resolution to Libya’s crisis, Venezuela’s information minister said yesterday.
* A Libyan human-rights group said as many as 6,000 people have been killed since fighting began two weeks ago.
* The BBC quoted Niger citizens fleeing Libya as saying Khadafy’s forces were arresting large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans and giving them a choice between death or fighting for his side.