Qaddafi Praises Obama, Raises Conspiracy Theories in 90-Minute U.N. Rant

In a rambling address to the United Nations General Assembly, where President Obama spoke earlier in the day, Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi urged world leaders to adopt Obama as "our son," but lashed out against the U.N. Security Council and the organization in general. In the midst of lambasting the United States and Europe, Qaddafi said he would be "content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of America." Qaddafi's 90-minute speech -- during which he occasionally referenced scrawled notes and once grabbed an audio device to check the accuracy of his translation -- went well over an hour past the Assembly's 15-minute time limit.

Qaddafi railed against the Security Council, saying it should be renamed "Terror Council." "We are not committed to obeying or adhering to resolutions by the Security Council in its composition right now," he said of his country. He tore a copy of the U.N. charter, saying he didn't agree with any of it past the preamble. An hour in, he began calling for investigations into each of the major wars since the United Nations was founded: the Korean War, the war over the Suez Canal, the Vietnam War and the ongoing war in Iraq, which he called "the mother of all evils." He said that Western nations, and not Arabs, were responsible for creating the Israeli state and turning the Middle East against the Jews.

Qaddafi's First U.N. Speech Is a Rambling Diatribe [New York Times]