NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: All Col. Moammar Khadafy needs is an extended pinkie.
He certainly has real-life guests to rival the fictional villains assembled by Dr. Evil in the "Austin Powers" movies.
Where Dr. Evil has No. 2 and Frau Farbissina, the Libyan dictator has president-by-terror Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and president-by-genocide Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, who is under indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
To top it off, the guest list at the celebration of Khadafy's 40th year in power includes the man known in Somalia as "the father of piracy," Mohammed Abdi Afweyne.
In attending the four-day extravaganza, Afweyne reportedly took a break from exacting ransom for a ship held hostage off the Somali coast.
In May, the supposedly reformed Khadafy said that such piracy is not piracy at all, but "self-defense" against "greedy Western nations."
"It is defending the Somalia children's food," Khadafy said.
Among the ships that Afweyne's pirates hijacked was a World Food Program freighter carrying 850 tons of rice bound for the starving in Somalia.
As this week's 40th anniversary celebration in Libya neared, Prince Andrew had originally RSVP'd in the affirmative. He bowed out following the furor over the hero's welcome given to freed Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Otherwise, the prince might have found himself sitting with a thug, a genocidal psychopath and a pirate kingpin while huge screens flashed photos of a bomber convicted of murdering 270 innocents.
The big photos of Libya's new national hero accompanied a performance by a New Zealand bagpipe band, complete with kilts. The bomber was freed by the Scottish justice secretary.
"The freeing of al-Megrahi was a highlight of the colonel's time in office and he wanted to honor Scotland for it," a Libyan official said. >>> Michael Daly | Thursday, September 03, 2009
