Superb

When governments negotiate with terrorists, everyone in the free world suffers. When political leaders sound the sirens of defeatism in the face of terrorism, it only encourages more violence. Working together, we will defeat the killers, and we'll do this by refusing to bargain about our most fundamental principles.

— President Bush, September 23, 2004

As it struggles to combat Islamic terrorist networks, the Bush administration has quietly built an intelligence alliance with Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, a onetime bitter enemy the U.S. had tried for years to isolate, topple or kill…

Kadafi came to power in 1969 at the age of 27, when he led a coup that overthrew Libya's pro-Western monarchy. A decade later, the Carter administration placed Libya on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, where it remains.

— The LA Times, September 4, 2005

Kadafi views Islamic extremists as a threat to his secular, oil-rich regime. If that sounds to you surprisingly like a regime we just toppled, you’re not alone. The only difference is that the dictator Hussein went from friend to foe, but Kadafi’s relationship trajectory with the US was the exact opposite. Formerly considered a terrorist leader of a rogue regime, he’s now our pal. Even though Libya remains on our state-sponsored terrorism list. Figure that one out.