Word cloud

I was surprised to find that there were no transcripts available of Gadhafi's long speech on Tuesday (February 22nd), so after looking into transcription services I decided to bite the bullet and go through the whole 70 minutes myself. It was a deeply unpleasant experience, but it seems worthwhile to capture his words in an accessible form, since the world is facing so many tough choices in how to deal with him. I don't want to say he's crazy, that seems too easy, but the benevolent mask he obviously tries for keeps slipping as he nakedly threatens his 'people'.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10dy5oLJY2QL7k2VuwKonUpSgCUX-_9ATQ-134Xka9fs/edit?hl=en#

It's a Google document that anyone can edit, so I'm hoping people who know the area much better than me will correct the many mistakes, especially with the place and people names. I also hope it does some good.

I generated a word cloud from the speech, to help me understand what the key obsessions were. People was a key verbal tic, as were 'youth', 'revolution' and 'rats'. Benghazi is obviously preying on his mind too, and he kept coming back to security. I can't claim to make sense of his speech at all, but it feels like the only avenue to understanding what's going on in his mind.