Scott Lucas tries to follow and explicate the crazed rambler:
1552 GMT: Muammar Qaddafi is now speaking on Libyan State TV: "I salute you...people of challenge, generation of challenge. I salute you and put before you the real pictures of the Libyan people...the truth which agents of cowardice try to distort." ... Qaddafi's voice is rising to a shout as he talks about the true Libya being shown in the pro-regime rally in the Green Square in Tripoli: "All other nations consider Libya as Mecca." ... This is close to incoherent, either because of Qaddafi, the translator, or both. He is moving between his tirade against Arab media and his call for "revolution as sacrifice and the end of life".
Qaddafi, like former President Mubarak in Egypt, is playing the "I gave my life for this country" card, but it soon strays back into the anger with "Arab media" and defiance of "We challenge America with its mighty superpower." ... "I am a revolutionary." Qaddafi harks back to his background to claim leadership and dedication: "We cannot hinder the process of this Revolution from these greasy rats and cats." (Yes, that was the translation.) ... "I will not leave this country and I will die as a martyr in the end." ... A stream of words --- "Resistance. Freedom. Revolution." And then into a passage of denunciation of the US attack on Libya in 1986, which killed Qaddafi's adopted daughter. ...
Qaddafi is shouting, pounding the podium, shaking a fist, "We are resilient." ... Now, more quietly, Qaddafi starts talking about how some young people, "with their criminal records" and emulating Tunisia, attacked barracks. "But I do not blame them." Apparently there is a group given these youth "money and tablets" to be violent. The people who were killed were police; those responsible lived in big houses outside the country, hoping that Libyans "would slaughter each other". ...
Qaddafi is rambling about the situation in Benghazi, but I honestly cannot make any sense of what he is sense. I think he is blaming the situation on "mercenaries" backed by "five American bases". ... A long passage about fighting colonialists. ... Qaddafi calls on people to form new municipal committees, as suggested by his son Saif Al Islam in a speech on Sunday night, but this brief moment of substance dissolves into another rant against abstract enemies, "Who are you?" ...
This I understand --- "Your children are dying, but for what purpose?", manipulated by gangs of rats who live in the US and Europe. And extracted from the stream of consciousness, this: "Get out of your homes, chase them. Do you want Benghazi destroyed? These rats can reach the oil fields and blow them up." ...
"I haven't given the orders to use bullets" (but I could). He continues with the threat of the death sentence... Qaddafi is now reading from his Green Book to say that when he catches the culprits who have challenged him, "We will not be merciful and forgiving this time." Under the Constitution and the Green Book, the punishment for setting explosions will be death. ...
As Qaddafi rambles on about others who have used force --- the Russian Federation taking out Chechnyan separatists appears to be one case, the Americans flattening Fallujah in Iraq --- in what appears to be a warning to Al Qa'eda and "Islamists" challenging him, an EA correspondent gets to the point.... "I believe him when he says he hasn't used violence properly yet."
We will be back with an analysis this evening.
Ian Black and James Meikle have filed a story on Gaddafi's speech, which has now been going on for almost an hour. ... Sky News and BBC News cut away from the speech which is still going on some time ago. Al-Jazeera has now cut away too.
AJE:
In his defiant speech, Gaddafi said he will "cleanse Libya house by house" if protesters did not surrender. ... German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called Gaddafi's speech "very very frightening". ...
Analyst Ashur Shamis tells Al Jazeera: "There is no doubt Gaddafi will follow through on his threats against the people of Libya." Looking over the past 24hours of our Live Blog updates, we've had some incredibly violent reports already. ...
Following Gaddafi's speech, online reports of gunfire being heard throughout Tripoli. ... Libya is suspended, immediately, from the Arab League. More details to follow.