San Antonio Express-News
A leopard doesn't change its spots. And Moammar Gadhafi, who has incredibly bought and connived his way back into the good graces of the international community, cannot change his brutal and unpredictable ways.
The latest display of his brutality and unpredictability was his release from death row of foreign health workers who had been tortured into confessions of intentionally spreading HIV at a Libyan pediatric hospital. There was good reason to suspect the dictator's clemency had been purchased. Now we know some of the terms of the deal.  
The French corporation Areva has signed a memorandum of understanding to build a nuclear reactor for Gadhafi. And the French government confirmed that the European aerospace company EADS, of which France is the largest public owner, has inked a major arms deal with Gadhafi for the purchase of anti-tank missiles and a radio communications system.
These are the most disturbing examples of Western governments and businesses rushing in to do business with a violent regime that is untrustworthy. It calls to mind the long train of diplomats and arms dealers who shook hands with Saddam Hussein, despite his deplorable human rights record and support for terrorism.
Express-News columnist Mansour El-Kikhia, a native of Libya, is intimately familiar with Gadhafi's depredations. In a column he wrote about the dictator in 2004, El-Kikhia employed the following allegory: "If you see the lion's fangs showing, don't think the lion is smiling."
With blueprints for a nuclear reactor in his hands and stockpiles of weapons on the way, Gadhafi's fangs are showing.
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