Because you can’t read the master’s book and not his apprentice’s.

Viewing cable 08TRIPOLI833, COLONEL AL-QADHAFI’S SUMMER READING LIST

C O N F I D E N T I A L TRIPOLI 000833

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KBIO LY
SUBJECT: COLONEL AL-QADHAFI’S SUMMER READING LIST

CLASSIFIED BY: Chris Stevens, CDA, Embassy Tripoli, Department
of State.
CLASSIFIED BY: Chris Stevens, CDA, Embassy Tripoli, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 1. (C) During a recent meeting at the office of MFA Secretary for the Americas (A/S-equivalent), Dr. Ahmed Fituri, P/E Chief commented on a stack of English-language books on current affairs on Fituri’s desk. Fituri offered that he had been personally tasked by the Leader, Muammar al-Qadhafi, to read and summarize in four- to seven-page Arabic-language reports “significant” English-language books dealing with American politics and policy, current affairs and history.

. . . . Fituri estimated that he has summarized six to eight books per year, as well as miscellaneous articles from key journals and magazines. He was currently summarizing Fareed Zakaria’s latest book, “The Post-American World” and was about to begin work on Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat 3.0”. He had recently translated in full the Secretary’s article in the Foreign Affairs journal. Other books Fituri had summarized in the past year included Zakaria’s “The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad” (which al-Qadhafi liked), Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” and George Soros’ “The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror”.