In a mocking poem about Napoleon Bonaparte’s humiliating retreat from Moscow, Robert Southey referred to “a terrible man with a terrible name, a name which you all know by sight very well, but which no one can speak, and no one can spell.”

He was referring to a Russian admiral, Pavel Vasilievich Tshitsagov, aka Tschitschagow, aka Tshitshagov, aka Tchichagov. The admiral made life miserable for Napoleon at the Battle of Berezina in 1812, and probably made life just as miserable for war correspondents who tried to spell his name correctly in their dispatches.

Today, you could apply Southey’s words to Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan strongman who has been popping up in the news for the past four decades.

“Muammar el-Qaddafi” is the New York Times’ version of his name. It’s also the one preferred by the Library of Congress Name Authority File. One blogger counted at least 50 variations of the spelling. The Middle East Library Association checked with Google and found that “Gaddafi” was the most popular spelling in news stories (22,898 occurrences). The Times’ version ranked eighth, with only 1,730 occurrences.

The problem is that Qaddafi’s name is Arabic, and the Arabic alphabet doesn’t jibe precisely with the English alphabet. Back in 1987, a class of second-graders in St. Paul, Minn., wrote the dictator to ask why he was acting so mean. Qaddafi responded with a letter that transliterated his signature into English: Moammar El-Gadhafi. That should have solved the problem, but it didn’t. Spellings are still all over the map, and “Gadhafi” is rarely, if ever, seen in print.

I don’t know how the guy pronounces his name, but if you call him “Gawdawful,” most people will know whom you mean.

Qaddafi has been fingered as the mastermind behind the December 1986 terrorist attack on a Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. soldiers. Two U.S. Army sergeants were killed and 230 people — including 50 American servicemen — were injured. In retaliation, President Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi. The attack killed about 100 Libyans, including Qaddafi’s 15-month-old adopted daughter.

Two years later, Qaddafi was implicated in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which took 270 lives in the air and on the ground.

After that, Qaddafi seems to have pulled in his horns internationally, though his own people suffered under his inhumanity. Now they’re trying to blast him out of office and, presumably, into Kingdom Come. The international community seems to be content with the idea of getting him out of the country, which raises the question of where he would go. Offering deposed tyrants sanctuary within your borders has produced mixed results.

There was the case of Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda and one of the most hideous despots since Adolf Hitler. By various estimates, Amin killed, tortured or imprisoned between 100,000 and 500,000 of his opponents during his eight years of rule over the East African country. There were even rumors that some of his opponents served as entrees at his dinner table.

Ugandan nationalists ousted him in 1979, and he fled to Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003. I presume Amin eliminated human flesh from his diet during his sojourn there, since cannibalism violates Sharia law, which the Saudis enforce ruthlessly.

Back in 1986, Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier, dictator of Haiti, flew the coup in his country and landed in France, where something close to his native tongue is spoken. Baby Doc recently took an Air France jet back to Port Au Prince, just as Haiti was going through a political crisis while struggling to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake. France seems not to have wept over his departure, though his presence didn’t destabilize the country.

In 1986, Ferdinand Marcos, president of the Philippines, was ousted from office and was exiled to Hawaii. Marcos fled with his wife, Imelda, some $28 million worth of Filipino currency and enough ladies’ shoes to stock several Neiman-Marcus outlets.  He died three years later. Hawaii remains a part of the United States, and a native son now sits in the White House.

Manuel Noriega, ousted in 1989 as president of Panama, has had a rough time in exile. The United States invaded Panama that year and carried him to Miami as a prisoner, charged with drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering. His prison term ended in 2007, after which he was extradited to France, which sentenced him to seven more years for money laundering. Now in his mid-70s, Noriega is unlikely to be a threat to any country that lodges him.

Perhaps the saddest story in exile is that of Shah Reza Palavi of Iran, who was dethroned by the Islamic revolutionary movement in 1979. He traveled from country to country in search of asylum and medical treatment. After President Carter allowed him to seek treatment in this country, the Shi’ites in Tehran stormed the American embassy and took the embassy staff as captives, thus helping to bring down the Carter presidency. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat offered his country’s hospitality to the shah, who died there in 1980 at the age of 60.

So where should a deposted Muammar el-Qaddafi, aka Moammar El-Gadhafi, etc., be sent?

It ain’t my call, but I have a suggestion: Send him to Japan as part of the team repairing the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. I don’t think he’ll be a threat to any government after that.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625 or  at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.