SPECIAL POSTING = LIBYA... AGAIN!!!

(Above: the U.S. Marines storm the shores of Tripoli!!)

"Eaton by this time had returned to Washington, and began pushing a scheme which he had been developing for what was effectively a plan for regime change in Tripoli. While in Tunis in June of 1801, he had met Ahmad Quarmanli, the deposed Pasha of Tripoli, and the older brother of Yusuf Quarmanli, the reigning Pasha. Eaton proposed that the US take Ahmad under their wing, assemble an army of various locals, under Ahmad’s banner, and then by giving them the necessary logistical support with the US Naval vessels then in the Mediterranean, effectively back their challenge to the regime in Tripoli."

SO.. once again we have attacks against U.S. personnel in the nation of Libya. Alleged infidels in the Muslim world coming under attack for representing an "alien" regime. Even now in September of 2012, over TWO HUNDRED YEARS later we're still at war with certain elements of the Muslim world.

Is any of this beginning to sound familiar? Providing logistical support to a rag-tag band of rebels in an attempt to bring about regime change… in TRIPOLI!! Of course this attempt in 1804-05 was made without any sort of international backing. And while the US involvement of last year was made in an attempt to stop a dictator from massacring his own people,  we were still engaged in essentially the same endeavor: trying to back an indigenous attempt to remove a hostile regime in order to replace it with one which was more moderate and less injurious to US interests in the region.

YEP!!! We've been down this road before... in 1804-05 the U.S. was engaged in a struggle with another piratical regime in Tripoli, and yes... we were supporting a dubious group of local rebels about whom we didn't know very much in order to replace the regime which was

presently on the throne, and causing no end of trouble for us!! NO... it wasn't our old friend Muammar, but it was another.. "shaggy beast" as our man William Eaton would refer to him. You probably don't know much about this... the one and only fragment of it that has remained down to the present day as a part of our popular memory is the phrase from the Marine Hymn: "To the shores of Tripoli....". Well log onto the following web addresses:

http://suite101.com/article/regime-change-in-tripoli--part-one-a385921

AND ........

http://suite101.com/article/regime-change-in-tripoli--part-two-a386139


And read this fascinating and exciting tale of America's first attempt at regime change in Tripoli!! Over TWO CENTURIES AGO!!!!!! They are both a part of  MY collection of articles to be found on "Suite101.com"!!

+ 35, originally posted on 8/27/11.