From the Halls of Montezuma

. . . to the shores of Tripoli.

You've probably sung that song a few times. It's the official hymn of the U.S. Marine Corp.

The lyricist is unknown, but the music is from Gendarmes' Duet,a revision of the 1859 opera Genevieve de Brabant by Jacques Offenbach. "The Halls of Montezuma" refers to the Battle of Chapultepec in 1847 during the Mexican-American War. The line "to the shores of Tripoli" refers to the First Barbary War and specifically the Battle of Derne in 1805 which took place on "the shores of Tripoli".

As you must know, Libya has been in the news of late, fighting for independence as so many countries before them.

For me and the other geographically challenged, here is Tripoli on a map.

طرابلس

This is "Tripoli" in Arabic because that's what they speak there.

With our limited knowledge of the world, we Americans (me included) may think some of the places we read about in the news, seeing only the rebels and bombings, are in some Third World country. Well, they're not.

This is Tripoli.

It is the capital of Libya, sometimes called the Mermaid of the Mediterranean because of its turquoise water and whitewashed buildings. About 6 million people live in Libya with most concentrated in two cities: Benghazi and Tripoli. The city of Tripoli has almost 2 million people (nearly as many as Houston).

Of course you don't have to go too far south of Tripoli to be in the Sahara Desert. You can see from the map above it takes up most of northern Africa.

Libya's history dates back to at least the 8th century B.C., but we'll fast forward a few millennium to the current history of Libya which begins in the 1950's. At this time, there were no colleges, no physicians, no engineers and only about 250,000 Libyans were literate. Oil exploration began in 1955 and in 1959, so did the money. Oil revenue is 58% of GDP. Libya was transformed. Wealth went to the hands of the elite and in 1963, the government was abolished. Then in 1969, Muammar al-Gaddafi staged a coup d'etat, overthrew the monarchy and the rest is history.

There were a few military adventures in the next 40 years, but for the most part, the government was run according to the philosophy of Gaddafi through committees and congresses controlled by him. He and his family also controlled most of the business enterprises in Libya. In the interest of brevity, suffice it to say he is controlling and often cruel.

Things went from bad to worse when the Libyan people decided enough is enough. Gaddafi was not giving up without a fight which has resulted in more brutality - rape, torture, imprisonment, executions and finally Gaddafi fleeing, but his loyalists continue to hang on and he remains elusive.

Hopefully the shores of Tripoli will remain as beautiful as that picture. And peaceful. And free.