Tripoli, Tridents, Three Cities, Mermaids, Navy Seals, and Jonah

From the Halls of Montezuma

To the shores of Tripoli;

We fight our country's battles

In the air, on land, and sea;

First to fight for right and freedom

And to keep our honor clean;

We are proud to claim the title

Of United States Marine.

The breaking news Saturday, July 26, 2014, is that the United States is shutting down its embassy in Libya and evacuating its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said.

To the shores of Tripoli

The lyrics are contained in the book Rhymes of the Rookies by W. E. Christian, published in 1917. The author of these poems was W.E. Christian. They are more commonly known today as being in the "Marines' Hymn," which is the official hymn of the United States Marine Corps.

The line "To the shores of Tripoli" refers to the First Barbary War (1801-1805), and specifically the Battle of Derna in 1805. The conflict involved war with the Barbary States (the Ottoman provinces of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis). The run up to the war and the war involved many names you have heard before in this blog (e.g. Bainbridge, Decatur, and others). The return of the bodies of the precursors to today's Navy SEALs has been an ongoing challenge in working with the governments of Tripoli. 

The Tripoli Monument is the oldest military monument in the United States. It honors heroes of the First Barbary War: Master Commandant Richard Somers, Lieutenant James Caldwell, James Decatur (brother of Stephen Decatur), Henry Wadsworth, Joseph Israel, and John Dorsey. It was carved in Livorno, Italy in 1806 and brought to the United States on board the USS Constitution. From its original installation in the Washington Navy Yard in 1808 it was moved to the west terrace of the United States Capitol in 1831, and finally to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1860. (See additionally, "Remains of 'First Navy Seals' Lie in Tripoli," Washington Post, May 29, 2011, and also, Richard Somers.)

Tripoli (Arabic: طرابلس ‎ Ṭarābulus) is the capital city and the largest city of Libya. As of 2011, the Tripoli metropolitan area (district area) had a population of 2.2 million people. The city is located in the northwestern part of Libya on the edge of the desert, on a point of rocky land projecting into the Mediterranean and forming a bay.

Tripoli was founded in the 7th century BC by the Phoenicians, who named it Oea.

Tripoli is also known as Tripoli-of-the-West (Arabic: طرابلس الغرب‎ Ṭarābulus al-Gharb), to distinguish it from its older Phoenician sister city Tripoli, Lebanon known in Arabic as Ṭarābulus al-Sham (طرابلس الشام) meaning "Levantine Tripoli." It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean (Arabic: عروسة البحر‎ ʼarūsat el-baḥr; lit: "bride of the sea"), describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three Cities," introduced in Western European languages through the Italian Tripoli. In Arabic: طرابلس‎ it is called Ṭarābulus, Libyan Arabic: Ṭrābləs, Berber: Trables, from Ancient Greek: Τρίπολις Trípolis).

Around the beginning of the 3rd century AD, it became known as the Regio Tripolitana, meaning "region of the three cities," namely Oea (i.e., modern Tripoli), Sabratha and Leptis Magna.

Tridents and Tripoli have been associated for centuries. The above Medal of Louis XV, notes the bombing of Tripoli by Duvivier, 1728 Paris. The reverse shows Nepture with his Trident, threatening Tripoli. 

The British Naval General Service Medal, 1848, was given to veterans of the naval battles along the Barbary Coast during the French Revolutionary War and Napoleonic Wars. The reserve shown is Britannia with a trident seated sideways on a seahorse.

Watery creatures and Tripoli go fin-in-fin, so to speak.

In 2011, a Libyan rebel poses on a sofa shaped like a mermaid, with the face of Muammar Gaddafi's daughter Aisha at her home in Tripoli.

The name game in Libya even got involved in the civil war there.

The Battle of Tripoli (Arabic: معركة طرابلس‎ maʻarakat Ṭarābulis) - in August 2011 - was a military confrontation in Tripoli, Libya, between loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi, the longtime leader of Libya, and the National Transitional Council, which was attempting to overthrow Gaddafi and take control of the capital. The battle began on 20 August 2011, six months after the Libyan civil war started, with an uprising within the city; rebel forces outside the city planned an offensive to link up with elements within Tripoli, and eventually take control of the nation's capital.

The rebels codenamed the assault "Operation Mermaid Dawn" (Arabic: عملية فجر عروسة البحر‎ ʻamaliyyat fajr ʻarūsat el-baḥr). As noted above, Tripoli's nickname is "The Mermaid" (Arabic: عروسة البحر‎ ʻarūsat el-baḥr) (literally "bride of the sea").

Mermaid! Dawn!

Libya has remained unstable for some time.

On the evening of September 11, 2012, Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya (560 miles East of Tripoli), killing four Americans in the attack: Ambassador Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA operatives, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, both former Navy SEALs.

Official Seal of the Navy Seals, with trident.

Now comes the evacuating of Americans from Tripoli, on the heels of the crash of Air Algerie Flight 5017.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, on July 25, 2014, an Iraqi shrine that is purported to be the burial site of Jonah, who the Bible says was swallowed by a whale, has been blown up by Islamic State militants (ISIS). The tomb, a popular destination for religious pilgrims and tourists, was inside a Sunni mosque in Mosul called the Mosque of the Prophet Younis, which is Arabic for Jonah. It dates back to the eighth century BC. The story of Jonah, or Younis, who was said to have survived three days in the belly of a whale, appears in both the Bible and Quran.

Argo, Aurora, and AARGAU

The mainstream media groups have seemingly moved on from mass shootings that began with the Colorado Aurora (red dawn) event at a movie theater on July 20, 2012, to the American embassy violence of September 11, 2012.  But were some of these events foreshadowed by a science fiction visionary?

The Shah’s Exile and Khomeini’s Return, 1979. Artist: Hasan Isma’ilzadah.

Americans don't forget, and many this week are reminded of Tehran, Iran, November 4, 1979, when the U.S. embassy was taken over and then Americans were held hostages for 444 days, until January 20, 1981.

Synchronicity emerges, and recent events in Egypt and Libya are going to soon merge with and be mirrored in a movie about those times. Believe it or not, comic book genius Jack Kirby and a familiar location are part of the true story upon which the film is based.

That's right...

"Jack Kirby, the visionary madman who unwittingly changed the face of popular culture," as Christopher Loring Knowles characterizes him on his blog Secret Sun.

The way all of this is going to unfold is through the movie Argo, an American political intrigue film based on Tony Mendez's account of the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran, Iran during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Filming began in September 2011, and the movie is scheduled to be released October 12, 2012.

The governments of the United States and Canada partnered to rescue six U.S. foreign service members who had evaded the hostage-taking at the takeover of the American embassy in Iran by staying in the home of the Canadian Ambassador. The governments were able to convince Iran that the six hostages were members of a film crew who were scouting the area for a movie titled Argo. The CIA's fake production company used real designs by comics legend Jack Kirby and Barry Ira Geller's screenplay for the upcoming film Lord of Light. Using John Chambers' idea for the caper, Mendez admitted stealing designs and screenplay from Geller's film production. Armed with professional designs and screenplay, the hostages were successfully able to escape the country under their fake identities, notes Wikipedia.

Knowles talks of this incident in 2008, on his blog, when he says, in part:

...Kirby was hired to do design work for one of those post-Star Wars pipe dreams- a major motion picture based on Roger Zelzany's 1967 novel, Lord of Light.
Drawing on the same themes Kirby mastered with The Eternals and The New Gods, Lord of Light played directly into Kirby's greatest strengths as a designer and visionary. Kirby was also contracted to make designs for a multi-million dollar theme park, whose preposterous untenability boggles the mind. Sadly and predictably, the project ran a[g]round after a producer made off with the seed money for the project.

Here's where I began to freak out, a bit, as I was researching this today, in Loring's and others accounts. The designs for Jack Kirby's Science Fiction Land theme park were an important part of the cover story to convince the Iranians this was all authentic. Most of the time people don't mention where this theme park was suppose to be in the general accounts about Argo.

But digging deeper, I discovered it was in Aurora, Colorado!

Jack Kirby (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994), born Jacob Kurtzberg, was a visionary.

This has been a banner year for "The King of Comics," 

with The Avengers and Prometheus (heavily based on 

his 70s epic The Eternals) cleaning up at the box office.

~ Christopher Loring Knowles

Okay, Knowles may be obsessed with Kirby. After all, CLK's written 85 (!) blog postings about the guy. But there's a good reason why he is.

Knowles also mentions another person of note:

One of the artisans signed on to bring Lord of Light to life was Planet of the Apes makeup maestro John Chambers, who doubled as a disguise maker for the CIA. A fellow agent contacted him, looking for an abandoned script to use to coax the newly-installed Iranian mullahs into signing on to a film project. The Iranians needed money and were looking to set up business deals to keep the revolution afloat. The CIA in turn was looking to sneak some hostages out of the country, and needed ideas. One enterprising agent was looking to cozy up to the mullahs by pitching a film project to them. In those days, Hollywood's eldritch power could soften the most hard-bitten theocrats.

John Chambers? Yes, John Chambers. I was involved with the investigations about whether or not Chambers was behind some famous and infamous Bigfoot stories. I also wrote his obituary, which was picked up by various mainstream outlets.

I penned the following about Chambers:

John Chambers, who once created a Bigfoot carnival prop and was rumored to be behind the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage, died of diabetes complications, 25 August 2001, at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement home in Woodland Hills. He was 78.
***
During his 30-year career, Chambers worked on several movies and television shows, including TV's The Outer Limits, The Munsters, Lost in Space and Mission Impossible. Chambers was responsible for putting the pointy ears on Star Trek's Mr. Spock. His makeup and prosthetics film credits included National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982), Halloween II (1981), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), SSSSSSS (1973), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), Superbeast (1972), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Planet of the Apes (1968), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), and Showdown at Boot Hill (1958).
***
Chambers' first of only a few acting appearances was in a 1971 movie about a California Bigfoot that terrorized co-eds. The film, Schlock was directed by John Landis, who also played the film's very thin Bigfoot. Chambers played the National Guard Captain in the film. Chambers' student, Rick Baker, who one day would create Harry in Harry and the Hendersons, did the makeup and created the Bigfoot in Schlock.

So why Chambers? He was also an old CIA subcontractor. John Chambers was "given the highest civilian award from the CIA for his help with numerous transformations. Some of his work can be seen at the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. He also set up the cover story of a film crew planning to shoot a science fiction film in Iran for his special effects colleague Tony Mendez in order to rescue some American embassy personnel who escaped capture by the Iranian militants in November 1979," mentions his Wikipedia entry.

Knowles points out that Wired delved into the Iranian episode further, in depth:

[Barry] Geller imagined a Colorado theme park based on Kirby's set designs that would be called Science Fiction Land; it would include a 300-foot-tall Ferris wheel, voice-operated mag-lev cars, a "planetary control room" staffed by robots, and a heated dome almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building.
Geller had announced his grand plan in November at a press conference attended by Jack Kirby, former football star and prospective cast member Rosey Grier, and several people dressed like visitors from the future. Shortly thereafter, Geller's second-in-command was arrested for embezzling production funds, and the Lord of Light film project evaporated. Since Chambers had been hired by Geller to do makeup for the film, he still had the script and drawings at his house. The story, a tale of Hindu-inspired mystical science fiction, took place on a colonized planet. Iran's landscape could provide many of the rugged settings required by the script.
He (Mendez) removed the cover and gave the script a new name, Argo — like the vessel used by Jason on his daring voyage across the world to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

Joshuah Bearman in Wired, April 24, 2007, tells more details of the story in "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran." Here are some selections from that piece:

***

To build his cover, Mendez put $10,000 into his briefcase and flew to Los Angeles. He called his friend John Chambers, the veteran makeup artist who had won a 1969 Academy Award for Planet of the Apes and also happened to be one of Mendez’s longtime CIA collaborators. Chambers brought in a special effects colleague, Bob Sidell. They all met in mid-January and Mendez briefed the pair on the situation and his scheme. Chambers and Sidell thought about the hostages they were seeing each night on television and quickly declared they were in.
In just four days, Mendez, Chambers, and Sidell created a fake Hollywood production company. They designed business cards and concocted identities for the six members of the location-scouting party, including all their former credits. The production company’s offices would be set up in a suite at Sunset Gower Studios on what was formerly the Columbia lot, in a space vacated by Michael Douglas after he finished The China Syndrome.
All they needed now was a film — and Chambers had the perfect script. Months before, he had received a call from a would-be producer named Barry Geller. Geller had purchased the rights to Roger Zelazny’s science fiction novel, Lord of Light, written his own treatment, raised a few million dollars in starting capital from wealthy investors, and hired Jack Kirby, the famous comic book artist who cocreated X-Men, to do concept drawings. Along the way, Geller imagined a Colorado theme park based on Kirby’s set designs that would be called Science Fiction Land; it would include a 300-foot-tall Ferris wheel, voice-operated mag-lev cars, a “planetary control room” staffed by robots, and a heated dome almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building. Geller had announced his grand plan in November at a press conference attended by Jack Kirby, former football star and prospective cast member Rosey Grier, and several people dressed like visitors from the future. Shortly thereafter, Geller’s second-in-command was arrested for embezzling production funds, and the Lord of Light film project evaporated.
Since Chambers had been hired by Geller to do makeup for the film, he still had the script and drawings at his house. The story, a tale of Hindu-inspired mystical science fiction, took place on a colonized planet. Iran’s landscape could provide many of the rugged settings required by the script. A famous underground bazaar in Tehran even matched one of the necessary locations. “This is perfect,” Mendez said. He removed the cover and gave the script a new name, Argo — like the vessel used by Jason on his daring voyage across the world to retrieve the Golden Fleece.
[Finally, the plot was put in place, the cover stories worked at the airport, and the time to catch the flight was upon them....]
A mechanical problem caused a delay, and the Revolutionary Guards were starting to turn their attention to foreign passengers.
Mendez disappeared. He had a contact at the airport and went to check on the flight status. No sooner had he learned that the delay would be short than they heard the announcement: “Swissair flight 363, ready for immediate departure.” As they boarded the plane from the windy tarmac, Anders noticed the word AARGAU was printed across the fuselage — the name of the Swiss region where the plane originated was strangely similar to that of their cover story. He punched Mendez’s arm and said, “You guys arrange everything, don’t you?”

What we see here is even a synchromystic link within their story. Argo-Aargau shows up in this story. The Swissair name was because of a section of the country. Aargau is one of the more northerly cantons of Switzerland. It comprises the lower course of the river Aare, which is why the canton is called Aar-gau. In the 17th century, Jews were banished from Switzerland. However, a few families were permitted to live in two villages, Endingen and Lengnau, in Aargau which became the Jewish ghetto in Switzerland.

Aargau shows up in the Star Wars universe as a planet in the Zug system of the Core Worlds region, not far from Coruscant and the Corellian Run. It was run by and served as the headquarters for the Bank of Aargau, which was part of the InterGalactic Banking Clan.

Not everyone is going to be happy with Argo, however. Some few important people - like Jack Kirby and Barry Geller - have suffered in the 2012 film:

The elimination of the true role Barry Ira Geller's Lord of Light film project and its Jack Kirby production designs played in the real-life caper may cost the film several million Kirby/Zelazny-fan tickets! What a lost opportunity! And for what? affleck was stuck on the film being all about him in the leading role and wanted the rights to mine and Jack Kirby's work for nothing. When I and maybe the Kirby Estate said no, how about a few shekels, he just cut us out! Is that a financially a responsible executive decision?
The plan to use a desert-based SCIFI movie as the very basis to get the six Americans out of Iran was totally John Chambers' idea, based upon his recent employment for my film production, Lord of Light; it was John's standing in the film industry (Oscar winner, etc.) -- not Tony Mendez's (affleck's character) -- who up to that point was totally unfamiliar with film business infrastructure (his own admission). Chambers did everything out of patriotism to our country and deserves the credit for this caper he has never publicly received. 

The choice of the name Argo is intriguing. In Greek mythology, the Argo (in Greek: Ἀργώ, meaning 'swift') was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcos to retrieve the Golden Fleece. It was named after its builder, Argus.

But that Kirby's Science Fiction Land was to be at Aurora, Colorado, results in another coincidence, the location of a famed mine near there: The Argo Tunnel. This site was originally called the Newhouse Tunnel (after Salt Lake City mining magnate Samuel Newhouse). It is a 4.16 miles mine drainage and access tunnel with its portal at Idaho Springs, Colorado, not really too far from Aurora. The tunnel intersected nearly all the major gold mines between Idaho Springs and Central City, and is the longest such drainage tunnel in the Central City-Idaho Springs mining district.

There is a documentary in the works about Geller and his attempts to film Lord of Light and the plans for the huge SciFi theme park called ScienceFictionLand, by award-winning documentary director Judd Ehrlich.

Bucky Fuller had an idea to build a domed city (above), also envisioned by Jack Kirby as Science Fiction Land (seen at top). There is also such a city, intriguing named Argo City, appearing in Superman Annual 1, September 1960, by Jerry Siegel (below).

Rumors of War: 2012

Okay, okay. No reason to go overboard. There is no need to think World War III is around the corner, despite what appears to be a blogosphere full of people seemingly hoping it is going to break out any day. Yes, really, that's what I see out there.

But, seriously, these are rough times, with many regional wildfire wars really to spark widespread chaos. 

Of course, I have always found the worse hidden costs of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the suicides of our returning soldiers - and less documented - the suicides of subcontractors - and the covert mass violence situations from both. But more on that some other day.

Is it going to stop soon? Not if you listen to the prophets of the web....

General Wesley Clark has detailed his story, several times, of being told of the seven countries that would be invaded in his near future:

1. Iraq √
2. Syria ~ UN/NATO members are thinking about getting involved in the current civil war.
3. Lebanon ~ ?
4. Libya √
5. Somalia ~ Backed by Kenyan troops, on August 20, 2012, the Federal Parliament of Somalia was inaugurated.

6. Sudan ~ New constitution in 2005; South Sudan became independent in July 2011.
7. Iran ~ Israel is threatening to attack, any day now.


Then there are the Biblical quotes to which people point, often:

Revelation 6:4 ~

Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.

Matthew 26:4 ~

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Others have had other ideas:

Map of World around Iran 

Century 5: Quatrain 68

Dans le Danube & du Rhin viendra boire
Le grand Chameau, ne s'en repentira:
Trembler du Rosne, & plus fort ceux de Loire
Et pres des Alpes Coq le ruinera.

In the Danube and of the Rhine will come to drink
The great Camel, not repenting it:
Those of the Rhône to tremble, and much more so
those of the Loire,
and near the Alps the Cock will ruin him.

Source.

Perhaps it is not that bad, but certainly, all the indicators are that...

11th of 9/11: V for Vengeance

by Loren Coleman ©2012

The 11th anniversary of 9/11 was dangerous and tragic. The symbolism of 11s has been significant to terrorists for years (which I detailed in The Copycat Effect). Thus, I was upset to see what unfolded, but I was not startled.

The sign reads, "Remember Your Black Day 11 September," 

placed during protests in Cairo, Egypt, on September 11, 2012.

That the Guy Fawkes mask should show up in the middle of the new Arab protests is synchromystically surprising, as well. (I am pondering, again, what I wrote in my exchange with Guy Edwards about these Guy Fawkes/V for Vendetta masks, see here, under #1.)

Egyptian protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks pose for a photo 

in front of graffiti on a wall of the U.S. embassy during a protest 

in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, September 11, 2012. Photo Nasser Nasser.

By the end of September 12, 2012, the official Obama administration position was that an allegedly spontaneous mob in Libya, said to be angry over an YouTube video criticizing Islam, was used as a cover. A coordinated, planned terrorist attack on the Libyan diplomatic mission on the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks allegedly occurred. (On September 12th, protests in the Muslim world had spread to Tunisia, Morocco, and Sudan, with upcoming worldwide gatherings planned for Friday, September 14, 2012. The embassies in Armenia, Burundi, Kuwait, Sudan, Tunisia and Zambia, along with the embassy in Egypt, which was hit by a protest on Tuesday, all issued warnings on Wednesday advising Americans to be particularly vigilant.)

Sadly, the American ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, 52, was killed when he died from smoke inhalation in the fire begun by rocket attacks causing the burning of the embassy. Two (as yet) unidentified U.S. Marines and a Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, 34, were apparently shot and died.

The timing of the attack appears to happened after, first, a protest occurred at the US embassy in Egypt. Although four were photographed together, at least one Guy Fawkes masked individual appears in various photos of that event (below).

Clearly the Guy Fawkes mask was part of these 9/11 Egyptian protests.

Protesters destroy an American flag pulled down from the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, September 11, 2012. Egyptian protesters, largely ultra conservative Islamists, have climbed the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, went into the courtyard and brought down the flag, replacing it with a black flag with Islamic inscription, in protest of a film deemed offensive of Islam, according to the Associated Press. 

Photo: Mohammed Abu Zaid.

Were any demonstrators seen with Guy Fawkes masks in Libya?

A protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask during an anti-war demonstration on March 13, 2012, in Beirut, Lebanon. The sign reads: "War again? Are you serious?" 

Photo: Marwan Tahtah.

A protester, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, stands in front of Egyptian military police standing guard near the Ministry of Defense in the Abbassiya district of Cairo on April 20, 2012. 

Photo: Mohamed Abd El Ghan.

A Palestinian protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask gestures as he stands near a burning effigy of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad during a demonstration against the high cost of living on Tuesday, September 4, 2012, in Hebron, Palestine. 

Photo: Mussa Qawasma.

The Guy Fawkes masks have come into use since 

the 2006 film, V for Vendetta, was released. 

Little imitation of the "V" character occurred after the Alan Moore graphic novel began appearing in 1982. It was the movie adaption V for Vendetta's mass-produced masks that began the copycats. "V" was portrayed as a mysterious masked revolutionary who worked to destroy the totalitarian government, profoundly affecting the people he encountered.

The "vendetta" has merged into vengeance, revenge, and anarchy protests of all kinds. The masks have been used to hide the identities of Occupy Wall Street protesters, as well as people representing Anonymous at Scientology demonstrations in Los Angeles, London, and other locations. Now it has moved into the Arab Fall protests.

The first Guy Fawkes masks were employed to depict the best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot who attempted to blow up London’s Palace of Westminster in 1605. Although the original plotters were unsuccessful, Fawkes has remained infamous due to the yearly festivals in the United Kingdom, where effigies of Guy Fawkes (often with homemade masks) are burnt on fires across the nation. 

The famed children's rhyme, along with the yearly November 5th bonfires, was an official government attempt to have the population realize that terrorism and treason would be harshly punished. But in recent years, Guy Fawkes has become a folk anti-hero.

Don't you Remember,

The Fifth of November,

'Twas Gunpowder Treason Day,

I let off my gun,

And made'em all run.

And Stole all their Bonfire away. 

(1742)

Thanks to CLK for the initial idea for this sync photo essay.