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.

World On Fire: Updates

The Muslim protests have now spread to Australia. Police said that, about 1 pm on Saturday, a group marched from Sydney Town Hall to Martin Place, where a confrontation occurred between protesters and police outside a building housing the US consulate. Police used capsicum spray on the protesters, who at times pelted officers with bottles. Up to 500 people stormed through the city, working their way through Pitt Street before moving to Hyde Park amid a heavy police presence. The crowd ran on to the Australian museum.

Also on Saturday, 9/14/2012, thousands of Chinese besieged the Japanese embassy in Beijing, hurling rocks, eggs and bottles as protests broke out in other major cities in China amid growing tension between Asia's two biggest economies over a group of disputed islands.

Well, we knew this was coming...and more (see Cycles).

Read below, for Friday events.

The Master opens today, September 14th, in LA and New York City. 

Director Paul Thomas Anderson also steered Magnolia to the screen.

Bomb threats hit Texas, North Dakota, Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri on Friday. 

Protests spread from one end of the Mideast all the way across Asia.

The world seemed ablaze on September 14, 2012. 

Here cars in front of the US Embassy in Egypt are on fire.

A Hardee's, a KFC and an Arby’s restaurant were set on fire 

in the city of Tripoli, Lebanon, on Friday.

Thousands of people streamed off university campuses in Texas and North Dakota on Friday after phoned-in bomb threats prompted evacuations and officials warned students and faculty to get away as quickly as possible.

The Texas university received a call about 8:35 a.m. on Friday, September 14th, from a man, allegedly with an Arab accent, claiming to be with al Qaeda who said he had placed bombs all over the 50,000-student University of Texas at Austin campus, according to spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon. He claimed the bombs would go off in 90 minutes and all buildings were evacuated at 9:50 a.m. as a precaution, Weldon said.

UT’s JJ Pickle Research facility in North Austin was also evacuated. The facility houses a a fully functional nuclear reactor operated by the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Lab department.
No bombs went off. No bombs were found.

Similar events occurred in Fargo. North Dakota State University President Dean Bresciani said 20,000 people were evacuated from his school's main and downtown campuses in Fargo after the school received its bomb threat Friday morning. Officials did not immediately release details about the North Dakota threat.

No bombs went off. No bombs were found.

Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, posted a campus alert about potential danger during chapel break period, which happens at 11:15 a.m. Friday. The unspecified threat was made via a "graffiti message."

No bombs went off. No bombs were found.

Campus officials say a small college in Hiram, in northeast Ohio were evacuated because of a bomb threat. Hiram College posted a statement on its website saying it received a bomb threat Friday afternoon and was taking the threat seriously.

No bombs went off. No bombs were found.

Hiram is a very Masonic name. President Garfield attended Hiram College. He was a Masonic president. Interesting that he was initiated at the Magnolia Lodge. Very Fortean.

JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD (1831-1881)

Twentieth President (July 2 - September 19, 1881)

MASONIC RECORD Initiated: November 19, 1861, Magnolia Lodge, No. 20, Columbus, Ohio. Owing to Civil War duties, Brother Garfield did not receive the Third Degree until November 22, 1864 in Columbus Lodge No. 30, Columbus, Ohio. On October 10, 1866, he Affiliated with Garrettsville Lodge No. 246, Garrettsville, Ohio, serving as its Chaplain in 1868-1869. Brother Garfield then became a Charter Member of Pentalpha Lodge No. 23 of Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1869; in fact, he was one of the Petitioners for the Lodge Charter.

At noon on Friday, September 14th, a man walked into the Richard Bolling Federal Building, 600 E. 12th Street, Kansas City, Missouri, and said he was a terrorist. A bomb-sniffing dog has detected the presence of some sort of explosives inside the vehicle (above) of the man, which was outside the building. The Kansas City Police Department ordered the bomb and arson squad to his vehicle, located in the Fletcher Daniels State Office Building parking lot, 615 E. 13th Street.

No bombs have gone off. The dog detected explosives. No bombs have been found yet.

As all this was happening (and more?) in the US, the following hotspots ignited, according to several media sources:
~ Demonstrators breached the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia;
~ American school in Tunis torched;
~ German Mission in Khartoum, Sudan was set aflame;
~ British Mission in Sudan attacked;
~ Security forces in Yemen block streets near U.S. Embassy and killed two;
~ Fires and rocks being thrown at U.S. embassies in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt;
~ Effigy of Obama burned near Jalalabad, Afghanistan;
~ Thousands demonstrate against the U.S. in Gaza City;
~ Protesters throwing rocks and gasoline bombs near the American Embassy in Libya;
~ Demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;
~ Thousands in Srinagar, Kasimir protest;
~ Hundreds in southern India;
~ Demonstrations in Indonesia;
~ Protests in Qatar;
~ Demonstrations in Kuwait;
~ Protests in Iraq;
~ Crowds continue gathering in Libya;
~ 5000 marched in the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, burning the American flag;
~ Troops fired over demonstrators in Jos, Nigeria; and
~ Hundreds of protesters set fire during attacks on restaurants in Tripoli, Lebanon, resulting in one dead.


Meanwhile, Fox News shares this:

Volcanic ash spews from the Volcan de Fuego or Volcano of Fire as seen from Palin, south of Guatemala City, Thursday, September 13, 2012. The long-simmering volcano exploded into a series of powerful eruptions Thursday, hurling thick clouds of ash nearly two miles (three kilometers) high, spewing rivers of lava down its flanks and forcing the evacuation of more than 33,000 people from surrounding communities. Photo: Moises Castillo.

Yes, Fox News said "as seen from Palin." The media gods do have a sense of humor.

Sep 14: Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated in Guatemala after the Fuego volcano eruption, which the specialists estimate to be the most powerful since 1999 in this Central American country, media reports said.

U. S. Marines Shot in Mexico

U.S. Marines were injured in a shooting south of Mexico City on Friday morning, August 24, 2012, a Marine official told CNN Mexico. With the news of the shooting at the Empire State Building on this same morning, the U.S. media is not following this story closely.

Military personal stand guard around an armored U.S. Embassy vehicle after it was attacked by unknown assailants dressed as Mexican police, on the highway leading to the city of Cuernavaca, near Tres Marias, Mexico, Friday, Aug. 24, 2012. Two U.S. government employees (Jess Hoods Garner & Stan Dove Boss) were shot and wounded in an attack on their armored SUV, south of Mexico City on Friday, a law enforcement official said. (Credit: Alexandre Meneghini)

Red Pill Junkie, our Mexican correspondent, points out that this location, "near Huitzilac, seems to be the same place where a Mexican general was murdered in 1927 on October 3rd (which is RPJ's birthday). The name of the general was Francisco R. Serrano. He wanted to run for president, but formerly the Revolutionary warlords dealt with their enemies in a traditional and customary fashion."

A book La Sombra del Caudillo by Martín Luis Guzmán is based on the incident, as well as an old movie too.

The motive behind the attack on the American servicemen, who were on a diplomatic mission, was not immediately known.

Unknown gunmen inside what was described as a Mexican federal police vehicle fired upon a U.S. Embassy vehicle that carried the U.S. servicemen, said the official, who declined to be named for security reasons.

The injured Marines were transported to a hospital in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

The story is changing. The AP out of Mexico is spreading the following, after 5 PM Friday:

The Mexican Navy says federal police shot at a vehicle carrying two U.S. government employees after the vehicle came under attack from unidentified gunmen.
The shooting appears to have been a case of a confused gunbattle that broke out on a rural road just south of Mexico City.
The Navy said Friday the embassy personnel were heading down a dirt road to a military installation when a carload of gunmen opened fire on them and chased them, along with a Navy officer accompanying them.
Alerted to the gunfire, a federal police patrol vehicle came to the scene and apparently opened fire. The statement does not make clear whose bullets injured the U.S. workers.

Violence of this kind has occurred before, recently. Gunmen killed three federal police officers on June 24, 2012 outside the arrivals area of Mexico City's international airport. Witnesses told Mexican media that the killers also were dressed in federal police uniforms and ran from the airport’s Terminal 2 following the shootings. After the shooting, the entire security staff at the airport was replaced.

In 2011, one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was killed and one wounded in a drug gang shooting in northern Mexico.

A drug-gang shooting In 2010 in the border city of Ciudad Juarez killed a U.S. consulate employee, her husband and another man.

Recent attacks against U.S. military in Afghanistan have involved shootings by individuals dressed or disguised as law enforcement officers for Afghanistan, supposedly allies.

A NATO soldier was killed on Sunday, August 19, 2012, by an Afghan police officer, raised the coalition death toll from so-called "green on blue" or "insider" shootings during the last 11 days, as the United States urged Kabul to step up screening of recruits.

The BBC News noted:

On Sunday [August 19, 2012]...an Afghan in a police uniform shot dead a Nato soldier.
The victim was the 10th US soldier to die in such an attack in two weeks.'
Two American soldiers were killed in another incident on Friday, a week after six were killed in a single day on 10 August.
Currently, approximately 130,000 ("blue") Nato troops are fighting insurgents in Afghanistan alongside 350,000 ("green") Afghans.
Sunday's shooting brought the total number of International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) personnel killed by members of the Afghan security forces this year to 40, with most of the victims Americans.
There were 35 such deaths in all of 2011.