Way way back when the United States was just a wee bit of a nation there were these guys called the Barbary Pirates. They based themselves out of Tripoli in what is today Libya and made their beer money by terrorizing shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. For the older, richer, more powerful nations like Britain, France and Spain, the Barbary pirates were mostly just a nuisance. They paid the pirates what amounted to protection money and their ships were left alone. Obviously no one wanted to pay off pirates, but it was cheaper than the cost of hunting them down or the loses they would take in the meantime. The fledgling US of A needed stable trade routes if it was going to remain a viable nation and pretty much all of its trade was with Europe. The young United States was by no measure an overly rich or powerful nation, and it needed the trade routes lousy with Barbary Coast Pirates.
A certain tall red-haired gentleman happened to be the President of the United States at the time. He went by the name of Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson. President Jefferson knew that there were only a few options for dealing with the sea cockroaches; pay the protection money like everyone else, do something about the pirates, or try to run ships in and out quickly hoping they weren't detected. Two traditions were borne out of Jefferson's decisions; the first was that the United States Marines got a nifty hymn, and the second was the US tradition of not negotiating with terrorists. As Jefferson saw it, the seas were free for all peaceful transactions and anyone that would try to keep people from conducting themselves peaceably on the worlds oceans were declaring war on the human condition itself.
The young US, fresh from victory over one tyrant, wasn't about to bow to another. Instead they sent in the marines. In the dark of night the marines snuck into the area where all the pirate ships were moored, set fire to one of their own ships and sailed it into the Barbary vessels. As the pirates were running around frantically trying to contain the unexpected fires the newly minted American started hammering them. I won't go into the details, but as the sun rose Tripoli learned not to screw with the United States as Europe learned not to underestimate the new nation. I suggest the above books if you really want to get down to the swash buckling details.
On a side note, I suggest you look up John Adams "Treaty of Tripoli", yes THE John Adams. Short version is the Adams administration along with congress put on paper that the United States was not a Christian nation. Don't take my word for it, look it up.
Okay let us fast forward about two hundred years so we can meet Colonel Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi. Quick short story is that Libya was part of the Ottoman Empire, after WWII it was placed under UN stewardship until it could manage it’s own affairs. It had a somewhat democratic government for a while and then Colonel Qadhafi instigated a coup that left him as the dictator in chief. Trust me, I could write volumes on the former Ottoman Empire states under mandate and stewardship. Instead I suggest you read the King-Crane Commission Report (dry and interesting in one) and check out the CIA World Fact Book listing on Libya for all sorts of awesome background info. If you had not noticed, dictators tend to be a tad un-hinged. There could probably be psychological studies on whether crazy people become dictators or if all the power makes them lose their ever-loving minds. Regardless, Qadhafi is a now a grade “A” nut bag no matter how he began.
In Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Libya the crippling income disparity along with the suffocating government control led the average joe on the street to do something. In Egypt it was peaceful, all the people who wanted change simply showed up and demanded that the president resign. After a bit of song and dance he ultimately did. The movements in all of these countries began at roughly the same time but progressed in different manner. Once Mubarak in Egypt finally stepped down, the other autocrats in the region began putting pressure on the remaining conflict nations to get their houses in order. When one dictator falls it weakens all the others. This brings us back to Libya.
The Libyan protests began relatively peacefully, but under pressure from neighboring despots the Libyan authority decided they needed to stamp this fire out fast. Qadhafi and his son vow to go down fighting, they promise that they won’t let anybody take them from power and blame outside aggressors for the turmoil in their country. While they bluster, their military personnel defect rather than following orders to gun down their family and friends. Qadhafi needs to break the protesters momentum and hold out long enough for them dissolve. For the protesters the most important thing is organization, if they can’t hold together Qadhafi and his rented forces will crush them.
Why does all of this matter to you? Libya produces oil, and we love the crude. More importantly if the protesters succeed the power vacuum in the region will either be filled by a new democracy (you can never have enough) or an even more brutal dictatorship. Either way the balance in the entire region will be severely affected.
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