Kansas has been a state about 100 years longer than Libya has been an independent nation.
The area it occupies in North Africa is 8.29 times larger in land area than Kansas, but is 92 percent desert or semi-desert, which limits the population to about 6,174,000, most of whom live in its few cities.
The region was first settled by Berbers and then was ruled, successively, by Carthage, Rome, the Vandals and the Ottomans. Italy ruled the area after 1912. Britain and France moved in after World War II.
Libya became an independent constitutional monarchy in 1952. In 1969 a military junta led by Col. Muammar al-Qadhafi seized power.
The colonel’s name has been spelled several different ways in English. “Gadhafi” seems to have the upper edge today.
This brief historical sketch seems pertinent to today’s circumstances. In the past century or so, Italy, Britain and France all have ruled the area now called Libya for various lengths of time.
If action against the colonel is to be taken to protect the Libyan people, those three Western nations should lead the pack.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
