quarter expenses.
Keep Free Republic Alive with YOUR Donations!
Make a difference.
PLEASE Contribute Today!
Posted on 08/12/2014 5:23:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
From the deck of a ship on the Mediterranean, the islands that pass by appear as calm as the weather. Huge yachts, not warships, are docked in island ports. I haven’t seen a naval officer in ten days. But it has rarely been so in the sea’s brutal past.
The Mediterranean (“in the middle of the earth”) has been history’s constant cauldron. It provided too easy access between three vastly different and usually rival continents — Asia, Africa, and Europe. And it helped birth and spread three major and often warring religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Without it, there would have been no Roman or Ottoman Empire.
Most of the Mediterranean’s history, then, is one of abject violence. The unfortunate islands situated in the sea’s vortex — especially Cyprus, Crete, Malta, and Sicily — were invaded, occupied, and fought over constantly by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, Franks, Ottomans, British, Italians, and Germans. To chronicle these islands’ history is to study massive castles and walls, which are still what first greet any visitor to port. The Ottoman Siege of Famagusta on Cyprus, the defense of Malta by the Knights Hospitaller, the German air drop on Crete, and the Allied invasion of Sicily mark some of the most audacious battles in military history.
Gibraltar — which governed who made it into the Mediterranean — and Constantinople –which determined who went in and out of the Black Sea — were often the linchpins of empire. With the completion of the Suez Canal in the 19th century, the Mediterranean revived in the Industrial Age, as the canal soon would become Europe’s shortcut to the oil fields of the Middle East.
For the last 70 years, the Mediterranean has been quieter than at any other time in its long history — at least since the second century a.d., during the reign of the five so-called “good” emperors of Rome, when all the shores of the three continents were tranquil and interconnected by what the Romans called “mare nostrum” (our sea).Why?
Largely because of American warships. Except for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and occasional violent spillage offshore of the various Middle East wars, the U.S. Sixth Fleet, based in Naples since shortly after World War II, has been able, with its NATO partners, to keep pirates out, aggressors down, and peaceful nations in.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST...
As a Navy veteran, I was part of that sixth fleet. We walked softly but carried a big stick. With odumbo as CIC, I don’t believe the countries around the “Med” feel the same way toward us today, hopefully I am wrong.
As a Navy veteran, I was part of that sixth fleet. We walked softly but carried a big stick. With odumbo as CIC, I don’t believe the countries around the “Med” feel the same way toward us today, hopefully I am wrong.
Maybe it's time for the great European fleets of the past to rebuild and defend their own geographical sphere rather than handing the job to us and going back to sleep?
I did the same in the ‘80’s. I loved it! I’d go do it again if it weren’t for being married and having kids and grandkids. The only complaint I had was Morocco.
I suppose someone in the White House, upon reading this article, will decide that this is also something that needs to be transformed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.