Back to Libya: this isn't the first time the United States has taken military action against Libya.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

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Last month, the United States and its allies intervened in Libya's bloody civil war, creating a no-fly zone and bombing forces loyal to Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi in an effort to protect civilians and help rebels seeking his ouster.

Many Americans are familiar with Qaddafi, long known for his outlandish outfits, brutal role, and sponsorship of terrorism against the West. But they're probably less familiar with past tensions between the U.S. and Libya, which date back two centuries.

In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay bribes demanded by pirates from the Barbary states (including what is now Libya) to guarantee American ships safe passage on trade routes through the Mediterranean.

When the pirates started attacking U.S. ships, Jefferson sent the Navy to bombard Tripoli (now Libya's capital), starting a war that lasted four years, defeated the Barbary states, and ended piracy in the region. (That's why the Marines' Hymn * begins, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.")

Fast-forward to 1969, when Qaddafi took power in a coup. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Libya was denounced by the West for crashing internal opposition and sponsoring terrorism abroad. President Ronald Reagan famously called Qaddafi "this mad dog of the Middle East."

In 1986, after Libyan-sponsored terrorists bombed a Berlin disco, killing two Americans, Reagan ordered U.S. air strikes against Libya. Qaddafi survived, but 101 people, including his daughter, were killed.

Two years later, Qaddafi was behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans, when the plane exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. In response, the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Libya.

Libya remained an international outcast until 2003, when it took responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, agreed to compensate the victims' families, and to give up its efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, with international monitors allowed into Libya to verify. But Qaddafi's brutal, authoritarian regime remained in place.

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