Libya’s history was that of assorted nomadic tribes, who were plying the desert until very recently. Libya is one of the more contemporary countries in the world community, and it did not become an independent nation until 1951. One of these original tribes was descended from the Berbers, and they were called Libyans. Although they weren’t a particularly important faction, the ancient Egyptians started calling everyone in the country they came from "Libyans," and the moniker stuck. When they received their independence, Libya was a geographically defined area divided into three culturally distinct parts, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan.

Each of these areas was cut off from the others by vast expanses of desert, and because of this, it wasn’t until the 1960s that people began to look at Libya as unified country, instead of a hodge-podge of individual regions. Tripolitania contained the most important city in Libya, Tripoli, an important port on the route of the caravans and a home for pirates and slave traders. Cyrenaica was contiguous to Egypt, and although the people were fiercely independent, they borrowed some of their customs from their neighbors. Fezzan was a more distinctly African enclave, and the people that lived there were primarily oasis dwellers who serviced trade between caravan routes, Africa and the Mediterranean. To some degree, the people were bonded together by their commonality in the Muslim religion, but in spite of that, the region remained an independent tribal society, with Cyrenaica not being welling to give up their independence, well into the 20^th Century.

Libya became a part of the Muslim world during the Middle Ages, and that was about the only unifying aspect in the country for almost a millennium. As World War II approached, the country was an Italian colony, and the people were none to happy about that fact. In 1939, when England and France entered the war, the Libyan nationalists saw an opportunity to get rid of Italy’s dominance, and led by the man who would later become known as King Idris, the bickering tribes reached an agreement in Cairo. Italy formally entered the war in June of 1940 on the side of Germany, and the Libyans used that opportunity to join the Allies. In spite of the much-needed Libyan assistance in their war effort, the British were unwilling to negotiate a deal for Libya’s independence until the conflict was over. In spite of this rebuff, five battalions of Libyans and their air force, known as the Sanusi Army, joined the British on the front lines and served with great distinction.

It was not until 1951, under the leadership of King Idris, that the country was established as a federal monarchy and a constitutional democracy. Libya’s constitution provided for a Chamber of Deputies, a prime minister, and a lower bicameral legislature. The King would appoint the Council of Ministers, while the upper house of senators, which consisted of eight representatives from each of the former provincial governments, were publicly nominated or elected. Rather than go into detail about its complex structure, the process by which the country was governed could be stated rather simplistically: the King could veto any legislation he didn’t like and he had the right at any given time to dissolve the lower house. However, during the country’s first election, political parties were outlawed and groups opposing those in power were declared illegal. Effectively, the executive arm of the Libya government became a place used more for debating economic theory than one that attempted accomplished anything. During this period, Libya’s capital was located both in Benghazi and in Tripoli.

Moreover, during the period after its independence and before the reigns of government were taken over completely by Muammar al in 1969, Libya was considered both a conservative member of the League of Arab States (the Arab League) and had a profoundly pro-western propensity. Both Britain and the United States installed major military bases in Libya in exchange for their economic assistance. During this period, Libya maintained warm diplomatic relations with France, Greece, Italy, and Turkey. Although Libya had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, as well, for the most part they remained independent of the Eastern-Bloc. Libya, because of its massive expansive of parched deserts, did not have much going for it in terms of agricultural production, mining or trade and thus was dependent on the West for economic subsidies to see it through. The maturation process was virtually non-existent.

Then, in 1959, an extraordinary event occurred when engineers from Exxon found rich deposits oil in the Cyrenaica province of Libya. This altered the entire economic composition of the country. For the time, Libya negotiated an exceptionally favorable profit sharing arrangement with the western oil companies, keeping approximately 50% of the gross revenues. Libya was now in a position to be in charge of its own destiny; the oil was not only plentiful, but of exceptional quality, and in addition, Libya’s ports were only a stones- throw away from the oil-thirsty European markets. Now having some excess money to spend, Libya determined to correct some of its problems.

The country’s agricultural production had fallen off substantially, due to Libya’s dependence on oil revenues, and irrigation projects were initiated in an attempt to achieve independence in that area. The government was reconstituted as a Monarchy, and the original three provinces were divided into a total of ten states. It was anticipated that this would undermine regional thinking within the country and that the population would view Libya more as one entity, instead of three. The constitution of 1963 reflected this change, and the government was formally modified into a unitary state.

While a founding partner of the Arab League, Libya did not become embroiled in foreign intrigues, particularly the conflict with Israel. On the other hand, when it came to assisting fellow members of the League in gaining independence, Libya was always available to help. The population was becoming substantially more nationalistic, while in neighboring Egypt; Gamal Abdul Nasser had become a rallying point for all the Arab States. Libya asked the foreigners that had military bases in their country to pull up stakes, which included the United States and Britain. However, this process was not accomplished overnight, and the Americans did not fully abandon Wheelus Air Base until six years later, in 1970.

Libya’s perception of the West started to change dramatically during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Both oil workers and students rioted against the West; American and British Embassies were severely damaged by out-of-control mobs that also attacked foreign oil company offices. Libyan Jews were also attacked, which caused the entire community of Libyan Jews to pick up and leave the country. As an aftermath of the Arab-Israeli War, while Libya was still shying away from Arab politics, they were very agreeable to provide substantial money to Egypt, Syria and Jordan, whose infrastructures had been destroyed by Israeli planes.

Even though the Libyan government was providing aid to frontline Arab states, the Libyan people were becoming restive, primarily as a result of government inefficiencies, bureaucratic bribery and bumbling and the rabble-rousing of Nasser in neighboring Egypt. It was believed by the general population that they were not benefiting from the country’s substantial oil boom and that their standard of living had not increased in spite of this economic gusher. As though he could see the handwriting of discontent on the wall, King Idris became morose and ultimately left the country in search of medical treatment on the continent. He left Crown Prince Hasa ar Rida in charge in his absence. That turned out to be a major tactical error, as an army colonel, named Muammar al Qadhafi, saw this as an opportunity to take over the country, which he was able to accomplish without significant loss of blood.

Qadhafi was much more of a visionary than most people realized, for he took a strong position of fostering nationalism over religion and evolved a system of free education for all levels of Libyan society. Additionally, the country’s inhabitants also received the best housing and health care of any country in Africa. He encouraged minority rights, especially those of women, while encouraging substantive population growth. At that time, Libya’s population was barely 4 million, and there were a quarter-of-a-million foreigners working in the country to keep the oil pipelines running. He desperately sought to replace these people with his own nationals.

On the other had, Qadhafi was extremely unique for his time; his views were evolutionary and he passionately wanted his people to rise up from their origins and become distinctive. Due to the country’s general conservatism and devotion to Islam, they were not an easy force to deal with. Equally significant, fully one-half of the population was under fifteen-years-old.

In the meantime, Qadhafi was not given to impulsive changes of political course. He had outlined his philosophy rather completely, in what he called "The Green Book;" a rather extensive treatise on the direction he wanted the country to take. In order to coerce the people to accept his teachings, he used various ploys over the years. He arranged a "Cultural Revolution" in 1973, "People’s power" in 1975, announced that Libya was a "state of the masses" in 1977 and gave up his formal title to become "Leader of the Revolution" in 1979. The bottom line of all of these machinations was an attempt by Qadhafi to change the existing social and political system to conform to his vision and to cause any threats to his leadership to be compromised. Most of his plans were constructively oriented, and the people for a time were not unappreciative of what they received in return.

Qadhafi became involved in third-world causes during the 1980s and constantly attempted to enforce supplementary methods of reform. He established the General People’s Congress in 1987, which was anticipated to be both an executive and legislative body meeting three times a year. When the dust had cleared, it seemed as though its membership had the same consistency as the Revolutionary Command Council, which had been abolished in 1977. Moreover, a General People’s Committee performed the functions of a cabinet, which had, by this time replaced the old Council of Ministers. During this period, Libya shifted allegiances and became an ally of the Soviet Union because of Western ties to Israel. During this period, he envisaged a plan to export terrorist activities, and within a short period of time, the country received an international reputation as an educator and breeding ground for these types of illicit activities.

Oil prices eventually declined, and Qadhafi lost his trump card, the ability to buy friends. Other countries, even those within the region, started to view him as a pariah. The United States broke diplomatic relations with Libya because of their terrorist activities, and they placed an embargo on products going in and out of Libya. Over the ensuing years, the embargo has stayed in place, and about the only thing that is has accomplished is that the United States has been virtually eliminated as a supplier to that country. By this time, the country had lost its dependence on American weapons and was now totally dependent on the Soviet Union.

In the meantime, Libya set up a transshipment deal where they would receive Russian arms and then ship them to the Irish Republican Army. In 1986, the bombing of the crowded La Belle disco in Berlin was also traced back to Libyan operatives. In that same year, Libya launched Scud missiles at the Italian Island of Lampodusa. They made few international friends during this period.

Libya also had established some bizarre alliances in Africa, which included turning over money to one of the most repressive regimes in the world, the government of Sierra Leone. Apparently, this aid had been supplied since 1991. "Rebel leaders like Charles Taylor of Liberia (now its President), Gambian renegade Kukoi Samba Sanyand, who led a botched invasion of his own country, Sankoh, the butcher of Sierra Leone, and Gbago Zoumanigui, the ghoul of Guinea, all allegedly received funds and training for their fighters from Libya. ‘We spent three months at a military training camp in Libya with a number of other Africans, and we were told that after training we would return home to fight against our corrupt governments,’ says Mohamed Kanneh, a 27-year-old ex-Revolutionary Untied Front (RUF) fighter."

Nevertheless, for the most of this time, the Europeans and most African states held the line on the Libyan Embargo along with the Americans. However, on February 19, 1998, President Bakili Muluzi of Malawi announced that his country was going to re-establish diplomatic relations with Libya. Naturally, the world’s press was interested in knowing what was going on. Muluzi’s lame explanation was the height of simplicity, "If traditional donors give me money to construct all the roads in Malawi, to construct all the schools in Malawi… then I’ll not go to Libya." This had to considered heady stuff, when you consider that Western nations were then funding more than half of the Malawi budget. When questioned further he stated, "I’m saying, I’m not the first one that has gone to Libya. As I was there, about five heads of state were leaving Libya." Libya obviously had acquired this small African country for a bargain basement price, and Libya received about 100 times that much in public relations value. However, that wouldn’t have meant a thing in the world of international public opinion unless the Libyans were willing to make some additional concessions; as it turned, they certainly were.

From the Qadhafi Government’s point of view, Libya has unquestionable Africanized; they have made it abundantly clear that they are not Arabs, they are Africans. While this had inured them to the Africans, the population of Libya doesn’t necessarily see things that way. Few of their leader’s policies have irritated Libyans more than his Africanization of Libya. Tripolitans curse the opening of the borders, which has turned them into a minority in their own capital. In the old and crumbling Ottoman town, Sudanese man the sweatshops, Egyptians serve the tea and West African day-laborers wait under flyovers for an invitation to sweep the streets. Libyans are rarely seen outside their cars. Predictably, the immigrants are blamed for binging AIDS and gang warfare to the streets of Tripoli. If you call a Libyan "African," he will feel insulted." But there is a real bottom line to the equation, since Qadhafi has obviously figured out that if he spreads the wealth around Africa and can convince those nations he has their best interests at heart, he could garner much needed votes at the United Nations to have the sanctions against his country eliminated.

With the passage of the years, Qadhafi has become less reclusive, but his rabble-rousing chants seem to have dimmed with age. In recent times, he has made a quiet attempt to bring Libya back into the world community with some degree of success. The fact that Libya relinquished the purported Lockerbie bombers to an independent court in the Netherlands for trial was a major step in that direction. Moreover, when coupled with their payment of $40 million in compensation to the 1989 victims of a Libyan-induced bombing of a French airliner, the world may now be seeing Qadhafi in a different light. On the other hand, the guerillas that bombed the French plane included Gadhafi’s brother-in-law, so he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

In addition, the Libyans also accepted the responsibility for the shooting of a British constable who was trying to maintain order in front of their embassy in London. This admission caused the British to renew diplomatic relations with Libya after a substantial number of years. And the Welcome Wagon continued to gear up, Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary General, and Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Ambassador to the United States and South Africa’s Nelson Mandella have all attempted to mediate peace discussions between Libya and the Western States with no small amount of success. There is no question that all of this effort has caused considerable warming of relations. Ronald Neumann, the State Department’s Libyan chief, said in a speech last year, "Libya is not Iraq. We do not seek to maintain sanctions until there is a change of regime in Tripoli."

Qadhafi was not yet finished with his rapprochement efforts, and he cut off funding for all the hard-line Arab groups that were at odds with Yasser Arafat’s peace efforts with Israel. This statement is further reinforced by the disappearance from Libya of Abu Nidal, a Palestinian terrorist who years before had set up training camps in Libya with Qadhafi’s assistance. These and other acts were crucial to the United Nations, and after analyzing the new Libya, the United Nations decided to remove their sanctions. Air service was immediately restored, and Libya once again became an important destination for both businessmen and tourists.

During this period, Qadhafi appeared to be distancing himself from the Arabs, while welcoming the African Nations with open arms. Seemingly, this would be a more moderate approach and would seem to signal to the West that Libya has changed horses and is unquestionably intent on using every resource that they have available to aid the country. "But, is this guy really serious?" everyone was asking. However, he was on a roll, and his next gambit was to act as an intermediary in freeing six foreign hostages (people from France, Germany and South Africa) that were held in the Philippines by the Abu Sayyaf guerillas, who were paid $1 million per person in ransom money. Germany and France were the first to acknowledge that Libya had played a paramount role in this delicate operation. That Libya could step into the Philippine breach was not as far-fetched as it appeared at the time, "Libya has long-standing ties with Muslim rebels in the mostly Catholic Philippines and has helped negotiate in previous kidnappings."

The Libyan Government has helped build schools and mosques in the impoverished southern part of the Philippines, but conversely, it has also been accused of training rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group." () Nevertheless, It has become readily apparent to world leaders that Libya has not been involved in the export of terrorism in about five years, and many say that once the Lockerbie Trial is over, even the United States will agree to remove whatever sanctions that remain. "American oil companies, forced to abandon operations in Libya after U.S. sanctions were imposed in 1986, stand to benefit even more. The Clinton Administration has quietly allowed Occidental Petroleum Company and Oasis, a consortium including Conoco, Marathon and Amarada Hess, to survey wells they once operated …For U.S. farmers hard hit by low grain prices, Libya looks like a valued customer. Plans are currently under way to ship 20,000 tons of durum wheat there, and a senior U.S. agribusiness executive recently back from Tripoli says tens of millions of dollars in additional contracts could begin to roll in later this year." ()

Libya could have an attraction to tourists from all over the world if they could convince them that they would be safe wandering about the country. There are countless magnificent places to visit and numerous antiquities to be seen, if Libya only determined to go that route. There is the Marcus Aurelius arch in Tripoli, the central Martyrs Square, whose walls were created by the Romans, the Byzantines, the Crusaders and the Turks. Then there is the Sabratha, which has outstanding mosaics from the 6^th Century. Moreover, there is the Justinian basilica, which was found buried under one of the beaches on the Libyan coast in the 1920s, and the Phoenician mausoleum. Sabratha is a very special place and has been designated by the Unesco as a World Heritage Site because of its irreplaceable properties.

Libya’s wonders seem to continue at a fast clip, as the Romans in particular left an indelible mark on the country. "But Libya’s prime site is the incomparable rose-pink Roman town of Leptis Magna, a colony which at its height was home to 100,000 people. It has luxurious public baths, with gigantic towering arches, saunas, sun-room and mosaic-floored swimming pools enclosed with columns of marble-pink from Aswan, green from Algeria and Phoenicia, purple and white from Phrygia, green and white from Euboea and gray-pink from Asia Minor. Next door is the New Forum with its columns and sculptures spread randomly on the ground. The area is enclosed by columns, which are surrounded by walls of huge and beautiful stone blocks, and a series of Medusa faces. The site was so quiet and still that inside the forum you could hear the sea."

However, while much has been accomplished, there is still a long way to go. Libya continues to import North Korean () and Chinese technology to improve its guided missiles and has targeted them on various areas in southern Europe. "Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said during a speech February 5, 2000, in Germany, that Libya is seeking long-range missiles. In calling for national missile defenses, Mr. Cohen said, "Libya has chemical capabilities and is trying to buy long-range missiles. They want long-range missiles to coerce and threaten us – the North American and European parts of NATO." () In the meantime, Libya still has the 100 Scud mobile launchers that it acquired in the 1980s, and there has been no known letup in the buildup of its chemical and biological weapons arsenal. Worst of all, Qadhafi continues to tinker with the manufacturing of an atomic bomb.

China also publicized its agreement with Libya to constructive a massive railroad system for them that would virtually connect every major town in the country. There are many who feel that the railroad deal is only a cover-up for a portable missile launching system that can be both highly mobile and entirely undetectable. In the meantime, a Taiwanese businessman was arrested in Switzerland, having been caught attempting to transship a SCUD missile system to Libya. Moreover, in a move that could snatch defeat out of the hands of victory, Qadhafi has been playing up to U.S. Black Muslim leader, Louis Farrakhan, who is against everyone that doesn’t have a black tint to their skin. In addition, while all this was going on, "thirty-two crates of missile parts, disguised as automotive spares, were discovered when they arrived on a British Airways flight at Gatwick Airport bound for Tripoli via Malta. Paperwork seized with the equipment indicated other consignments had already reached Libya through Britain. The find is embarrassing for Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, who restored diplomatic ties with Libya in July after a 15-year break." ()

In addition, Russia keeps the kettle boiling by taking care of the maintenance on the 90 MIG-25 planes delivered to Libya by the Soviet Union years ago. Moreover, the Russians have entered into an agreement with Libya to supply them with its ultra-advanced S-300 air defense system. The Russians are also found all over the country, building oil and gas pipelines, electricity transmission lines and power stations. While these mixed signals must be terribly confusing to the Libyan people, they aren’t complaining, for their current population of 5 million people enjoys 7.2% annual economic growth rate, in spite of the sanctions that are still in force, the country has absolutely no unemployment.

The average annual wage in Libya is $7,000, which makes it far and away the highest in Africa. The Libyans have over 2 million Africans doing their bidding, so the Libyans are not required to do menial work anymore. "The leading groups among foreign workers are the 700,000 Egyptians working in the agriculture industry, followed by 300,000 Sudanese laborers and 250,000 Chadians. Others come from Niger, Togo, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Somalia, Kjibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Benin, Algeria and Tunisia." ()

Qadhafi who never wore his religion on his sleeve has suddenly become extremely religious in his old age. He walks around wearing traditional Islamic robes these days and organizes mass prayer session whenever he travels to another country. This has not gone without notice in the West, and it seems to run historically true to form that Qadhafi does nothing without a well thought out strategic plan. Washid Abdel-Meguid of the Al Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, an Egyptian think tank, said Colonel Qadhafi’s emphasis on Islam is a response to the opposition he faces at home from Muslim Militants. Raising religious slogans is the easiest thing a regime can resort to when it faces trouble,’ Mr. Abdel-Meguid said." ()

Libya remains alcohol free, and yet in its never-ending series of contradictions, almost all of the people have adopted Western dress codes. Libya’s fearless leader determined that he didn’t like the name of the month of February and renamed it "Lights", and August, you guessed it, it is now "Hannibal". However, Qadhafi is always messing with the Libyan calendar and when people get up in the morning, they are never sure whether they are going to wake up in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Effectively, Libya has three interchangeable years, the Muslim year, the Western year and the Qadhafi year. Qadhafi vacillates between various dates as though they had become hot potatoes. "…the leader switching from the standard Muslim calendar to one marking the years since Muhammad’s birth and then shifting to one marking his death. The rest of the Islamic world is in 1421, counting from the date the Prophet migrated from Mecca to Medina to found the faith…sometimes it seems that two Libya’s exist and rarely intersect." ()

Libya is constructing a world-class project in the middle of the dessert, but no one even knows what it really is. Some have said that, whatever it is, this project is the Eighth Wonder of the World. What is extraordinarily odd about this particular project is that it has been progressing for over 16 years, and yet it still seems to be a long way from completion.

Now, if you asked your neighbor if he ever heard of the Great Man-Made River Project in Libya, there is not much question that he will tell you, "No". This project has a price tag of $25 billion, and currently there are 12,000 foreign workers on the job from morning to night. One would think that some intelligence agency could figure out just what this project may be, but they haven’t yet told us.

Meanwhile, the Libyan’s say that they are constructing a 2,500-mile tunnel capable of carrying 7.4 million cubic yards of water a day that will stretch from Tunisia to Egypt. The Libyans say that this tunnel, which is 13 feet in diameter, is going to carry water that will make the entire Libyan Desert bloom. This in an area where the thermometer hits over 100 degrees on a cool day, and for most of the year, there is no rain at all. There is no question that Libya will eventually run out of oil, and if Colonel Mohammar Qadhafi has not found a replacement for oil revenues, or in lieu of that, put a lot of money away for a rainy day, Libya will become another place where a desert rules.

The pipe comes in sections 25 yards long, which are carried in massive trucks that seem to buckle under their enormous loads. The drilling rigs, suspended from six-story tall portable units, are capable of boring more that a quarter of a mile into the earth in their search for water. Every fifty or sixty miles, there is a break in the pipe where it flows into a massive water storage facility made of reinforced concrete, thus making it able to withstand almost any natural force. With a great deal of the infrastructure for the project already in place, one would think that the irrigation would have already begun, at least in selected spots. However, but that is not the case, making this project all the more mysterious.

In spite of Ronald Reagan having imposed a trade embargo against Libya forbidding U.S. companies or citizens from doing any business with Libya and provides for very substantial fines and long jail terms for anyone who does, American products appear everywhere in the country and American equipment is seen everywhere on the irrigation pipeline: Caterpillar Tractors, Cummings engines, Baker Hughes drilling bits, Dowell Schlumberger cementing units, Price Brothers pipe and Brown and Root brain power. So, what is really going on?

Big American Companies are not going to break the law, at least not if they thing they are going to be caught. There are ways around the Presidential Action, and for example, a subsidiary of an American company domiciled overseas could legally do the work without any particular concern. Tractors can be purchased by European companies and then legitimately resold to Libya, as the countries in Europe that are depended on Libyan oil have no such onerous restrictions.

Some who study this subject for a living contend that in dealing with Qadhafi, one is dealing with a paranoid personality who believes he will be attacked by almost anyone at almost time. We would counter that statement by saying that within the last year, Gandhi has been far more forthcoming, if only because of his surprising decision to turn over the suspects in the Lockerbie bombing to an internationally sanctioned court in the Netherlands.

Theories as to Qadhafi’s real motives in building his tunnel are legion. For example, people say that the diameter of the pipe is over twice that which would be necessary for an irrigation project. They wonder why the pipe hooks up to Libya’s chemical weapons facility located near a mountain called Tarhuna on the Mediterranean, and they cannot fathom why the chemical plant would need irrigation. They ask why the system has been so strongly reinforced, why it is big enough for tanks to roll through it and why is so deep that even some atomic weapons could not reach it, etc, etc. Military experts say that at the very least, it will give the Libyan military the ability to conceal their activities from satellite spy networks, or from just about anything else for that matter. Others say that the water storage facilities could be used to hold a company or more of troops and the food to feed them, along with the facilities to house them.

One of the most negative comments heard on the project comes from a world-class expert in the field, Paul Beaver, a reporter with Jane’s Defense Weekly, who said, "This is the first real evidence of something which has been suspected for several years. Qadhafi seems to have taken a leaf out of Kim IL Sung’s book and created a potential military arsenal underground." The fact that the general contractor on the job for the Libyan government is Dong Ah, a Korean company that has had numerous run-ins with the American government over illegally exporting items to Iran, makes a lot of people nervous. Dong Ah has already paid a $3 million fine for illegally exporting drilling equipment from the United States to Libya. They also bought anti-corrosive pipe chemicals in Texas for this project to be shipped to Libya, and they are under investigation for that matter, as well.

In the meantime, everyone who could be interviewed for information regarding Libya’s intent has been questioned, and there are few solid answers. For the moment, let us assume that Qadhafi has created a mixed-use pipeline that can be used for irrigation, along with the storage and transportation of war material and personnel. Whatever it is, it is certainly "the Mother of All Pipelines" and is large enough to hold two simultaneous titles, until we know better. It is the longest irrigation tunnel on the face of the earth, and it is the most expensive military installation ever created, or possibly neither.