Miracles and Massacres by Glenn Beck Page B

alcohol , he thought to himself, but this Eaton fellow is making a lot of sense .
    Tripoli
    May 1, 1804
    William Ray awoke as he had every day for the last seven months: in hell. Damp clothes, a grumbling stomach, and a full day of backbreaking work were ahead. Ray had no way of knowing that this day was different. Help was finally on the way.
    Four days after the cheese party at the Capitol, President Jefferson had given William Eaton the title of “Agent of the United States Navy” and the promise of forty thousand dollars. His mission was to put Hamet Qaramanli on the Tripolitan throne.
    William Ray had never heard of William Eaton or Hamet Qaramanli. The only “Qaramanli” he knew was his captor and torturer: Yussef, the Pasha of Tripoli. Unaware that a rescue plan was in place, Ray and his fellow prisoners remained careful never to offend their guards.
    So far, they’d managed to escape the most extreme forms of torture. Simple beatings, however, were another matter. Today, for their captors’ amusement, one American slave had received the traditional Tripolitan beating: bastinados.
    Ray watched with resignation as the Marine was thrown onto his back, his feet tied and raised above his head so that he was hanging upside down. Then a slave master slammed a wooden rod into the soles of his feet as hard as he could. Then he did it again, and again and again.
    The slave cried out, but his pain only seemed to encourage them.
    Another blow came.
    And then another.
    And then two hundred more.
    How long , William Ray thought, will my country let us languish in this hell?
    Five hundred miles east of Derna
    Ten months later: March 12, 1805
    Five days earlier, William Eaton, Hamet Qaramanli, and their army of approximately four hundred Arabs, European mercenaries, and United States Marines had left Alexandria, Egypt. Their first mission was to march across the desert to the city of Derna, a coastal jewel in the Pasha’s crown located about four hundred miles to the east of the capital, Tripoli City. If they could capture Derna, they knew they would demonstrate their ability to capture the city of Tripoli itself. For that reason, and because Eaton had promised many of the Arabs in his army that they could make money by looting Derna, it was essential to take this city first.
    Derna was still five hundred miles away, but Eaton and his army were already in trouble. “Stop!” he yelled, “I will cut off the head of any man who dares to fire a shot!” Waving his scimitar above his head, Eaton found himself squarely in the middle of a closely packed mass of screaming, angry Christians and Muslims.
    Earlier that week, Eaton—who had started to call himself “General” Eaton even though no one in his chain of command had approved thepromotion—had lost an entire day trying to persuade his camel drivers, who continually asked for more money, to stay with the expedition. Without them there would be no way to bring along the food and supplies necessary to make the rest of the trip.
    Money, however, was becoming an issue. The self-proclaimed general had already pledged $100,000 to the ninety Tripolitans, sixty-three European soldiers of fortune, 250 Bedouin accompanying Hamet, eight leathernecks, and a lone navy midshipman on the journey. These promises more than doubled the budget President Jefferson had authorized, but Eaton was sure he could pay his bills once Derna and Tripoli were captured and looted.
    Today’s crisis began with a rumor that the citizens of Derna had rebelled against the Pasha and were waiting for Hamet to arrive and seize power. Excited by the news, Hamet’s Tripolitans fired their guns into the air in celebration. The Bedouin camel drivers, who lagged behind the rest of the group, heard the gunfire and assumed the makeshift army was under attack by other Bedouin. Rather than coming to their defense, the camel drivers rushed ahead, intending to grab a