Learning the Lesson of Islamist Appeasement: The Barbary Pirates
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Michael Weiss recounts the experience the Founding Fathers had with the Barbary Pirates in this PJM article. I'm sure most of you know the story of how the North African states extorted Western countries based upon Islamist principles, but it's important to remind ourselves that the Islamist war against the West (and everyone for that matter) is not a new one.
What I find interesting in the article is that in the early years of the Republic we actually did negotiate with the petty Islamist rulers of North Africa. In fact, one year we paid nearly 20% of the national budget as tribute in return for promises that US shipping would be left alone. The attacks didn't stop, of course. For as soon as we paid off one tyrant others demanded the same. Lesson learned?
Or Tehran, as the case may be.
Ya think Oliver Stone would make a movie about this?
Amazing how history repeats itself. But the real Americans, like Adams and Jefferson, unlike the FAUX AMERICANS that have infested Washington, knew that FREEDOM IS NOT FREE — IT MUST BE FOUGHT FOR, as our freedom was.
Appeasers are coming at us from every direction.
What I find interesting - and maybe one of your links mentions it - is that this episode puts the Treaty of Tripoli in context. This treaty is often cited by secularists as being a definitive statement about ‘separation of church and state” because it contains a passage that America is not founded on the Christian religion. No matter what influenced America’s founding, reliance on this passage in the treaty would be about as misplaced as citing a modern-day hostage video as proof of certain facts. The pirates were taking our sailors hostage and demanding tribute. The US was not the military might it is today. So a treaty was signed, which the pirates violated, causing the US to use force.
Far from conclusively proving America’s totally secular nature, it’s evidence that radicals in that hare of the world have been a problem for the US just about since its inception.
Congressman Billybob
I have posted a number of times on free republic concerning how the current war in Iraq has many parrallels to the Barbary Pirate Wars. Specifically that it was a war protecting our trade (free flow of oil), the Congress authorized the use of force against this confederation of states. Most importantly, it was conducted by a President who was a founding father (Jefferson) and many in the Congress were founders who signed the Constitution and voted on the BOR. This example clearly tells us that the majority of the founding fathers would not have had a problem with this current war. In fact, I think people like Jefferson would have seen the need for it.
Discussing the History of appeasement and the Barbary Pirates.
Thanks
Hitchens on Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_urbanities-thomas_jefferson.html
We went over there and kicked their butts.
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Thanks Ernest_at_the_Beach. This is an unusual ping, as the topic pertains to early America. |
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Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then serving as American ambassadors to France and Britain, respectively, met in 1786 in London with the Tripolitan Ambassador to Britain, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja. These future American presidents were attempting to negotiate a peace treaty which would spare the United States the ravages of jihad piracy—murder, enslavement (with ransoming for redemption), and expropriation of valuable commercial assets—emanating from the Barbary states (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, known collectively in Arabic as the Maghrib). During their discussions, they questioned Ambassador Adja as to the source of the unprovoked animus directed at the nascent United States republic. Jefferson and Adams, in their subsequent report to the Continental Congress, recorded the Tripolitan Ambassador’s justification:
Ping
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Given command of the brig Argus in 1803, he took it to the Mediterranean for service in the First Barbary War against Tripoli. Once in the combat zone, Lieutenant Decatur commanded the schooner Enterprise and, on 23 December 1803, captured the enemy ketch Mastico. That vessel, taken into the U.S. Navy under the name Intrepid, was used by Decatur on 16 February 1804 to execute a night raid into Tripoli harbor to destroy the former U.S. frigate Philadelphia, which had been captured after running aground at the end of October 1803. Admiral Lord Nelson is said to have called this "the most bold and daring act of the age".
This daring and extremely successful operation made Lieutenant Decatur an immediate national hero, a status that was enhanced by his courageous conduct during the 3 August 1804 bombardment of Tripoli. In that action, he led his men in hand-to-hand fighting while boarding and capturing an enemy gunboat. Decatur was subsequently promoted to the rank of Captain, and over the next eight years had command of several frigates.
Click here for more.
Random tidbit on the subject...The sword on the Marines’ uniforms is a representation of the sword presented to the US by Egypt as a gift for driving the Barbary Pirates out of the Mediterranean.