[dcwusmc]

Your history is lacking, I fear.

Jefferson sent a naval squadron to Tripoli with a letter AND a ransom in 1801 but it was found by the time they arrived that the Pasha of Tripoli HAD ALREADY DECLARED WAR ON THE UNITED STATES. So what the Navy and Marines did, until they got Congressional approval, was to DEFEND THEMSELVES IN A WAR THAT WAS DECLARED ON THEM BY THE ENEMY.

Please, don’t try to distort history to a Marine who knows the history of his Corps. Won’t work.

[SJackson]

G-d Bless Lt. O’Bannon, Consul Eaton, the handful of Marines who served with them raising our Flag on a foreign shore for the first time (I’m sounding like a neocone here), as well as the hundreds of Arabs and Greeks who served with them. But if you know the history then you know Congress did NOT declare war. Deliberately. And they had four years from the Pasha’s declaration to the battle of Derna to do it. And the pirates were no threat to the continental US. Ron Paul would be dismayed by Eaton’s adventureism. You’re sounding like a neocon too.

[Kartographer]

Again I respectfully disagree, In 1801 the Bashaw Tripoli did order the cutting down the flag in front of the American Consulate, to which Jefferson answered by ordering Navy ships to the region. Jefferson did inform Congress, but Congress never voted on a formal declaration of war, they did authorize the President to instruct the commanders of armed vessels of the United States to seize ships and goods of the Bashaw, “and also to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will justify.” The next year Jefferson ordered a increase in the forces deployed there, which led to blockades of the pirates ports, but Congress never issued a formal declaration of war, just an authorization to use force.

So isn't that more or less the same leeway that Congress granted Bush in regards to Iraq?