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More than two centuries after they died off the coast of present-day Libya, the remains of the first 13 Navy commandos in U.S. history — in the words of one supporter, the “earliest Navy SEALs” — are one step closer to coming home after the U.S. House voted last week to insist the Pentagon get them back. Brushing off prior opposition from the Pentagon, House lawmakers attached the directive to the annual defense policy bill that cleared the chamber on Thursday, with backers saying it was time to honor the daring men as fallen heroes. “The United States has an...

While doing the MSM circuit this week, American University professor Akbar Ahmed told some whoppers about Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin Akbar Ahmed, the chair of Islamic studies at American University, has advised many government officials, including General Petraeus, Richard Holbrooke, and George W. Bush. He speaks regularly on BBC and CNN, and has appeared on many U.S. shows, including Oprah and Nightline.To oppose the “burn the Quran� event planned by Pastor Terry Jones, Ahmed wrote an editorial for CNN in which he stated: Not only are the actions of Jones contrary to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, but...

America’s Barbaric History Malcolm A. Kline, April 28, 2010 Those politicians and pedagogues who agitate for slavery reparations in the United States should consider what would happen if the descendants of slaves around the world sought the same from the countries in which their ancestors were enslaved. “Just as Europeans enslaved Africans, North Africans enslaved Europeans—more Europeans than there were Africans enslaved in the United States and in the 13 colonies from which it was formed,” economist Thomas Sowell writes. “The treatment of white galley slaves was even worse than the treatment of black slaves picking cotton.” “But there are...

Law Of The Sea: The U.S. seeks U.N. authorization to fight Somali pirates from the air, on land and at sea. When American cruise ships become targets, maybe it's time to renew a proud tradition: Send in the Marines.On Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice formally presented to a special U.N. session on Somalia a draft Security Council resolution saying that member states fighting against piracy "may take all necessary measures ashore in Somalia, including its airspace, to interdict those who are using Somali territory to plan, facilitate or undertake acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea and to...

n American skipper in the hands of seafaring rogues. Some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes under attack.

The opening stanza of the Marine Corps hymn is: "From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea." The "Halls of Montezuma" refers to the assault on Chapultepec Castle during the Mexican War, which was led by the small Marine contingent in Gen. Winfield Scott's army. Ninety percent of the officers and NCOs who led the assault were killed. The red stripe on the dress uniform trousers of Marine officers is in commemoration of the blood their predecessors shed that day. (For those who love historical coincidences,...

U.S. been fighting Islamic fundamentalism since colonial era April 10, 2009 By Bryan Fischer As we watch the Somali pirate incident unfold in the Middle East, it serves as a reminder that, besides 9/11, Islam has had one other shaping influence on the history of the United States: we have a navy, thanks to the sea-going Islamic thugs of Thomas Jefferson's day, the Barbary Pirates. Even prior to our Declaration of Independence in 1776, Islamists under the control of an Ottoman warlord in Algiers were pirating American ships and enslaving their Christian crews. Thus our forefathers had early experience with...

Somalia Standoff Generates US Policy Debate Voice of America - ‎Apr 10, 2009‎US officials said the group, which controls parts of Somalia, poses a dilemma. They point to its rapid expansion, ties between its leaders and the al-Qaida ...http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-04-11-voa12.cfm   The Pirates Challenge Obama's Pre-9/11 Mentality Wall Street Journal - ‎Apr 10, 2009‎As the eminent military historian Sir Michael Howard argued shortly after 9/11, the status of al Qaeda terrorists is to be found in a distinction first made ...http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123940383654409651.html   Somali Pirates Tied to Jihad Intellectual Conservative - ‎Apr 8, 2009‎Since 2003, Somalia has witnessed the growth of a...

April 10, 2009 U.S. has been fighting Islamic fundamentalism since colonial eraBy Bryan Fischer As we watch the Somali pirate incident unfold in the Middle East, it serves as a reminder that, besides 9/11, Islam has had one other shaping influence on the history of the United States: we have a navy, thanks to the sea-going Islamic thugs of Thomas Jefferson's day, the Barbary Pirates. Even prior to our Declaration of Independence in 1776, Islamists under the control of an Ottoman warlord in Algiers were pirating American ships and enslaving their Christian crews. Thus our forefathers had early experience with...

For young Somalis, piracy offers power, prosperity The Associated Press There are several known pirate groups in Somalia. One is based in the southern port town of Kismayo, which is controlled by Islamic insurgents. ... http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iR9XICoYi0CQt77GJUw5lNAPpG_AD97EGS200 Hot Air » Blog Archive » Somali pirates seize American ship, crew ... by Ed Morrissey Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates …one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping ... So here was an early instance...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Pirates and the United States have a long history. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. When the infant country declared independence it had no navy, so battling Britain at sea was a problem. The time-honored solution: Hire private warriors — known as privateers to some, pirates to others — to do the fighting.

Well, what do you know. The original Star Spangled Banner was about victory in the War against the Barbary Pirates (read Muslims). From Her Royal Whyness: Earlier today, I viewed a video lecture (also forwarded link to you - subject: Arabs and Zionists' tug-og-war over America since 1776 - Professor Michael Oren video)given by historian and author Dr. Michael Oren, here . Quote from the end of the lecture (he's a real tease, that one) : "Why the original lyrics of the 'Star Spangled Banner' talked about Muslims bowing down to the victorious flag of the United States." Well, it...

In light of the ongoing naval battles with Muslim pirates operating from Somalia.... America has been fighting Islamists for longer than many realize. Even before independence was declared, American ships were pirated, and their Christian crews enslaved, by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the “Dey of Algiers”—an Ottoman Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.... Lacking the ability to project U.S. naval force in the Mediterranean, America tried appeasement. In 1784, Congress agreed to fund tributes and ransoms in order to rescue U.S. ships and buy the freedom of enslaved American sailors....

'Pirates of Penzance' redo? James Zumwalt Thursday, October 2, 2008 Soon after winning independence from England, the United States faced another war. Muslim pirates operating off North Africa's Barbary Coast were seizing U.S., as well as European, ships sailing in international waters, holding them for tribute payment or plunder. In 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, meeting in London with Tripoli's Muslim ambassador to Britain, inquired as to the reason for such Arab hostility. Acknowledging their attacks were unprovoked, the Tripoli ambassador explained it was their right and duty under the Koran as faithful Muslim followers to plunder and enslave...

The Wars of the Barbary PiratesEssential Histories #66Osprey Introduction Most Americans are unaware that, as a young republic, their nation fought a war with the Barbary pirates, the North African corsairs who plied the waters of the Mediterranean at the turn of the 19th century in search of ships to loot and men to enslave. This is perhaps not surprising, for the wars were conducted on a small scale, over a short period of time, and at a considerable distance from American shores. They were, moreover, the product of one of the most inglorious – even degrading – episodes in...

Electric fencing, sonic guns and even armed mercenaries are being offered as the first line of defence for ships at risk in pirate-infested waters. The world of private security and mercenary soldiers has been put on alert this week by the seizure of the supertanker Sirius Star. The tanker industry, however, is resisting any introduction of weaponry on vessels that are little more than floating petrol bombs. Frontline, a leading owner of oil tankers, has called for a multinational force to be sent to the Gulf of Aden to protect the access route to the Suez Canal. Fleet owners want...

Most Americans remain utterly ignorant of this nation’s first foreign war but that exotic, long-ago struggle set the pattern for nearly all the many distant conflicts that followed. Refusal to confront the lessons of the First Barbary War (1801-1805) has led to some of the silliest arguments concerning Iraq and Afghanistan, and any effort to apply traditional American values to our future foreign policy requires an understanding of this all-but-forgotten episode from our past. The war against the Barbary States of North Africa (Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli—today’s Libya) involved commitment and sacrifice far from home and in no way involved...

Back in 1784, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had to decide whether to appease or stand up to armed Middle Eastern pirates. Sound familiar? John McCain and Barack Obama are now engaged in a long-distance dispute over whether talking to America’s enemies is integral to America’s security (with neither one wishing to talk to poor Hillary Clinton any longer). McCain has not so subtly assailed Obama as an “appeaser” for his stated willingness to sit down with the Iranian leadership about its nuclear weapons program and sponsorship of jihadism in Iraq — and never mind for now if that leadership...

As noted in Cliff's post yesterday (relying on a Bill Gertz report in the Washington Times), the Pentagon has sacked an authentic, influential scholar of Islam, Stephen Coughlin, who evidently refused to lie about — er, I mean, "soften his views on" — Islamic extremism (which, like it or not, is rooted in Islamic scripture) at the insistence of one Hasham Islam, Army Chief Gordon England's Islamophilic factotum (one of countless such creatures now pervading the federal government). For more on this, check out this post on the new website of Andrew Bostom, another scholar of Islam. Andy knows Coughlin...

Nothing New Under The SunYears before 9/11, we tragically forgot these and other similar history lessons, dropping our guard to a monumentally shocking end. When 3,000 innocent American citizens were brutally murdered by parasitic pirate counterparts, we were delivered a devastating wakeup call. We relearned the same lessons from the Barbary Powers Conflict: that despite negotiations and even bribes, Muslim extremists are still engaged with America in a jihad or holy war. Islamo-facism continues to seek to rob us of our liberties, cripple us by fear and destroy our country. Proof is found by simply asking how many of us...

Ruthless, unconventional foes are not new to the United States of America. More than two hundred years ago the newly established United States made its first attempt to fight an overseas battle to protect its private citizens by building an international coalition against an unconventional enemy. Then the enemies were pirates and piracy. The focus of the United States and a proposed international coalition was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa. Pirate ships and crews from the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast) were the scourge of the Mediterranean. Capturing merchant ships and holding...

America’s first confrontation with the Islamic world helped forge a new nation’s character. When I first began to plan my short biography of Thomas Jefferson, I found it difficult to research the chapter concerning the so-called Barbary Wars: an event or series of events that had seemingly receded over the lost horizon of American history. Henry Adams, in his discussion of our third president, had some boyhood reminiscences of the widespread hero-worship of naval officer Stephen Decatur, and other fragments and shards showed up in other quarries, but a sound general history of the subject was hard to come by....

I’m had as hell, and I want to state some truths about the war against Islamo-fascists. The first truth about the war is that we ARE at war. Days after the attacks of 9/11 Congress folded a Joint Resolution into the Patriot Act. In that Resolution, and again a year later, Congress gave President Bush the authority to “use all necessary military force” against the “terrorists, and nations which harbor them.” Those who’ve done their homework, know that Congress used almost identical language now, as Congress used in 1805 for President Jefferson to go after the Barbary Pirates. That was...

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...

Most Americans probably think the Islamic terrorists declared war on the United States Sept. 11, 2001. Actually, it started a long time before – right from the birth of the nation. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were commissioned by the first Congress to assemble in Paris to see about marketing U.S. products in Europe. Jefferson quickly surmised that the biggest challenge facing U.S. merchant ships were those referred to euphemistically as "Barbary pirates." They weren't "pirates" at all, in the traditional sense, Jefferson noticed. They didn't drink and chase women and they really weren't out to...

There are two, regular participants on Fox News who are so predictable and strident in public lying to push their political issues that the instant they appear I now hit the channel change button. I won’t name them. I’m sure all readers have their own list of talking heads on TV who are so dishonest, so obnoxious, you have the same reaction to them – turn them off immediately. Last weekend saw “Spamalot!” on Broadway. Thinking about it afterward, I realized that lyrics from one of the greatest musicals ever, explained what is happening among the talking heads recruited from...

Thomas Jefferson faced a lingering foreign crisis early in his administration. For more than twenty years, he had been urging military action against Arab corsairs on the Barbary coast. These were fast, cheap warships that preyed upon merchant shipping along the northern shore of Africa. Various Arab rulers there would regularly declare war against European countries and then begin seizing their ships and men. The captured crews would be held for ransom or sold in the market as slaves. “Christians are cheap today!” was the auctioneer’s cry. This practice had been going on for centuries.As many as a million and...

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/hl940.cfm Victory in Tripoli: Lessons for the War on Terrorism by Joshua E. London May 4, 2006 Heritage Lecture #940 Over two centuries ago, the United States was dragged into the affairs of the Islamic world by an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim pirates, the terrorists of the era. These pirates preyed on unsuspecting trade ships. The hulk­ing merchant vessels of the period were no match for the Muslim pirate ships, which were built for speed and lightning strikes. It was simply a fact of life that— over the centuries—took its toll on countless mer­chant ships...

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...

Jihad in the days of Jefferson By Erik Schechter, The Jerusalem Post Apr. 26, 2006 Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation By Joshua E. London John Wiley & Sons 276pp., $24.95 A fledgling republic without a navy, the United States seemed ripe for the picking. In 1783, Muslim pirates - the sea-faring terrorists of their day - began attacking American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean, and the following year, the Moroccans captured a brig called Betsey and enslaved its crew. Soon afterwards, the ruler of Algiers declared war...

In 1815, Washington was in ruins: the White House and Capitol building burned and sacked by the British, the national treasury depleted, the U.S. bruised and battered (but not defeated) by the War of 1812. President James Madison called the Congress to its make-shift chamber at the Post Office Building and asked for something extraordinary: a declaration of war against a state thousands of miles away.What followed was the U.S.'s first war on terror. This little conflict is now largely forgotten, but it had great and lasting consequences, establishing the U.S. as a global naval power and ending more than...

What We Have Been Told About the Declaration Of War On The Barbary Pirates Appears To Be Wrong One of the more frustrating debates about this “war on terrorism” being discussed on the forum has been the legitimacy of Bush’s recent actions in light of the fact that Congress has not formally issued a “Declaration of War”. It is argued by a large contingent of libertarians and paleo-conservatives that all military actions and presidential powers exercised as the Commander in Chief in war time require this formal declaration by Congress to meet Constitutional muster. The other side, the “Bushies” for ...

America’s Earliest Terrorists: Lessons from America’s first war against Islamic terror. By Joshua E. London (author of "Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation," John Wiley & Sons, September 2005, http://www.victoryintripoli.com/ ) At the dawn of a new century, a newly elected United States president was forced to confront a grave threat to the nation — an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim terrorists. Worse still, these Islamic partisans operated under the protection and sponsorship of rogue Arab states ruled by ruthless and cunning dictators. Sluggish...

Lessons from America’s first war against Islamic terror. At the dawn of a new century, a newly elected United States president was forced to confront a grave threat to the nation — an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim terrorists. Worse still, these Islamic partisans operated under the protection and sponsorship of rogue Arab states ruled by ruthless and cunning dictators. Sluggish in recognizing the full nature of the threat, America entered the war well after the enemy’s call to arms. Poorly planned and feebly executed, the American effort proceeded badly and at great expense — resulting...

America’s Earliest Terrorists Lessons from America’s first war against Islamic terror. By Joshua E. London At the dawn of a new century, a newly elected United States president was forced to confront a grave threat to the nation — an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim terrorists. Worse still, these Islamic partisans operated under the protection and sponsorship of rogue Arab states ruled by ruthless and cunning dictators. Sluggish in recognizing the full nature of the threat, America entered the war well after the enemy’s call to arms. Poorly planned and feebly executed, the American effort proceeded...

MIAMI (AP) - Pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade and machine guns Saturday in an attack on a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast, the vessel's owners said. Two armed boats approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia and fired as the boats' occupants attempted to get onboard, said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp. The crew initiated a trained response and avoided being boarded, Good said. The ship outran them and changed its course. "Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft," Good...

Religiously motivated terrorism against America isn't new — in fact, it dates back hundreds of years. By Chris Jeub It may seem like the terrorist war against the United States is only a few weeks old, but radical Muslims’ hatred of our nation dates back centuries. In fact, it’s not the first time America has faced adversaries who were individual renegades instead of allied nations. President Thomas Jefferson, for instance, faced threats from Islamic pirates who lived along Africa’s northern coast and daily terrorized European ships. When America won its independence, it too became a target for pirates — and...

Barbary Glory, Barbary Shame By Barr Seitz Two hundred years ago, seven U.S. Marines at the head of a ragtag army of European and Arab mercenaries set out on an extraordinary mission to free 300 U.S. hostages and end America's first foreign war. To do that, they first had to march almost 600 miles across the Barbary deserts of North Africa to what is the eastern part of modern-day Libya. Those were long odds for an untested Christian-Muslim army whose soldiers were as likely to kill each other as the enemy. Tripolitan War The desert expedition was a quixotic chapter...

KUALA LUMPUR - Foreign powers must not dictate how Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia protect the Strait of Malacca shipping lanes from threats of piracy and terrorism, Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday. 'The Strait of Malacca is ours to protect and preserve,' said Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who is also Defence Minister, at a conference on improving security in the pirate-infested waters. 'There are those who forget that the countries bordering the Strait of Malacca - each of them sovereign nations in their own right - have the ultimate say over the protection and preservation of the strait,' he said....

Professor John Lewis Gaddis’ recent provocative analysis of the origins of “unilateralism” in American foreign policy highlights the pivotal role of John Quincy Adams.... (snip) John Quincy Adams possessed a remarkably clear, uncompromised understanding of the permanent Islamic institutions of jihad war and dhimmitude. Regarding jihad, Adams states in his essay series, “…he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind…The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God.” ... (snip) (Adams) Remonstrating Against the Moral Equivalence of Britain and...

Mr. Williams is a student at the University of Washington and an intern at HNN. Though a definite link has yet to be established (or publicized), it becomes more apparent with each passing day that the acts of terror on September 11 were undertaken by individuals belonging to or associated with the Al-Qaida organization. While the group has ties to the Taliban, the current ruling faction in Afghanistan, neither can really be considered a government, making war with either an unconventional one. Yet the United States is hardly unused to combating unconventional foes. While the Vietnam War and the "War...

NEW YORK -- They stood on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, looking west to Manhattan, toward the fires that had turned the horizon a bright orange that rose to great heights against a perfect, pitiless blue sky. Observing this terrible beauty, the residents of the neighborhood danced in the streets, laughing, shouting to each other, shaking hands. These people were not what one would suppose to be fanatical or militant Muslims. They were people who had come to these shores from the Middle East, mostly shopkeepers, bakers, purveyors of eastern spices, tradesmen, cab drivers...

This week we formally dedicated the World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. The center of the Memorial is a reflecting pool in front of a curved wall on which there are 4,050 golden stars, each of them representing one hundred Americans who gave the last full measure of devotion in that conflict. This was the long-delayed memorial for the 16 million Americans who served in that conflict, only a quarter of whom are still alive. A substantial number of those were in attendance at the dedication. Of course, World War II was not the war in...

Ruthless, unconventional foes are not new to the United States of America. More than two hundred years ago the newly established United States made its first attempt to fight an overseas battle to protect its private citizens by building an international coalition against an unconventional enemy. Then the enemies were pirates and piracy. The focus of the United States and a proposed international coalition was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa. Pirate ships and crews from the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast) were the scourge of the Mediterranean. Capturing merchant ships and holding...

What was the first war fought by the United States of America? Given the sorry condition of public education, many Americans today would have no idea which war our current Republic fought first. The real fighting began in this war early in 1804, two hundred years ago. Sad, because this war is probably the best example of how different America and Europe approach terrorism. The Barbary Pirates, like al-Qaida, were organized terrorists; they, like al-Qaida, were Moslems who originally began their terrorism as part of a general religious war against Christians; they, like many of the Islamic terrorists today, operated...

Most Americans probably think the Islamic terrorists declared war on the United States Sept. 11, 2001. Actually, it started a long time before – right from the birth of the nation. When George Washington was serving as president in 1784, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were commissioned by the first Congress to assemble in Paris to see about marketing U.S. products in Europe. Jefferson quickly surmised that the biggest challenge facing U.S. merchant ships were those referred to euphemistically as "Barbary pirates." They weren't "pirates" at all, in the traditional sense, Jefferson noticed. They didn't drink and chase...

We went to see The Passion of the Christ this week. I leave discussions of the theology of the movie to others. This is about the brutality shown. And about man’s inhumanity to man, then and now. There are lessons for Iraq policy today in the ancient images from that movie. First we cover the history of flogging and crucifixion in the Roman Empire. Flogging consisted normally of forty lashes. It was a severe but limited penalty, mostly in the Roman Army. It was used in the same way under the British Admiralty Rules in the 18th Century. The purpose...

  ...MUSLIMS (surprise!) "Peace Through The Medium Of War" Muslim pirates operating in the Mediterranean from Tripoli, Morroco, Tunisia and Algeria (the Barbary States) had been terrorizing European and early American merchant ships for hundreds of years. They attacked and pillaged any and all ships along trade routes, stole all cargos and held crews hostage for ransom which, if not paid, resulted in the crews being sold into slavery. European states got so accustomed to these attacks that they actually paid regular "tributes" which were in effect blackmail "pre-ransom monies" to avoid having the crews of their ships seized. European...

JERUSALEM — Muslim militants, evoking a jihadist pretext and backed by rogue states, are attacking vital Western interests. The president of the United States fails to convince Europe to join a coalition to confront the aggressors. No, this is not President Bush versus Saddam Hussein, but Thomas Jefferson versus the Barbary pirates of North Africa, who were plundering Western ships and enslaving their crews. When Jefferson proposed creating a multilateral force to stop the pirates, Europe went on bribing them. "This is money thrown away," Jefferson concluded, before ordering the Navy into action. On Aug. 1, 1801, the first American...

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