Free Republic

Across eastern Libya, rebel fighters and their supporters are detaining, intimidating and frequently beating African immigrants and black Libyans, accusing them of fighting as mercenaries on behalf of Kadafi, witnesses and human rights workers say. In a few instances, rebels have executed suspected mercenaries captured in battle, according to Human Rights Watch and local Libyans. The rebel-led provisional government in Benghazi denies mistreating suspected mercenaries, though it acknowledges that it is detaining some for questioning. It says it has given human rights representatives access to detainees. But rebel fighters and bands of gunmen who looted government weapons depots are reportedly...

The Barbary pirates of North Africa attacked the coastal northern Mediterranean launching attacks against Britain, France, Italy and Sicily. In their feverish search for slaves a few pirates even went as far as the coast of Iceland, raiding inland to kidnap people and bring them back to North Africa. From the 1500s to the 1800s it is estimated that one million white Europeans, to include those captured at sea as well as through land raids abroad were enslaved. Many of these were Americans captured at sea.

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS BIRTHDAY On November 10th, The United States Marine Corps Birthday commemorates the establishment of the Continental Marines. #MarineCorpsBirthday The United States Marine Corps, a branch of the United States Armed Forces, is responsible for providing power protection from the sea. They use the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. The Continental Congress first established the Continental Marines on November 10, 1775, leading up to the American Revolution. Two battalions of Marines fought for independence both on land and at sea. The birth of the U.S. Marine Corps began as a...

Summary: As soon as it became an independent nation, the US faced an "unconventional enemy" in the Barbary Pirates who had controlled the Mediterranean Sea for hundreds of years. Presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all exercised their power as Commander in Chief in various ways to deal with the threat posed by the pirates before Madison was eventually able to declare victory against them.Narrative: It was the end of the eighteenth century, and for hundreds of years, pirates from the Islamic countries on the coast of North Africa had controlled the Mediterranean Sea. They plundered...

This past week, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad was the latest victim of the West’s cancel culture, as she was disinvited from a book event by Canada’s Toronto District School Board. Alongside colonialism, imperialism, and nation-building, “cancel culture” is the latest of toxic Western ideas to be foisted upon the Middle East. This past week, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad was the latest victim of the West’s cancel culture, as she was disinvited from a book event by Canada’s Toronto District School Board. This may sound trivial, but it’s a big deal. Murad is a member...

Exactly 234 years ago this week, two of America’s founding fathers documented their first exposure to Islamic jihad in a letter to Congress; like many Americans today, they too were shocked at what they learned. Context: in 1785, Muslim pirates from North Africa, or “Barbary,” had captured two American ships, the Maria and Dauphin, and enslaved their crews. In an effort to ransom the enslaved Americans and establish peaceful relations, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams—then ambassadors to France and Britain respectively—met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain, Abdul Rahman Adja. Following this diplomatic exchange, the Americans laid out the source of...

Rep. Rashida Tlaib appears to have allowed the media to think that the radical Muslim would be sworn in to office on a copy of "Thomas Jefferson's Koran". The media had previously found Thomas Jefferson's Koran to be a very useful propaganda stunt for making it appear that Islam is as America as... Thomas Jefferson. But then Rep. Rashida Tlaib announced that she hadn't actually used Jefferson's Koran, but an actual Koran. Despite her announcement, many media outlets didn't bother correcting their fake news. But that's typical of the media, which acts as the communications arm for the most radical...

Editor’s note: The following account is partially excerpted from the author’s new book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (with a foreword by Victor Davis Hanson). ---------------- Many Americans erroneously trace the roots of Islamic terrorism against their nation to September 11, 2001. In reality, the United States’ very first conflict with Muslim terrorists was also its very first war as a nation -- and it won that war 213 years ago, on June 10, 1805. Centuries before that, the Barbary States of Muslim North Africa -- specifically Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis -- had been...

Spain laid claim to the Island of Jamaica from the time Columbus landed there in 1494. In 1503, Columbus was shipwrecked there for a year. In 1655, Jamaica was captured by British Admiral William Penn, the father of Pennsylvania’s founder. Jamaica was too far from England to defend, so the inhabitants turned to privateers, freebooters, buccaneers and pirates for protection. The likes of Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Captain Henry Morgan, namesake of the rum, attacked Spanish ships and settlements, then returned to Jamaica with their booty. The skull pirate flag, called the “Jolly Roger,” was adapted from the flag of...

Spain laid claim to the Island of Jamaica from the time Columbus landed there in 1494. In 1503, Columbus was shipwrecked there for a year. In 1655, Jamaica was captured by British Admiral William Penn, the father of Pennsylvania's founder. Jamaica was too far from England to defend, so the inhabitants turned to privateers, freebooters, buccaneers and pirates for protection. The likes of Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Captain Henry Morgan, namesake of the rum, attacked Spanish ships and settlements, then returned to Jamaica with their booty. The skull pirate flag, called the "Jolly Roger," was adapted from the flag of...

Today we celebrate President's Day, a day in which Americans are expected to look back and honor our founding fathers and their contributions to our Nation's proud history. The words and writings of our founding fathers offer us wisdom and insight that stretches across the ages. The ideas about freedom and liberty that they wrote about and fought for are still serving America today. The system of government that they envisioned and set up for us continues to persevere, has brought great prosperity to the people residing in the United States. Through the centuries, millions of brave troops have risked...

Thomas Jefferson’s response to Muslims in 1801 is more important today than ever. America’s first war with Islamic terrorists should be remembered. From Wikipedia: The First Barbary War (1801–1805) also known as the Tripolitan War or the Barbary Coast War, was the first of two wars fought between the United States and the Northwest African Berber Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the Ottoman provinces of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis, which were enjoying a large autonomy, as well as the independent Sultanate of Morocco. The war was fought because U.S. President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay...

I watched this cable channel program yesterday. Somehow I do not recall my history teachers, teaching about the Muslim hatred for Chistians. But then again I went to public schools. "The hundred and nine men, women and children abducted by Murat Reis were at sea for nearly forty days. GERALD O’BRIAN "They left Baltimore 4pm on June 20th 1631 and they arrived in Algiers on July 28th 1631, and as far as we know, everybody survived the crossing." Some would wish they were no longer alive. For them the harbour entrance of Sale was the gate to a world of...

Was and is the 1797 Treaty with Tripoli an official treaty of the USA? Yes, all 12 articles as printed in English. See Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America , Hunter Miller,ed., 2:349-385:“Treaty of Peace and Friendship, signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796,. . . and at Algiers January 3, 1797, . . . . Original in Arabic. Submitted [in English] to the Senate May 29, 1797. (Message of May 26, 1797.) Resolution of advice and consent June 7, 1797. Ratified by the United States June 10, 1797. . . . Proclaimed June 10, 1797”...

Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, was sworn in this afternoon, holding his left hand on a leather-bound volume of a Qur'an that was once owned by Thomas Jefferson. In a day of firsts, Ellison was sworn in by Nancy Pelosi of California, the first woman House speaker. Ellison held his right hand in the air, placed his left hand on two brown leather-bound volumes of the Qur'an, which were held aloft by his wife, Kim. The historic moment was played out in wood-paneled chamber of the Capitol before hundreds of journalists from around the world, including Al...

The security situation in the Mediterranean will continue to deteriorate to the point where we can expect Islamist raids on European islands, a recently retired Royal Navy Admiral has told Breitbart London. [snip] Rear Admiral Chris Parry CBE, the straight-talking former Director General of the Ministry of Defence Development, Concepts, and Doctrine Centre, ... made the comments in an interview this week as European nations gathered to discuss the sudden migrant crisis gripping the Mediterranean. THE THREAT OF ISLAM Parry, who warned in a government paper in 1990 that Islam would replace Communism as the main threat against the West...

Thomas Jefferson, Patron Saint of American Liberals, would not recognize his spiritual offspring in today’s liberal President Obama and his handling of the Middle East. Jefferson, as a trade commissioner and then ambassador in Paris for six years (1784-90), faced almost daily the tragedy of American hostages enslaved by violent Muslims and his own frustrating inability to liberate them. However, what he learned served him well as the leading hawk for war a decade later when he became president and went to war against belligerent Islam.

Subject: Why the Marine Hymn Contain Shores of Tripoli"... Interesting bit of history. This may be one of the more informative history lessons you ever read. Why the Marine Hymn Contains the Verse "To the Shores of Tripoli" Most Americans are unaware of the fact that over two hundred years ago the United States had declared war on Islam and Thomas Jefferson led the charge! At the height of the eighteenth century, Muslim pirates were the terror of the Mediterranean and a large area of the North Atlantic. They attacked every ship in sight, and held the crews for exorbitant...

Obama should really pick up a history book sometime, and read about how one of his predecessors, and one of our nation’s Founding Fathers, handled the threat posed by radical Islamic jihadists, way back in 1801. (Read about how Thomas Jefferson responded to radical Islamic kidnappings, beheadings, and extortion)