"Over 200 years ago, the United States had declared war on Islam, and Thomas Jefferson led the char

[rangerrebew]

 
"Over 200 years ago, the United States had declared war on Islam, and Thomas Jefferson led the charge!"
 
In Barbary wars, did U.S. declare 'war on Islam'?

By Louis Jacobson on Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 at 4:45 p.m.


Ask most Americans about the details of the Barbary wars, and you’re likely to get blank stares. But the obscure, early 19th century wars between the newly established United States and a group of north African powers has become evidence for a chain email that lectures about the present-day dangers of radical Islam.

Here are excerpts from the chain email.

"Most Americans are unaware of the fact that over 200 years ago, the United States had declared war on Islam, and Thomas Jefferson led the charge!

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/feb/11/chain-email/barbary-wars-did-us-declare-war-islam/

[Dexter]

We have the most powerful military the world has ever seen. Islamic extremists don't have an air force or a navy. No amount of foreign conflict will remove the possibility that some lunatic might blow themselves up and harm some Americans, but outside of those types of cowardly sneak attacks the extremists have nothing. They will never be an existential threat to our way of life. We're stronger than they are, a lot stronger.

[aligncare]

We have the most powerful military the world has ever seen. Islamic extremists don't have an air force or a navy. No amount of foreign conflict will remove the possibility that some lunatic might blow themselves up and harm some Americans, but outside of those types of cowardly sneak attacks the extremists have nothing. They will never be an existential threat to our way of life. We're stronger than they are, a lot stronger.

I agree with your basic premise @Dexter

However, that’s not the salient point about dealing with Mideast crazies. Extremists must be made to fear retribution for killing innocents and expect the certainty of preemptive military action.

Radical Islam may not be an existential threat to America and the west, but that brings little comfort to the innocent victims and families of senseless Religious or Political violence. There must be a price to pay.

[Dexter]

I agree with your basic premise @Dexter

However, that’s not the salient point about dealing with Mideast crazies. Extremists must be made to fear retribution from the civilized West for killing innocents, even fear the likelihood of preemptive military action.

Radical Islam may not be an existential threat to America and the west, but that brings little comfort to the innocent victims and families of senseless Religious or Political violence. There must be a price to pay.

We've lost a lot more Americans to war in the Middle East than we lost on 9/11, not to mention the many tens of thousands of innocent victims in the Middle East. Was all of that blood worth whatever we accomplished?

[aligncare]

We've lost a lot more Americans to war in the Middle East than we lost on 9/11, not to mention the many tens of thousands of innocent victims in the Middle East. Was all of that blood worth whatever we accomplished?

There’s a difference between nation building and a surgical strike. Unless you think more talks could stop Islamic terrorism. Keep in mind these are by and large, radicalized splinter Islamists, who will never sit at conference table.

Nation building was W’s biggest foreign policy blunder. George HW and the Gulf War, on the other hand had it about right. Although an argument against our involvement could be made on many grounds.

[The_Reader_David]

Poltifact's judgement is correct from an American point of view, and incorrect from an Islamic point of view.  The Barbary pirates were engaged in a particular form of jihad (there is an Arabic phrase which I forget that is usually rendered in English as "jihad on the sea" that describes their activities), and they were loyal subjects of the Caliph (= Ottoman Sultan at that time).  To be at war with them, under Sunni Islamic law, was to be at war with the entire Islamic ummah.  The Congress of the United States and President Jefferson, of course, regarded themselves as being at war with the Bey of Tripoli and his adherents (the pirates) only, and did not see the matter as a war of religion.

[Fishrrman]

Dexter wrote:
"No amount of foreign conflict will remove the possibility that some lunatic might blow themselves up and harm some Americans, but outside of those types of cowardly sneak attacks the extremists have nothing. They will never be an existential threat to our way of life. We're stronger than they are, a lot stronger."

That philosophy is sure workin' great over in Western Europe, eh....?

[thackney]

We've lost a lot more Americans to war in the Middle East than we lost on 9/11, not to mention the many tens of thousands of innocent victims in the Middle East. Was all of that blood worth whatever we accomplished?

Do you honestly believe 9/11 was going to be only once and nothing again without a response from us?

What if they repeated a 9/11 sized event every month?

[Dexter]

Do you honestly believe 9/11 was going to be only once and nothing again without a response from us?

What if they repeated a 9/11 sized event every month?

Dropping bombs on the Middle East doesn't make us safer from terrorism in my opinion. There is no organized threat for us to attack. These terrorists work alone or in small groups that are very hard to track.

[the_doc]

There is no organized threat for us to attack. These terrorists work alone or in small groups that are very hard to track.

That certainly makes our struggle all the more difficult, but not less necessary.  Guerrilla warfare in the United States could destroy us--certainly would destroy us under the wrong President.  That was a major part of the Obama/HRC plan, in my opinion.

We needed to use the bombs and everything else we could throw at the Sunnis to destroy the Iraq-Syria Caliphate before it expanded to include the entire Levant.  That was/is a territorially significant concentration of their power, and Trump has rightly made it his (publicly conspicuous) first-things-first priority to destroy it.  A massive defeat like the defeat of ISIS probably will cause an uptick in Radical Muslimist recruitment, but a few more such massive defeats will cause jihadi recruitments to fall off. 

Iran is another problem:  NUKES and ICBMs.  That is a very serious problem.  Bombing the Iranian goverment into the Stone Age will not curry favor with diehard Shia Muslims, but we have to keep that strategy on the table, because Iran is already well down the road to becoming the quick-acting existential threat against America that you weren't even bringing up.  Trump puts Iran in the same category as North Korea:  We have to find a way to force them out of the Nuclear Club--or maybe even blow them out of it.  And Trump is probably not telling us everything he is already doing to de-fang Iran.   

[Absalom]

The Barbary Corsairs were concentrated in Algiers, Rabat and Tripoli,
raiding merchant vessels primarily in the Western Mediterranean.
Jefferson did NOT declare war on Islam!!!

[the_doc]

The Barbary Corsairs were concentrated in Algiers, Rabat and Tripoli,
raiding merchant vessels primarily in the Western Mediterranean.
Jefferson did NOT declare war on Islam!!!

You're right. 

But I would guess that as far as Jefferson was concerned, we were at war with Islam.  He actually bought his own famous English translation of the Koran in order to learn why the Barbary pirates actually told him that they were attacking American ships in particular because we were regarded as a Christian nation and because Allah explicitly commanded them to attack us.

He did not buy the claim that Islam is peaceful.  He noticed far too many bloodthirsty commands to strike the necks of infidels.  These obviously overrode all of the peaceful claptrap found earlier in the Koran.

[aligncare]

That certainly makes our struggle all the more difficult, but not less necessary.   

It just struck me how this never gets any better. The West has been fending off Muslim aggression and Islamic hegemony – some times successfully, sometimes not – for millennia. Now and probably forever, it’s a dangerous world out there. I pray that we never become a people that fail America and literally, the world.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

Dropping bombs on the Middle East doesn't make us safer from terrorism in my opinion. There is no organized threat for us to attack. These terrorists work alone or in small groups that are very hard to track.

Maybe there isn't now, but there was.  It was called Afghanistan under the Taliban. 

[Fishrrman]

doc wrote:
"That certainly makes our struggle all the more difficult, but not less necessary.  Guerrilla warfare in the United States could destroy us--certainly would destroy us under the wrong President.  That was a major part of the Obama/HRC plan, in my opinion."

The existential struggle with islam in which we are involved has little to do with the military or the specific acts of terrorists.

Instead, it will be fought and won or lost in the schools, in the culture, in the courts, and in the halls of government at all levels.

And if you don't mind my saying so, right now "the struggle" ain't goin' so good.

Look at Western Europe for an example.

Who's winning?

[GrouchoTex]

Okay......

Back to the original topic for a moment.

Brian Kimeade wrote a book about this, and the Barbary coast pirates.
Interesting, how the word "Leatherneck" got applied to the Marine Corp.
Happened here, in this war.
....to the shores of Tripoli.
Fascinating history.

You may now continue your regularly scheduled range war...

[the_doc]

doc wrote:
"That certainly makes our struggle all the more difficult, but not less necessary.  Guerrilla warfare in the United States could destroy us--certainly would destroy us under the wrong President.  That was a major part of the Obama/HRC plan, in my opinion."

The existential struggle with islam in which we are involved has little to do with the military or the specific acts of terrorists.

Instead, it will be fought and won or lost in the schools, in the culture, in the courts, and in the halls of government at all levels.

I agree that America's homegrown fools are at the root of the problem.  They are spiraling us down a religious and sociopolitical drain into a sewer of depraved stupidity.  We must pray for and work toward the spiritual awakening that we need at every level of society. 

That goes without saying--which is why I didn't bother to say it.  What I did say is that we cannot neglect national defense (while we await the awakening that we most certainly need).  Connecting the dots, I would specifically declare that we are embroiled in a Global Socialist conspiracy against America, and furthermore, that we should specifically realize that the Global Socialists' endgame is always mass murder. 

I believe that the Muslims are part of the Globalists' game plan.  More to the point of our discussion, I submit that the jihadists are not JV players.  We must not let them metastasize without any utterly serious military resistance from us, however difficult our task may prove to be. 

[Dexter]

Maybe there isn't now, but there was.  It was called Afghanistan under the Taliban.

The Taliban are still around because you can't destroy extremism completely. You can stomp on it when it gets organized, but that's the extent of it. Extremism is an idea. It's a state of mind that people reach after a certain point. The only way to destroy extremism is to alter the way the human brain works.

[aligncare]

The Taliban are still around because you can't destroy extremism completely. You can stomp on it when it gets organized, but that's the extent of it. Extremism is an idea. It's a state of mind that people reach after a certain point. The only way to destroy extremism is to alter the way the human brain works.

Extremism is born of a sense powerlessness to change events that are out of our own control.

Turned inward that might explain why someone would get full body tattoos and elaborate body piercings. To me that’s extreme.