The circumstances are fairly analogous, but there’s one important difference between the Barbary Pirates and today’s terrorists - an identifiable leadership cadre with which to negotiate. In 1815, Thomas Jefferson extracted concessions from the Barbary rulers, forcing them to abolish all demands for annual payments from and acts of piracy against the United States. In 2001-?, there’s really no identifiable group of terrorist leaders from whom to extract a surrender and/or negotiate.
After a number of instances where Al Qaeda and other middle-eastern terrorists had taken on U.S. interests throughout the region over fifty plus years, without the U.S. taking definitive punitive action, the U.S. finally weighed the possiblities for the future and struck out where it could.
Is this the definitive kill we would all hope for? I seriously doubt it. What we have done is go on the record as a nation that isn’t going to sit iddly by and let folks take pot shots at us for the next fifty years without lashing out in very painful ways for the terrorists and their friends.
This is a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. We gave the damed if you don’t a fairly good ride. It didn’t work all that well.
Now we’re trying something else.
Well anyway, thanks for the comments. Take care.