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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Posted on 02/28/2003 5:35:48 AM PST by SAMWolf
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are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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An International Battle Against an Unconventional Foe The events of September 11, 2001 shocked the United States out of its complacency concerning its invulnerability. Even though the U.S. has the most powerful military machine on earth, it might be of little avail; it seems that a new type of war will be fought. A war that will need resolve, years of effort, and new tactics.  The Barbary States was a collective name given to a string of North African seaports stretching from Tangiers to Tripoli. These ports were under the nominal control of the Ottoman Empire, but their real rulers were sea rovers or corsairs who sallied forth from the coast cities to plunder Mediterranean shipping and capture slaves for labor or ransom. Among the famous prisoners ransomed from the shackles of Barbary were St. Vincent de Paul, and Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (Castor, 1971). Common piracy by the Barbary States blossomed into a sophisticated racket in 1662, when England revived the ancient custom of paying tribute. The corsairs agreed to spare English ships for an annual bribe paid in gold, jewels, arms, and supplies. The custom spread to all countries trading in the Mediterranean. England paid tribute for the vessels of her American colonies, and France guaranteed it for them during the War of Independence. The new United States awoke abruptly to an ugly responsibility of independence when in 1785 the Dey of Algiers seized an American ship and jailed its crew for nonpayment of tribute (Channing, 1968).  The Dey was in no hurry to wring tribute from this new source of revenue. The capture of American ships would be more profitable, and in view of the naval weakness of the United States, a rather safe venture. Eleven of the first unfortunate Americans to fall into his hands died before their country ransomed the rest ten years later. To the sea hawks of Barbary, the American ships in the Mediterranean were "fat ducks" prime for the plucking. In this view, they were encouraged by England and France whose trade was being hurt by the upstart Yankees (Castor, 1971). Turkey, overlord of Barbary, was an ally of Britain. The North Africans depended on free trade with France for supplies. Hence the pirates were forbidden to attack British shipping and in plain self-interest could not raid the French. With targets so limited, the American "fat ducks" were a godsend. By 1794, the Dey of Algiers had plundered eleven American ships and held one hundred and nineteen of their survivors for ransom. President George Washington tried to reach an agreement with the Barbary States but with little success. His agents, one of whom was John Paul Jones, had diplomatic doors slammed in their faces.  Washington's ambassadors in Europe worked to free Americans enslaved in Barbary dungeons, but John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were ridiculed. In 1785, the exasperated Jefferson suggested that war was the only solution. His mind was "absolutely suspended between indignation and impotence." Jefferson declared that tribute was "money thrown away" and that the most convincing argument that these outlaws would understand was gunpowder and shot. The future president proposed a multi-national effort between European powers and America that would in effect economically blockade North Africa and ultimately provide for a multi-national military force to combat pirate terrorism. The European powers chose to continue paying tribute to the Barbary States (Irwin, 1970). John Adams, the next President, went along with the Europeans and paid for peace in the Mediterranean. Congress, in 1795, authorized payment of tribute. Algiers was granted the equivalent of $642,500 in cash, munitions, and a 36-gun frigate, besides a yearly tribute of $21,600 worth of naval supplies. Ransom rates were officially set for those Americans already in Barbary prisons-$4,000 for each passenger, $1,400 for each cabin boy. Sunday after Sunday, a sad roll of names was read out in the churches of Salem, Newport, and Boston, listing the men in irons. Congress would only pay $200 for their freedom, the rest of the money had to be raised privately. Eventually, at long last, the American captives of the Dey of Algiers walked into the light, except for thirty-seven dead, whose ransoms had to be paid nevertheless (Malone, 1951).  Adam's acquiescence to Algiers prompted Tunis and Tripoli to demand and be promised their own blood money. Tripoli, especially, was piqued at the Dey of Algiers' good fortune.
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I didn't know all these details about the Barbary Pirates!
"I've picked up a lot of parallels," says Capt. Glenn Voelz, a history instructor at West Point. "Maybe we are still fighting the same war."
The parallels are indeed eerie!
oorah bump
If you want to watch something which will turn your stomach, tune into the History Channel's "Battle of Tripoli" which appeared tonight.
I KNOW they will retelecast it.
In case you are not familiar with the storyline - a REAL American hero by the name of William Eaton travels to Egypt, with the approval of the Jefferson Administration.
His goal: to raise a force of mercenaries to unseat the ruler of Tripoli, one Yousouf Karamali who had dethroned his brother Hamid and seized the throne. He also had a handfull of U.S. Marines and some Christian European mercenaries with him.
Yusouf, like other Barbary rulers, made a living extorting protection money from Christian shipping in the Mediterranean. Like other Barbary States, he probably also augemented his illgotten gains by slave-raiding Christian countries in Southern and Western Europe, and petty acts of piracy.
The reason Eaton wanted to dethrone Yusouf, was to free several hundred American mariners who had been held for a very long time as prisoners in Tripoli where they were regularly beaten, abused, forced to work as slave labor, kept under inhuman conditions, and humiliated by the sons of Mohammed. Bargainning for their release by the Jefferson Administration had accomplished little.
After an epic journey with many personal hazards, Eaton was well on the road to accomplishing his goals.
But he was blind-sided by a viperous piece of offal named Tobias Lear, a creature of the State Department and a progenitor of many successors of a like mind. We can think of a current one immediately.
Lear had been manoevering behind the scenes all along to undermine Eaton, effectuate a ransome, and release the Americans that way.
After stunning victories, and just before Eaton and his group could make their move, Lear negotiatied a ransome of $60,000 for the release of the prisoners. Needed aid from the U.S. government never materialized and Commodore Baron, a man with a poor record as a commander, recalled Eaton and he and Hamid, a few of his followers and the remnant of the Americans were evacuated by ship.
Hamid was abandoned by the U.S. The balance of those who had supported him in Tripoli were left to the none too tender mercies of Yousuf. Eaton had the ground cut off around him and was totally embittered by the failure to support him, the abandonment of Hamid, and the use of money to buy back free Americans who should have been and most certainly WOULD have been freed by the sword.
Needless to say, Tripoli went onto commit new outrages, encouraged by Lear and Jefferson's cowardly behavior, and only another naval expedition to the area and committment of many more troops and ships under a more able commander than Baron was able to finally bring the Barbary Pirates to heal.
Parts of what I am telling you were omitted or glossed over in the History Channel acount.
But the REAL BARF alert involves two Professors of New England University and one Caucasian American profssor from where I can't recall. The two from the University of New England were one Dr. Ali Abdullatif Ahmid and one Dr. Anour Majid.
These pieces of human offal proceeded to present a politically correct account of things from the Barbery perspective. All three of them were critical of heroic Eaton as a "selfish adventurer", defended the actions of the Barbary States as necessary for their survival as a revenue source, defended them as legitimate nations, pointed out the Barbary Pirates were not "terrorists", criticized Eaton for raising an American Flag over a fort they seized, equated his efforts with "western colonization" and blamed this unfortunate incident as one cause for our "mistaken" concept of Islam.
Only one guy, a military man named Wheeler, seemed to actually speak out in support of Eaton.
I have read several of the books they mention in the presentation.
The Barbary States were predator sheikdoms who survived totally by slaving and raiding and extortion. Entire Christian villages from southern Italy to Ireland and England were totally wiped out by their slaving operations. They sent their corsairs out into the Atlantic and throughout the Mediterranean.
There was very little difference in their methods, given the times, between the lunatics threatening us now, and them.
I shudder to think of the impact these "professors" will have with their cultural equivalency concepts on the minds of young students at the University of New England.
I was in college during the Viet Nam era and I well know how vicious, biased, and unpatriotic leftist profesors can be.
I'm super steamed. I'm steamed at the History Channel, at the University of New England, and at these three pieces of human offal who are brainwashing American Students who will only hear one side of this story.
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