I believe that we did go after the "Barbary" pirates, but that was probably after Washington's Presidential Terms.
The pre-emptive attack against the Barbary pirates was under the Jefferson administration.
Yeah that was either Madison or Jefferson and I think it was Jefferson myself...
Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence. Madison was the author of the Constitution.
You also have to remember that we were just getting started. In Washington's opinion we were not ready to play with the big boys and likely would get creamed if we did. We were building something new and strange. Something that even we were not sure would work.
The New World was a surrogate battle ground for the Great Powers of the time. If you supported one side you had the other two gang up on you. The Monroe doctrine changed that for the Americas. Most of the European powers had been thrown out and we were strong enough to tell them to stay out and make it stick.
We clobbered them with one ship and a company of Marines, in Jefferson's first year in office. But what is the point? Neither Washington, nor his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, were pacifists! As Jefferson put it, when he was Washington's Secretary of State (I believe), we should "punish the first insult."
Of course the traditional Washington/Jefferson foreign policy would have had us going after Al Quaida--and with everything necessary. That is not the subject of our little debate, here.
Again, the only issue in this debate is the present President's call for a multi-generation American policy to "Democratize" the world, which is based upon many errors--some of which I have addressed in other essays at my web site--the one being addressed here, is that it involves playing favorites and dealing with the world as meddlers, rather than as respectful peoples, etc.. In this one facet of the debate, treated here, we have let General Washington--who spoke for an even handed policy better than anyone else, because he went into the common knowledge from all human experience, as to the psychological factors involved--carry the debate.
Read Washington's paragraphs A, B, C, D, L, etc., and you will understand what he was saying and what he was not saying.