Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates

by: Christopher Hitchens

America’s first confrontation with the Islamic world helped forge a new nation’s character.

When I first began to plan my short biography of Thomas Jefferson, I found it difficult to research the chapter concerning the so-called Barbary Wars: an event or series of events that had seemingly receded over the lost horizon of American history. Henry Adams, in his discussion of our third president, had some boyhood reminiscences of the widespread hero-worship of naval officer Stephen Decatur, and other fragments and shards showed up in other quarries, but a sound general history of the subject was hard to come by. When I asked a professional military historian—a man with direct access to Defense Department archives—if there was any book that he could recommend, he came back with a slight shrug.

But now the curious reader may choose from a freshet of writing on the subject. Added to my own shelf in the recent past have been The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World, by Frank Lambert (2005); Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror 1801–1805, by Joseph Wheelan (2003); To the Shores of Tripoli: The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines, by A. B. C. Whipple (1991, republished 2001); and Victory in Tripoli: How America’s War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation, by Joshua E. London (2005). Most recently, in his new general history, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, the Israeli scholar Michael Oren opens with a long chapter on the Barbary conflict. As some of the subtitles—and some of the dates of publication—make plain, this new interest is largely occasioned by America’s latest round of confrontation in the Middle East, or the Arab sphere or Muslim world, if you prefer those expressions.

In a way, I am glad that I did not have the initial benefit of all this research. My quest sent me to some less obvious secondary sources, in particular to Linda Colley’s excellent book Captives, which shows the reaction of the English and American publics to a slave trade of which they were victims rather than perpetrators. How many know that perhaps 1.5 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved in Islamic North Africa between 1530 and 1780? We dimly recall that Miguel de Cervantes was briefly in the galleys. But what of the people of the town of Baltimore in Ireland, all carried off by “corsair” raiders in a single night?

Some of this activity was hostage trading and ransom farming rather than the more labor-intensive horror of the Atlantic trade and the Middle Passage, but it exerted a huge effect on the imagination of the time—and probably on no one more than on Thomas Jefferson. Peering at the paragraph denouncing the American slave trade in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, later excised, I noticed for the first time that it sarcastically condemned “the Christian King of Great Britain” for engaging in “this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers.” The allusion to Barbary practice seemed inescapable.

One immediate effect of the American Revolution, however, was to strengthen the hand of those very same North African potentates: roughly speaking, the Maghrebian provinces of the Ottoman Empire that conform to today’s Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. Deprived of Royal Navy protection, American shipping became even more subject than before to the depredations of those who controlled the Strait of Gibraltar. The infant United States had therefore to decide not just upon a question of national honor but upon whether it would stand or fall by free navigation of the seas.

One of the historians of the Barbary conflict, Frank Lambert, argues that the imperative of free trade drove America much more than did any quarrel with Islam or “tyranny,” let alone “terrorism.” He resists any comparison with today’s tormenting confrontations. “The Barbary Wars were primarily about trade, not theology,” he writes. “Rather than being holy wars, they were an extension of America’s War of Independence.”

Let us not call this view reductionist. Jefferson would perhaps have been just as eager to send a squadron to put down any Christian piracy that was restraining commerce. But one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” (It is worth noting that the United States played no part in the Crusades, or in the Catholic reconquista of Andalusia.)

Ambassador Abd Al-Rahman did not fail to mention the size of his own commission, if America chose to pay the protection money demanded as an alternative to piracy. So here was an early instance of the “heads I win, tails you lose” dilemma, in which the United States is faced with corrupt regimes, on the one hand, and Islamic militants, on the other—or indeed a collusion between them.

It seems likely that Jefferson decided from that moment on that he would make war upon the Barbary kingdoms as soon as he commanded American forces. His two least favorite institutions—enthroned monarchy and state-sponsored religion—were embodied in one target, and it may even be that his famous ambivalences about slavery were resolved somewhat when he saw it practiced by the Muslims.

However that may be, it is certain that the Barbary question had considerable influence on the debate that ratified the United States Constitution in the succeeding years. Many a delegate, urging his home state to endorse the new document, argued that only a strong federal union could repel the Algerian threat. In The Federalist No. 24, Alexander Hamilton argued that without a “federal navy . . . of respectable weight . . . the genius of American Merchants and Navigators would be stifled and lost.” In No. 41, James Madison insisted that only union could guard America’s maritime capacity from “the rapacious demands of pirates and barbarians.” John Jay, in his letters, took a “bring-it-on” approach; he believed that “Algerian Corsairs and the Pirates of Tunis and Tripoli” would compel the feeble American states to unite, since “the more we are ill-treated abroad the more we shall unite and consolidate at home.” The eventual Constitution, which says nothing about an army, does explicitly provide for a navy.

Thus, Lambert may be limiting himself in viewing the Barbary conflict primarily through the lens of free trade. Questions of nation-building, of regime change, of “mission creep,” of congressional versus presidential authority to make war, of negotiation versus confrontation, of “entangling alliances,” and of the “clash of civilizations”—all arose in the first overseas war that the United States ever fought. The “nation-building” that occurred, however, took place not overseas but in the 13 colonies, welded by warfare into something more like a republic.

There were many Americans—John Adams among them—who made the case that it was better policy to pay the tribute. It was cheaper than the loss of trade, for one thing, and a battle against the pirates would be “too rugged for our people to bear.” Putting the matter starkly, Adams said: “We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever.”

The cruelty, exorbitance, and intransigence of the Barbary states, however, would decide things. The level of tribute demanded began to reach 10 percent of the American national budget, with no guarantee that greed would not increase that percentage, while from the dungeons of Algiers and Tripoli came appalling reports of the mistreatment of captured men and women. Gradually, and to the accompaniment of some of the worst patriotic verse ever written, public opinion began to harden in favor of war. From Jefferson’s perspective, it was a good thing that this mood shift took place during the Adams administration, when he was out of office and temporarily “retired” to Monticello. He could thus criticize federal centralization of power, from a distance, even as he watched the construction of a fleet—and the forging of a permanent Marine Corps—that he could one day use for his own ends.

At one point, Jefferson hoped that John Paul Jones, naval hero of the Revolution, might assume command of a squadron that would strike fear into the Barbary pirates. While ambassador in Paris, Jefferson had secured Jones a commission with Empress Catherine of Russia, who used him in the Black Sea to harry the Ottomans, the ultimate authority over Barbary. But Jones died before realizing his dream of going to the source and attacking Constantinople. The task of ordering war fell to Jefferson.

Michael Oren thinks that he made the decision reluctantly, finally forced into it by the arrogant behavior of Tripoli, which seized two American brigs and set off a chain reaction of fresh demands from other Barbary states. I believe—because of the encounter with the insufferable Abd Al-Rahman and because of his long engagement with Jones—that Jefferson had long sought a pretext for war. His problem was his own party and the clause in the Constitution that gave Congress the power to declare war. With not atypical subtlety, Jefferson took a shortcut through this thicket in 1801 and sent the navy to North Africa on patrol, as it were, with instructions to enforce existing treaties and punish infractions of them. Our third president did not inform Congress of his authorization of this mission until the fleet was too far away to recall.

Once again, Barbary obstinacy tipped the scale. Yusuf Karamanli, the pasha of Tripoli, declared war on the United States in May 1801, in pursuit of his demand for more revenue. This earned him a heavy bombardment of Tripoli and the crippling of one of his most important ships. But the force of example was plainly not sufficient. In the altered mood that prevailed after the encouraging start in Tripoli, Congress passed an enabling act in February 1802 that, in its provision for a permanent Mediterranean presence and its language about the “Tripolitan Corsairs,” amounted to a declaration of war. The Barbary regimes continued to underestimate their new enemy, with Morocco declaring war in its turn and the others increasing their blackmail.

A complete disaster—Tripoli’s capture of the new U.S. frigate Philadelphia—became a sort of triumph, thanks to Edward Preble and Stephen Decatur, who mounted a daring raid on Tripoli’s harbor and blew up the captured ship, while inflicting heavy damage on the city’s defenses. Now there were names—Preble and Decatur—for newspapers back home to trumpet as heroes. Nor did their courage draw notice only in America. Admiral Lord Nelson himself called the raid “the most bold and daring act of the age,” and Pope Pius VII declared that the United States “had done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christendom have done for ages.” (In his nostalgia for Lepanto, perhaps, His Holiness was evidently unaware that the Treaty of Tripoli, which in 1797 had attempted to formalize the dues that America would pay for access to the Mediterranean, stated in its preamble that the United States had no quarrel with the Muslim religion and was in no sense a Christian country. Of course, those secularists like myself who like to cite this treaty must concede that its conciliatory language was part of America’s attempt to come to terms with Barbary demands.)

Watching all this with a jaundiced eye was the American consul in Tunis, William Eaton. For him, behavior modification was not a sufficient policy; regime change was needed. And he had a candidate. On acceding to the throne in Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli had secured his position by murdering one brother and exiling another. Eaton befriended this exiled brother, Hamid, and argued that he should become the American nominee for Tripoli’s crown. This proposal wasn’t received with enthusiasm in Washington, but Eaton pursued it with commendable zeal. He exhibited the downside that often goes with such quixotic bravery: railing against treasury secretary Albert Gallatin as a “cowardly Jew,” for example, and alluding to President Jefferson with contempt. He ended up a supporter of Aaron Burr’s freebooting secessionist conspiracy.

His actions in 1805, however, belong in the annals of derring-do, almost warranting the frequent comparison made with T. E. Lawrence’s exploits in Arabia. With a small detachment of marines, headed by Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon, and a force of irregulars inevitably described by historians as “motley,” Eaton crossed the desert from Egypt and came at Tripoli—as Lawrence had come at Aqaba—from the land and not from the sea. The attack proved a total surprise. The city of Darna surrendered its far larger garrison, and Karamanli’s forces were heavily engaged, when news came that Jefferson and Karamanli had reached an understanding that could end the war. The terms weren’t too shabby, involving the release of the Philadelphia’s crew and a final settlement of the tribute question. And Jefferson took care to stress that Eaton had played a part in bringing it about.

This graciousness did not prevent Eaton from denouncing the deal as a sellout. The caravan moved on, though, as the other Barbary states gradually followed Tripoli’s lead and came to terms. Remember, too, that this was the year of the Battle of Trafalgar. Lord Nelson was not the only European to notice that a new power had arrived in Mediterranean waters. Francis Scott Key composed a patriotic song to mark the occasion. As I learned from Joshua London’s excellent book, the original verses ran (in part):

In conflict resistless each toil they endur’d,
Till their foes shrunk dismay’d from the war’s desolation:
And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscur’d
By the light of the star-bangled flag of our nation.
Where each flaming star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turban’d head bowed to the terrible glare.
Then mixt with the olive the laurel shall wave
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.

The song was part of the bad-verse epidemic. But brushed up and revised a little for the War of 1812, and set to the same music, it has enjoyed considerable success since. So has the Marine Corps anthem, which begins: “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” It’s no exaggeration to describe the psychological fallout of this first war as formative of the still-inchoate American character.

There is of course another connection between 1805 and 1812. Renewed hostilities with Britain on the high seas and on the American mainland, which did not terminate until the Battle of New Orleans, might have ended less conclusively had the United States not developed a battle-hardened naval force in the long attrition on the North African coast.

The Barbary states sought to exploit Anglo-American hostilities by resuming their depredations and renewing their demands for blood money. So in 1815, after a brief interval of recovery from the war with Britain, President Madison asked Congress for permission to dispatch Decatur once again to North Africa, seeking a permanent settling of accounts. This time, the main offender was the dey of Algiers, Omar Pasha, who saw his fleet splintered and his grand harbor filled with heavily armed American ships. Algiers had to pay compensation, release all hostages, and promise not to offend again. President Madison’s words on this occasion could scarcely be bettered: “It is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none.” (The expression “the United States is” did not come into usage until after Gettysburg.)

Oren notes that the stupendous expense of this long series of wars was a partial vindication of John Adams’s warning. However, there are less quantifiable factors to consider. The most obvious is commerce. American trade in the Mediterranean increased enormously in the years after the settlement with Algiers, and America’s ability to extend its trade and project its forces into other areas, such as the Caribbean and South America, was greatly enhanced. Then we should attend to what Linda Colley says on the subject of slavery. Campaigns against the seizure of hostages by Muslim powers, and their exploitation as forced labor, fired up many a church congregation in Britain and America and fueled many a press campaign. But even the dullest soul could regard the continued triangular Atlantic slave trade between Africa, England, and the Americas and perceive the double standard at work. Thus, the struggle against Barbary may have helped to force some of the early shoots of abolitionism.

Perhaps above all, though, the Barbary Wars gave Americans an inkling of the fact that they were, and always would be, bound up with global affairs. Providence might have seemed to grant them a haven guarded by two oceans, but if they wanted to be anything more than the Chile of North America—a long littoral ribbon caught between the mountains and the sea—they would have to prepare for a maritime struggle as well as a campaign to redeem the unexplored landmass to their west. The U.S. Navy’s Mediterranean squadron has, in one form or another, been on patrol ever since.

And then, finally, there is principle. It would be simplistic to say that something innate in America made it incompatible with slavery and tyranny. But would it be too much to claim that many Americans saw a radical incompatibility between the Barbary system and their own? And is it not pleasant when the interests of free trade and human emancipation can coincide? I would close with a few staves of Kipling, whose poem “Dane-Geld” is a finer effort than anything managed by Francis Scott Key:

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbor and to say:—
“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

Kipling runs briskly through the stages of humiliation undergone by any power that falls for this appeasement, and concludes:

It is wrong to put temptation in the pathof any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:—

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”

It may be fortunate that the United States had to pass this test, and imbibe this lesson, so early in its life as a nation.
Source

Iranian bloggers' nuclear gloom

Iranian bloggers have been watching developments in the nuclear dispute with the West over the past few weeks with much foreboding, but also a fair measure of irreverence.

Fearful or otherwise, many of their comments revolve around the various statements made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with some suggesting he is playing an aggravating role.

West.blogfa.com, 28 February: "Ahmadinejad's brakeless train!"

I wish Ahmadinejad had consulted the transport minister before saying that they'd thrown away the brake!! The technical term for a train without a brake is a 'runaway train'. If there's a runaway train on the tracks, first they re-direct it to side tracks and then they direct it to a track that goes nowhere. At the end of the track that goes nowhere, the train hits a big obstacle...

Ex-MP Ahmad Shirzad, 24 February: "I invite Ahmadinejad to a debate".

Maybe for the first time, Mr Ahmadinejad has said something that can be discussed in a costs-benefits framework. He's said: 'If we stop whatever else we're doing for 10 years and concentrate entirely on nuclear energy, we can advance by 50 years'... I'm really happy that, at last, an official at his level has at least once left the narrow perspective of politics on the Iranian nuclear issue and explicitly spoken about the value or lack of value of this technology for the Iranian people... I Ahmad Shirzad... invite the president to a televised debate on this basis.

Alpr.ir, 4 February: "Accept the resolution!"

Our dear Iran (I'm talking about Iran, not the Islamic Republic) is on the threshold of one of its most bitter crises in contemporary history... with an aimless political system, an ineffective government, a shaky economy, a dissipated society, so many wasted resources, disparate neighbours, a siege-like regional position and a global consensus against Iran... I wish we had a network or group which, instead of collecting one million signatures for changing laws on women, would collect one million signatures for accepting the resolution and suspending enrichment.

Dutch-based journalist Ebrahim Nabavi, 1 February: "Halt enrichment!"

I suggest that students should organise a series of protest gatherings in universities and in the city, with the premise that, since enrichment increases the danger of an attack and war, the government should halt enrichment for six months for now... Students can launch a quiet protest movement. They can organise anti-war marches, both against the government's nuclear activities and against a US military presence. I'm sure that, if this is done, it will play a very important role in preventing war. The government and the state are only insisting on the continuation of enrichment on one pretext: they're saying - we don't want to forego the people's right. The people must say that they have a right to life and peace. They should say that they're prepared to forego their right to nuclear energy temporarily for the sake of peace.

Commentator "Maryam" on Nabavi's post

I agreed with your earlier proposal that people should gather peacefully in front of the Majlis to demand Ahmadinejad's dismissal. But I don't accept your proposal to students today... Why do you think that Arab countries should have this technology, but we shouldn't?.. Why must this state, which we hope to reform, not have security?.. I'm not saying that nuclear energy is our self-evident right; I'm saying that even a nuclear bomb is our self-evident right.

Javadkashi.blogspot.com, 6 March: "Cold winter of politics"

The thing that amazes me is the cool public atmosphere in this respect... It seems as if the bulk of the people don't consider themselves involved and mainly imagine that the political system is facing a problem in the international arena that doesn't concern them very much. Analysts and intellectuals, if not afraid, prefer to wait for fear that their stances won't match the subsequent course of events. To sum up, people are watching two trains moving towards each other on the same track, some with indifference, some with amazement, some with excitement and some with terror. Each train refuses to change track or stop in the hope that the other one will do so.

Siamakold.blogspot.com, 3 March: "The big man will come from Washington, not Jamkaran"

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks are given even more coverage by Western media than the US president's remarks. And, on board his runaway train, he's headed for where his beliefs take him... Ahmadinejad's continued muscle-flexing in the political arena will undoubtedly only lead to the country being weakened. Until he's removed from the country's political scene and enrichment suspended, the international community will never come to terms with the Islamic Republic. If he continues his presidency, as he supposedly works to pave the way for the return of the big man [reference to the 12th Shi'i Imam], the big man will no doubt appear, but not from Jamkaran; from Washington.

Source

Spain fears Islamists reclaiming "al-Andalus"

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Wednesday March 7, 2007

By Sinikka Tarvainen,
Madrid- While the international spotlight is on 29 suspects
on trial for the 2004 Madrid train bombings, Spanish police are
working behind the scenes to counter a growing threat of new attacks.
Radicals inspired by al-Qaeda have stepped up propaganda and
recruitment activities in Spain, a country they claim as a part of
the Islamic world because of its Muslim past, according to police
experts.

Extremists present in Spain no longer come just from North Africa,
but also from Pakistan.

Spain has become one of the main bases for the recruitment of
suicide bombers, some of whom are trained at new al-Qaeda bases in
Africa's Sahel zone before they are sent to Iraq.

The ongoing Madrid bombings trial has given a face to Islamist
terrorism as Spaniards have watched one suspect after another take
the stand, from bearded fundamentalists to young men with an
apparently Western lifestyle.

After questioning the suspects, the court is currently hearing
police experts and other witnesses.

Ten bombs that exploded on four Madrid commuter trains killed 191
and injured nearly 2,000 people in March 2004, suddenly placing
Islamists on top of the security agenda, ahead of the armed Basque
separatist group ETA.

Two groups are suspected of involvement in the attacks: the
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM) and the extremely radical
Tafkir Wal Hijra, which is of Egyptian origin.

Such groups do not form part of a hierarchical structure, but heed
messages emanating from al-Qaeda and act on their own.

Arab activists are believed to cooperate with Pakistanis making
money transfers on their behalf.

Pakistani radicals are active especially in the north-eastern
Catalonia region, where police have detected the presence of Asian
groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).

The JEM has been implicated in the 2005 bombings in the London
transport network, while the LET is linked with attacks in India.

Police are investigating whether the Arabs and Pakistanis have
contacts with Chechen Muslims, large numbers of whom reportedly
arrived in Spain in 2006.

Islamist radicals proselytize at an estimated 10 per cent of
Spain's hundreds of unofficial mosques, which operate in garages,
basements and the like.

Fighters recruited in Spain are no longer trained only in Iraq and
Afghanistan, but also in Sahel countries such as Mali, Niger and
Mauritania, where al-Qaeda and its allies teach them to handle
weapons, explosives and even poisons, according to the daily El Pais.

The young men then travel to conflict zones such as Iraq, where
one of the Madrid train bombers is believed to have died in a suicide
attack in 2005.

Those who are not killed in Iraq or are unable to enter the
country sometimes return to Spain, where they constitute one of the
potentially most dangerous groups, according to police sources.

The Madrid bombers targeted Spain partly to punish the then
government for its participation in the Iraq war.

Spain has changed its Atlanticist foreign policy since then, but
the presence of its troops in Afghanistan and its judicial crackdowns
on Islamists keep it on al-Qaeda-inspired hit lists.

Islamist websites have also long called for a reconquest of al-
Andalus, a Moorish name for Spain, parts of which were ruled by
Muslims for nearly eight centuries until 1492.

Recently, some websites have also begun campaigning for the
"liberation" of the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the
Moroccan coast, causing concern among police experts.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency

Source

Anal bomber

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An Iraqi national wearing wires and concealing a magnet inside his rectum triggered a security scare at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday but officials said he posed no apparent threat.

The man, identified by law enforcement officials as Fadhel al-Maliki, 35, set off an alarm during passenger screening at the airport early on Tuesday morning.

A police bomb squad was called to examine what was deemed a suspicious item found during a body cavity search of the man. Local media reports said a magnet was found in his rectum.

"He was secreting these items in a body cavity and that was a great concern because there were also some electric wires associated with that body cavity," Larry Fetters, security director for the Transportation Security Administration at the airport, told reporters.

Maliki, 35, who lives in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was preparing to board a US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia.

The flight left without Maliki but with his luggage aboard. It made an unscheduled landing in Las Vegas, where the plane was thoroughly searched but nothing was found, officials said.

Passengers were not evacuated and no flights were disrupted by the incident at Terminal One at Los Angeles airport.

"There never was a threat," Fetter said.

He said police and the FBI were called in from "an abundance of caution" because Maliki was "so bizarre in his behavior."

Maliki, who had a U.S. green card, was being questioned by immigration officials about his immigration status.

Source

15 minutes of 300

Behead those who say islam is violent

Pilipino Muslims display a banner and t-shirts with a wanted sign during a rally Wednesday March 7, 2007, at a downtown Manila square , to protest recent televised preaching by a Christian sect leader Eli Soriano, who alleges that Muslims are killers. More than 1,000 Muslims took part in the rally and demanded Soriano, who is currently in hiding, be extradited back to the Philippines so he can face charges being brought against him. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

New Dry Bones