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No
More Appeasement!
By
Joseph Farah
Most Americans probably think the Islamic
terrorists declared war on the United States
Sept. 11, 2001.
Actually, it started a long time before –
right from the birth of the nation.
In 1784, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and
Benjamin Franklin were commissioned by the first
Congress to assemble in Paris to see about
marketing U.S. products in Europe.
Jefferson quickly surmised that the
biggest challenge facing U.S. merchant ships
were those referred to euphemistically as
"Barbary pirates."
They weren't "pirates" at all, in the
traditional sense, Jefferson noticed. They
didn't drink and chase women and they really
weren't out to strike it rich. Instead, their
motivation was strictly religious. They bought
and sold slaves, to be sure. They looted ships.
But they used their booty to buy guns, ships,
cannon and ammunition.
Like those we call "terrorists" today,
they saw themselves engaged in jihad and called
themselves "mujahiddin."
Why did these 18th-century terrorists
represent such a grave threat to U.S. merchant
ships? With independence from Great Britain, the
former colonists lost the protection of the
greatest navy in the world. The U.S. had no navy
– not a single warship.
Jefferson inquired of his European hosts
how they dealt with the problem. He was stunned
to find out that France and England both paid
tribute to the fiends – who would, in turn, use
the money to expand their own armada, buy more
weaponry, hijack more commercial ships, enslave
more innocent civilians and demand greater
ransom.
This didn't make sense to Jefferson. He
recognized the purchase of peace from the
Muslims only worked temporarily. They would
always find an excuse to break an agreement,
blame the Europeans and demand higher tribute.
After three months researching the history
of militant Islam, he came up with a very
different policy to deal with the terrorists.
But he didn't get to implement until years
later.
As the first secretary of state, Jefferson
urged the building of a navy to rescue American
hostages held in North Africa and to deter
future attacks on U.S. ships. In 1792, he
commissioned John Paul Jones to go to Algiers
under the guise of diplomatic negotiations, but
with the real intent of sizing up a future
target of a naval attack.
Jefferson was ready to retire a year later
when what could only be described as "America's
first Sept. 11" happened.
America was struck with its first
mega-terror attack by jihadists. In the fall of
1793, the Algerians seized 11 U.S. merchant
ships and enslaved more than 100 Americans.
When word of the attack reached New York,
the stock market crashed. Voyages were canceled
in every major port. Seamen were thrown out of
work. Ship suppliers went out of business. What
Sept. 11 did to the U.S. economy in 2001, the
mass shipjacking of 1793 did to the fledgling
U.S. economy in that year.
Accordingly, it took the U.S. Congress
only four months to decide to build a fleet of
warships.
But even then, Congress didn't choose war,
as Jefferson prescribed. Instead, while building
what would become the U.S. Navy, Congress sent
diplomats to reason with the Algerians. The U.S.
ended up paying close to $1 million and giving
the pasha of Algiers a new warship, "The
Crescent," to win release of 85 surviving
American hostages.
It wasn't until 1801, under the presidency
of Jefferson, that the U.S. engaged in what
became a four-year war against Tripoli. And it
wasn't until 1830, when France occupied Algiers,
and later Tunisia and Morocco, that the
terrorism on the high seas finally ended.
France didn't leave North Africa until
1962 – and it quickly became a major base of
terrorism once again.
What's the moral of the story? Appeasement
never works. Jefferson saw it. Sept. 11 was
hardly the beginning. The war in which we fight
today is the longest conflict in human history.
It's time to learn from history, not repeat its
mistakes.
Joseph Farah's nationally syndicated column
originates at WorldNetDaily, where he serves as
editor and chief executive officer.
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