Pirates

The Barbary Pirates revisited | Power Line: "Oren and Hitchens report on the March 1786 meeting of Jefferson and Adams with the pirate warlord of Tripoli in London. The Tripoli warlord “voiced a credo that would someday sound familiar to Americans, but left these founding fathers aghast.” Oren quotes the report of Jefferson and Adams to John Jay:

It was…written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their [the Musims'] 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.

America’s response to the Barbary pirates unfolded over several years and four administrations, ultimately leading to the termination of the practice of tribute. The response included the framing and adoption of the Constitution, the founding of the United States Navy and a naval war on the pirates. It was not a venture in multicultural understanding or international appeasement.

Oren writes that George Washington’s request for the funds necessary to build a navy prevailed over substantial opposition in Congress because Congress “could no longer bear the disgrace of kowtowing to Barbary.” In the administration of James Madison, Commodore Stephen Decatur conducted an extraordinary exercise in gunboat diplomacy that brought the Barbary Wars to a successful conclusion. Henceforth, the United States would pay no tribute to pirates."

I've pointed this out many times before and it's completely crazy that I need to yet again...