The American Spectator : The Shores of Barbary
By ROGER KAPLAN on 9.13.12
They are murderers and, yes, they are Muslim murderers.
When President Jefferson decided to send a naval expedition to Tripoli to rescue American seamen and punish the Barbary pirates, the opposition to him was practical: did we have the naval vessels and if not did we want to raise taxes to pay for them? Did we have allies with whom to embark on such a difficult campaign? Assuming success, what were we supposed to do next to insure the pirates did not lie low, regroup, begin their trade as soon as we looked the other way?
The third president's answer to the first set of issues was to remind Americans that we already were being taxed due to the lawlessness in the western Mediterranean: the reason our ships were attacked by proto-Islamist terrorists (they justified their criminality with Koranic references, as Jefferson, who studied the Koran, was aware) was that it was lucrative to attack them, steal the goods they carried, and ransom their crews. Admittedly, it could be argued (it was) that spending on the navy was in effect a way to socialize risk, to use an anachronism; no one was forcing merchants to sail along those dangerous routes. But the president did not underestimate the value and importance of free trade to general economic growth. He also was well aware, of course, that a republic that did not defend its citizens would not last long. The slogan "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute" rallied support for Jefferson's policy, though Congress remained recalcitrant throughout the years of the Barbary campaigns and the Navy and the nascent Marine Corps were always under-funded. (Which also was a reason for the use of a privateer, a remarkable man named William Eaton, who organized something of a proto-Blackwater, at one point in the campaign.)
The second set of issues Jefferson dealt with by trying to enlist the British and the French in the formation of a "perpetual cruise," a Mediterranean version of NATO if we want to keep looking for proto-this and proto-that, which would maintain peace and free trade in the region. Our future best allies had other idea, so Jefferson decided on a coalition of the willing avant la lettre and went at it alone. As campaigns go it was not bad, though there was no definitive victory.
You can argue that we should have dealt with the modern pirates of Tripoli a long time ago: the best opportunity probably occurred during President Reagan's second term, when Moammar Gaddafi sponsored terrorist attacks that killed American servicemen in Germany.
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