The mainstream media will not tell you that the recent attack against the U.S. merchant ship off the coast of Somalia was an act of Islamic terrorism, but it was, and it’s not new. Quite simply, the majority of Americans have forgotten U.S. history despite the presence of a large monument in front of the U.S. Naval Academy to remind us. That is the Tripoli Monument, the oldest military monument in the U.S., honoring the heroes of the First Barbary War.
Following the Revolutionary War, American commerce ships sailing in the open waters of the Mediterranean were being attacked and destroyed by Muslim pirates, led by the “Dey of Algiers,” the Islamic warlord ruler of Algiers. The Muslim pirates were vicious, taking the mostly Christian crews as hostages. At that time, America had no navy to protect the ships and was virtually powerless to fight against the savage attacks. In 1784, the Continental Congress negotiated with the four Barbary States of North Africa (Morocco, Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis) in an effort to stop the piracy. At first, America paid protection money - $18,000 a year - to allow our ships to proceed unmolested by the pirates of Barbary.
As demonstrated in this case, succumbing to the demands of extortion never works out very well. Those who extort always want more, and payment of protection money is always a sign of weakness. Like today, the leaders of America in the late 1700’s tried to settle the piracy issue through diplomacy. As such, two American diplomats, Thomas Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and John Adams, the American ambassador to Britain, were dispatched to London in 1786 in an attempt to resolve the piracy issue. They met with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the “Dey of Algiers” ambassador to Britain. It was during that meeting in London when Jefferson asked the Muslim ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation they had virtually no contact with at that time.
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The mainstream media will not tell you that the recent attack against the U.S. merchant ship off the coast of Somalia was an act of Islamic terrorism, but it was, and it’s not new. Quite simply, the majority of Americans have forgotten U.S. history despite the presence of a large monument in front of the U.S. Naval Academy to remind us. That is the Tripoli Monument, the oldest military monument in the U.S., honoring the heroes of the First Barbary War.
