Islam has been a part of our country since just after its founding, but not in a constructive way. In the early days of our country, our first international conflicts were with Islamic pirates who preyed on our ships, stealing cargo and enslaving or killing the crews. Many such ships and crews were taken and held for ransom or sold in the slave markets of Libya and other Middle Eastern countries.
Islamic Caliphs demanded tribute from America, England, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. All paid. Finally our government had enough and decided to invest in building a fleet to sail to the Mediterranean to confront the Islamic terrorists. The first deployment of the United States Marine Corps was to Libya to overthrow the government of the Caliph in Tripoli. It took only 14 Marines to accomplish raising an army of local tribesmen to achieve this end. The Caliph was overthrown, and Tripoli was taken and the Marines got the second line to the Marine Corps hymn, “to the shores of Tripoli.”
Islam was never a constructive force for the United States, unless you count the construction of military hardware to combat its evil around the world. Over the years, our troops have been called on many times to clean up the messes that ignorant diplomats and politicians have created by trying to reason with followers of this barbaric philosophy.
General Pershing was sent to govern the Philippine Islands in the early 1900’s because the diplomat sent to do the job found himself facing a jihad of Islamic terrorists. In a few months, General Pershing put down the jihad and put the fear of a Christian God into the terrorists so that we didn’t hear anything out of them for nearly a hundred years. He knew the only way to fight barbarians was to use barbaric methods.
Islam has always been a part of the fabric of our country, but it was a loose thread, that needed to be cut free at the hem. Mr. Obama said, “Thomas Jefferson once held a sunset dinner here with an envoy from Tunisia more than 200 years ago. And that’s a reminder that Islam like so many faiths is part of our national story.”
As usual Mr. Obama was not totally truthful. That magical first Iftar he spoke of was a meeting between an emissary of the brutal Barbary pirates, and the president. Jefferson had invited him to Washington in an attempt to bribe him into submission after the USS Constitution captured Muslim ships in the bay of Tunis. The Muslim requested food, lodgings and concubines.
Jefferson had studied Islam, in 1786 when Barbary pirates attempted to blackmail America into monetary tribute. Then the Barbary emissary justified piracy with reference to the Koran, according to a report from Jefferson himself:
The Ambassador answered us that slavery was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners.
John Quincy Adams, writing of these negotiations, stated: The precept of the Koran is perpetual war against all who deny that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.
Quincy Adams would write, Such is the spirit, which governs the hearts of men, to whom treachery and violence are taught as principles of religion.
Leave a Comment