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Think History Doesn't Repeat Itself ?
We Were Fighting Islamic Terrorists Exactly 200 Years Ago.

by Randy Barker

It was 1801.
President Jefferson had just taken office. And he, like George Bush today,
had inherited a problem. That problem was the Barbary Pirates, a group of
Islamic pirates who were based all along the North African coast; in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. For nearly 300 year, since Ottoman Turk Barbarossa organized Algeria and Tunisia into pirate states, these pirates  had terrorized European and later American merchant fleets. It had become so  bad that European states began paying blackmail payments yearly.

This presented a real quandary for Jefferson and the young United States
government. They had no army to speak of, not much of a navy and little money to pay tribute to pirates. Meanwhile, American merchant ships were being regularly captured, humiliated and their crews enslaved. At one time, Algiers reportedly housed 30,000 slaves, mostly Christians since they did not like enslaving fellow muslims.

But at first, Jefferson had a weak-kneed response. He did not believe the
Constitution allowed him to declare war on these pirates and he, in turn, did
not ask that American fighting ships be allowed to "take" enemy ships. Even though the Dey of Algiers had declared war on the U.S. Therefore, under international maritime law at the time, pirate captains could save their lives and their ships from the superior American forces by merely
surrendering . Defeated Barbary ships were simply let go !

When the pirate captains realized American captains were operating under
these crazy, politically-correct rules, and that they could operate with
impunity, they were amazed and elated. Their reaction was probably the same as today's Islamic terrorists when they essentially got away with killing six and wounding 1,000 in the bombing the World Trade Center in 1993, killing 19 U.S. soldiers at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in 1996, killing 235 and injuring 5,500 in the bombing the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and killing 17 U.S. sailors in the suicide-bombing of the USS Cole last October.

Incredibly, this inaction was exacerbated by Clinton's 1995 rules for the CIA
that said they could not employ spies with human rights violations. With this
incredibly stupid decision, we were reduced to trying to infiltrate terrorist
cells with choir boys. That move may have been even more destructive than President Ford's executive order in 1976 outlawing assassinations of foreign heads of state. How it's more desirable to bomb all of Baghdad rather than assassinating Saddam is beyond me. {Note: According to recent AP reports backed up by former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Clinton had a clear chance to take out Bin Laden last December, and didn't do it.}

But back to Jefferson's time. Realizing the folly of their previous
legislation, Congress in early 1802 authorized the President to take whatever action he deemed necessary against the pirates, and allowed the Navy to "take, sink, burn or destroy" enemy ships. But after this long-needed move, they only sent four ships to the Mediterranean, never sending the strong force that was actually needed for the mission. Complicating matters, there were also political considerations. The Brits were battling Napoleon, the Ottoman Turks were still a force to be reckoned with, and the unstable Russian Czar was rattling his scimitar.

Nevertheless, the American Navy and Marines conquered Tripoli in 1805. But they didn't do a thing about the rest of the Barbary states and had to go
back in 1815 ,after the War of 1812, with a large force of three frigates,
two sloops of war and four schooners led by Commodore Stephen Decatur to not only re-conquer Tripoli, but to conquer Algeria and Tunisia as well.

Coming after the War of 1812, this expedition added enormously to the
national debt. In 1812 , it was $45 million. In 1816, it was $123 million.
But it proved worth it. As my 1848 history books says: " "The people, finding the honor and reputation of the country vindicated by national arms, welcomed the revival of commercial enterprise". And "With the return of peace, the revenue increased, the national credit revived, and confidence in the successful action of the government and the general prosperity of the country rapidly augmented."

Are there lessons to be learned from these Barbary wars? I think so. We had to realize the barbarians in North Africa understood and respected nothing but brute force. We had to pass a declaration of war before solving the problem could even begin. We had to attack the sponsoring states to eradicate their pirate population. We needed to attack with overwhelming force. And we learned that if we don't get the job done the first time, we may have to come back up to 14 years later.

Fortunately, Jefferson didn't make the same mistake George H.W. Bush did of entering into an alliance with some 19th century version of the United
Nations that would tie his hands in the way we were prevented from taking out Saddam Hussein at the end of Desert Storm.

But while learning from history is to be desired, more than anything we need to become energy self-sufficient. Our foreign policy decisions shouldn't be driven or emasculated by the need for Arab oil. We must drill for oil and gas as much as possible in as many places as possible. Frozen tundra wilderness sites and offshore California included. Like WWII "victory gardens" we need "victory oil wells". Otherwise, the OPEC pirates will continue to blackmail us just as the Barbary pirates did 200 years ago.

Aubrey (Abba) Eban, former Israeli Foreign Minister, said, "History teaches
us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other
alternatives." Let's hope we behave wisely. And let's hope Bush keeps his
pledge: "When I take action, I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a
$10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It going to be decisive."

Exercept from NotSo SERIOUS MONEY,
a weekly online financial newsletter written by
randybarker