Our forgotten first war against Islamic terrorists

Most Americans seem to have forgotten our first war against Muslims.

In the late 18th century, our objection to Islamist practice was their piracy and slaving against our ships and sailors in the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1794, provoked by Algerian captures of American ships, our Congress authorized construction of the first six ships of the U.S. Navy, including the U.S.S. Constitution, still in commissioned service and now docked in Boston.

In 1795, our diplomats negotiated treaties with the Muslim states of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli to pay them tribute for the privilege of free passage.

But in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli, citing late payments of tribute, demanded additional money and declared war on the United States. The United States Marines defeated the Pasha’ forces with a combined naval and land assault. That short foreign conflict is remembered in the Marines’ Hymn in the words “to the shores of Tripoli.”

Earlier, in 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- two prominent Founders of our country -- were in London seeking agreements with Muslim states on the North African coast of the Mediterranean Sea. On March 28th they wrote a letter to John Jay, then the American Secretary for Foreign Affairs, reporting on their difficulties:

…We had a conference with the Ambassador of Tripoli, at his House.

The amount of all the information we can obtain from him was that a perpetual peace was in all respects the most advisable, because a temporary treaty would leave room for increasing demands upon every renewal of it, and a stipulation for annual payments would be liable to failures of performance which would renew the war, repeat the negotiations and continually augment the claims of his nation and the difference of expence would by no means be adequate to the inconvenience, since 12,500 Guineas to his Constituents with 10 pr. Cent upon that sum for himself, must be paid if the treaty was made for only one year.

That 30,000 Guineas for his Employers and £3,000 for himself were the lowest terms upon which a perpetual peace could be made and that this must be paid in Cash on the delivery of the treaty signed by his sovereign, that no kind of Merchandizes could be accepted.

That Tunis would treat upon the same terms, but he could not answer for Algiers or Morocco.

Then the Americans asked the Muslim diplomat what justified his country’s seizures of ships and making slaves of their crew or passengers. The answer given by the Ambassador of Tripoli in 1786 was consistent with the 1988 Covenant of Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on the right of Muslims to wage war on those who professed a different faith:

The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their 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, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

That it was a law that the first who boarded an Enemy’s Vessell should have one slave, more than his share with the rest, which operated as an incentive to the most desperate Valour and Enterprise, that it was the Practice of their Corsairs to bear down upon a ship, for each sailor to take a dagger in each hand and another in his mouth, and leap on board, which so terrified their Enemies that very few ever stood against them, that he verily believed the Devil assisted his Countrymen, for they were almost always successful.