Posted by
Nerdus Maximus on Sunday, July 23, 2006 9:44:53 PM
An Arab diplomat indicates that it is part of the Koran to make war on "sinners" and make slaves of all they can take as prisoners. The European custom, followed by a number of U.S. Presidents, is to pay them off to avoid trouble. One U.S. President says that we shouldn't fight them at all unless we are wiling to fight them forever.
Recent events? President George W. Bush? No, the President who stood up to the Bashaw of Tripoli was Thomas Jefferson. The resulting war is the reason the phrase "to the shores of Tripoli" is in the Marine hymn. The attacks that drew this action were on U.S. citizens, mostly merchant seamen, in the Mediterranean. The historic events are reported in chapter 6 of Bill Bennett's America: The last Best Hope.
It is strange that these threads ran strong at the time of the Jefferson presidency and in our time, but stranger still is another thread in the same chapter also runs in both times. This theme is whether or not people are capable of self-govenrnment. In Jefferson's time, according to Bennett, the intelligentsia were quite convinced that the rough and tumble American colonists couldn't possibly make democracy work. Today we hear many make fun of President Bush's belie that the people of the Middle East want democracy and can make it work.
Riskily, I will end with two bromides: The more things change, the more they stay the same. -and- Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.