Happy Birthday United States Marine Corps. On November 10th, 1775, the Second Continental Congress resolved to raise two battalions of Continental Marines. The rest is history.

In March of 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were in London to meet Ambassador Abd Al-Rahman of Tripoli and inquire of him why it was that Barbary states felt a right to impede American ships, pirating their cargo and enslaving their crews and passengers. America’s two most illustrious Founding Fathers were told by the “Mussulman” Ambassador: “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

Jefferson’s new nation found itself immediately at war with North Africa’s Islamic potentates who occupied the lands that are today Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. No longer under the protection of the British Royal Navy, the Founding Fathers had to decide how to secure free navigation of the seas for the new United States of America. In 1801, when Thomas Jefferson became president, he refused to accede to the Barbary pirates of Tripoli’s demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. This refusal brought about the first “war” the U.S. would fight as a country. The first line of the Marine hymn, “from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli,” references the 600-mile march across the Libyan Desert of a group of Navy men and others to capture the port city of Derna, Tripoli. It took a concerted effort by England, France, Spain, and the United States to end over 400 years of Muslim piracy on the Barbary Coast.

It seems that it was our beloved Democrat Thomas Jefferson who first decided to make war upon the Muslim Barbaries, instead of appeasing them. President George W. Bush has been struggling to follow in Jefferson’s mighty footsteps as the ancient battle continues. Give thanks for Jefferson’s foresight and courage and say a prayer for George W, who has a much tougher task than Jefferson. Commander-in-chief George W. Bush has had to fight against his own nation’s enemies, as well as many of his own countrymen, who wish America to fail.

“TJ and the Barbaries” by Kerfuffles
“Jefferson’s War on Terror” by Edna Barney