Obama is right: ‘Islam has always been part of America’ By Karin McQuillan
As Congress is on the verge of giving President Obama his Iran Deal, including a payoff of $150 billion dollars to Iran’s terror regime, they might do well to contrast our founding fathers with the current occupant of the White House.
In the Ramadan speech in which he declared his support for the Ground Zero Mosque, Obama returned to a favorite theme of his:
Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America. The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan—making it the first known Iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago.
You would think Obama would keep his mouth shut about this particular chapter in American history.
Yes, Mr. President, Islam was part of American history. The brutal, barbarous Islamic states of Tripoli (Tunisia), and Morocco terrorized the Mediterranean with their ‘Barbary Pirates.’ They kidnapped, enslaved and tortured Western seaman. At one time 20,000 seamen were in captivity in Algiers. Those with money bought their freedom. Seaman without money were sold as slaves who were worked to death in mines and galleys.
According to historian Paul Johnson…The US Congress chose bribery. The US paid Algiers its ransom – as much as $1 million each year for the next fifteen years to the year 1800. This was close to 20 percent of Washington’s revenues.
In France, Jefferson asked Tripoli’s ambassador what right Tripoli had to extort money and take slaves. According to Jefferson, the ambassador answered that such a right was founded on the Laws of the Prophet: that it was written in the Koran that all nations who did not recognize 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 Muslim slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.
Michel Oren writes in Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
European women, prized for their fair complexion, were sold to harems.
American seamen were kept in dungeons awaiting ransom: “perfectly dark…many nearly naked…the slightest resistance was punishably by beatings on the feet, beheading, or impalement on iron spikes.”…
Mrs. Maria Martin…told of being stripped, extensively inspected and chained in a lightless cell for two years, for refusing to serve as a concubine. …
Secretary of Foreign Affairs John Jay warned that the ‘alarming evil’ of Barbary not only endangered American trade but also signaled America’s weakness….Adams had heard enough…negotiating with them only” irritated the Appretite of those Barbarians” and brought shame on the United States….Jefferson also persisted in asserting that peace with Barbary was attainable only “through the medium of war.”…
George Washington felt “the highest disgrace” in seeing Americans “become tributary to such banditti who might for half the sum that is paid them be exterminated from the earth.” …
Outside the legislature, many Americans had grown dismayed with their country’s policy of admonishing pirates verbally while simultaneously coddling them with bribes. …mounting criticism especially reflected in …The Algerian Captive…excoriating persons who make ‘degrading treaties with piractical powers” and who furnish them with the weapons for extracting even more humiliating concessions…reminding Americans of “necessity of uniting our federal strength to enforce a due respect among other nations” and that “our first object is union among ourselves.”
Finally, after trying appeasement and seeing more American ships seized, the newly independent United States could not afford to pay the extortionate demands of the Sultans, so we had to fight. It was our first act on the world stage as a new nation. We had to build a navy to do it. We projected military force for the first time, and moral force.
Standing up to the threat of violent Islam was a defining moment for America under President Thomas Jefferson. Capitulating to Iran will be the defining moment of this generation.
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