“A Barbary pirate,” Pier Francesco Mola, 1650
By Derpetologist
The first war the US fought in the Middle East was in 1801. This was also the first time the US sent its military overseas. The enemy were pirates based in Tripoli, in what is now Libya. It began when the pirates began attacking US ships and taking the crews hostage. They did this because the US government refused to pay tribute for safe passage. At the time, every other nation, including powerful ones like Britain and France, was paying tribute to these pirates.
US ships sailed to Tripoli and bombarded the city. During this time, one ship ran aground and was captured. It was later burned in a commando raid by US marines to prevent the pirates from using it. This raid is the origin of the words “to the shores of Tripoli” in the US Marine Corps hymn.
William Eaton (1764-1811)
After this incident, the US government began a long series of negotiations with the pirate government, led by a man named Yusuf Karamanli. He was a Pasha, or military governor, of the Islamic Ottoman Empire which controlled the area. At the same time, an American army officer and diplomat named Willam Eaton worked to overthrow Yusuf. Yusuf had gained power by overthrowing his brother Hamet. Eaton’s plan was to help Hamet regain the throne and then Hamet would release the American hostages and sign a treaty with the US.
Eaton and Hamet raised an army and marched on Derna, Yusuf’s capital city. With help from the US navy, they captured the city after a bloody battle and forced Yusuf to flee. A few months later, the US government announced that it had signed a treaty with Yusuf which freed the US hostages in exchange for a large ransom. Eaton was recalled and Hamet was forced into exile again. Eaton drank himself to an early death out of bitterness at the outcome.
But on a positive note, the war made a strong impact on public memory, and the US never again waged a fruitless war in the Middle East.
It’s a wonder anyone trusts us when we have such a long history of perfidity regarding alliances and treaties.
I certainly don’t trust you, at any rate.
But I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.
RUN!!111!!!!
*runs screaming from the room*
Ok, you just challenged us all on that. I’m calling noogies this time. *slap*
You say that as if every other country in the world doesnt have an identical record.
^I really need to read comments before making my own
This is basically one of the core reasons why “realism” isn’t so much a foreign policy theory as much as it is a recognition that it is the underlying nature of all international relations.
People make treaties because they serve their mutual interests. They break them for the same reasons. They maintain them for appearances sake, and for the sake of encouraging others.
+1 Lt. Presley O’Bannon
Stephen Decatur wept.
Especially after Bainbridge set him up to be shot.
So much for libertopia island.
This, by the way is an excellent longer form treatment of the same event. The surrender of the USS Philadelphia is still one of the weirdest events in naval history, and the raid to fire it one of the great adventures.
put in wishlist.
The thing that struck me most about this little chapter in our history were the words of the Pasha during the negotiations. They are indistinguishable from the jihadists today. Same ‘ol Islam will rule the world all infidels will die bullshit. Identical .
Nihil novum sub sole, eh?
It isnt just that, it is that the barbarism over there hasn’t changed one bit. We have been through an industrial revolution, trips to the moon, banishing huge swaths of the diseases that have plagued mankind for millennia, engineering and technological marvels, explosive growth in wealth and life span…and these sadistic barbarians are still crawling out from under rocks to perpetrate sadistic acts of savagery in the name of their blood god. It is pathetic.
That shit goes back to the very earliest accounts we have of the Islamic conquests, though they aren’t really contemporaneous, but slightly after. The concept of Jihad has varied some over time, but there’s always been camps preaching that shit.
It hasn’t been ten years since I read about a new mahdi that gathered his village together, snuck down the nile in the night and slaughtered the neighboring village with machetes because allah decreed it. Never mind that they stole all of the neighbors goats, mules and grain stores after chopping up little children with machetes, it was allah’s will.
Allah’s cool since he usually wills it that you get to rape all the women and store them in a harem for later use.
You know.. that other site… apparently if I am a true libertarian, what I really ought to do is engage with 2-3 obvious trolls who are obviously participating in bad faith.
If I don’t expend my life energy scrolling past their annoying trolling (and LITERAL SPAM), that means I want an “echo chamber” where I will be protected from harmful disagreeing opinions.
Seriously, how fucking hard is it to understand the idea of all participants participating in good faith?
I have no problem with people who disagree, even persistently. I do, however, have a problem with feeding trolls. In order to find trolls worth engaging with, I would have to fundamentally misunderstand what trolling is and why people do it. It’s CURRENT_YEAR and people are still that naive?
Did you see the property tax thread last night? Me and trashminister (like someone else said, that is clearly how it reads) disagreed, but in good faith. That is what I want, and why I tried but can’t go back to reason.
That sort of thread is exactly why I threw my hat into this ring to help make this place. I love a good, spirited, libertarian debate–in good faith.
Now all we need is MNG to complete things.
Oh wait…we were talking about in good faith.
Interestingly, at one time, he could give good argument. Before I got banned by Tim Cavanaugh, MNG and I had some spirited exchanges about Israel that was actually honest and well-thought-out. He went a little funny in the head after that, so you can blame me.
How does that happen?
unless you’re pulling a “John-on-Scott” shit-talking, i don’t see what could possibly motivate a writer to ban individual commenters.
Wait, you aren’t planning on harping on those who might disagree with you over a complex issue that isn’t clearly handled by libertarian thought over and over again?
I am. I am preparing my own article where I call out people who want to be self-sufficient on their own land as rent seekers.
Very good!
*sharpens sabre*
Oh, really…
Yeah, I’ve not spent much time over there. I think what you write is accurate but I’ve also thought some about relationships. I think most of what is driving me here is that I “know” most of the posters, that they act in good faith, and that I’m interacting with friends. As my wife keeps telling me, most of what we do revolves around people rather than institutions or structures.
Why even going back there anymore? Half of the posts are either pure trolls, Tony, or shreek.
In a bizarro inversion of why I used to go there… some of the actual posts are interesting?
This site has officially replaced Reason on Firefox’s favorite tabs thing. I haven’t been there in a week. Was previously a pretty constant refresher of pages there. Their traffic will nosedive.
The conversations here are why I started posting at Reason in the first place. I was actually learning shit or at least finding something of interest in it.
*WILL* Nosedive? Dude, take a look at the number of hits something like AM links gets.
They still have some good articles. I just have about given up on posting there. Not much of anyone left to talk to and the server is a massive piece of shit.
At a certain point, given the writers, I can’t help but wonder who the trolls were?
There’s trolls on just about every site you can post on.
If you want to get to something with more of an even mix of political opinions, go post on WaPo. It’s a good lesson in learning just how broadly libertarians are hated. Progs and conservatives hate each other, sure, but they both hate libertarians even more. Depending on what the issue is, both left and right of the divide posters will agree with you. Until they’ve figured out you aren’t one of ‘them’. Then they’ll gang up on you and disagree with everything you say no matter if they have to contradict themselves to do it. In other words, the only thing they hate more than you disagreeing with them, is when you agree with their enemy, about anything. I used to find that amusing, but grew tired of it. The tribes shall not be reasoned with.
Kentucky Marine hero Presley O’Bannon received the Mameluke sword from Hamet for his bravery at the battle of Derna. The design of the modern USMC dress sword is based on that sword.
Proving, once and for all, Kentucky rules and everywhere else sucks. YEEEEEHAWW!!! *hoots and hollers uncontrollably*
I was only in Kentucky for Basic, but outside Fort Polk it was basically what I imagine hell to be like.
*spits tobacco* Why don’t you come say that to my face, boy?
Where were you for basic? Some parts of Kentucky are better than others, but it’s still better than everywhere else *fires guns into air aimlessly*
Kentucky has some distinct regions. There’s the west part, the central part, and the Appalachia (east) part. Have some relatives in the east part and used to go down there and hang out summers after school was out. I in general liked it, but of course I didn’t have to live there. Lots of poverty and rednecks, but some of them were actually preferable to the aging yuppies I live around now. Most people had what I would say is a pretty libertarian like attitude. We hiked the mountain trails a lot. Saw a lot of weed. Yes, that kind of weed. It seemed to be very popular locally.
I am not really a fan of the west, the east, Lexington, or northern KY. But the rest of the state is nice.
Basically, a north/south corridor defined by Warren County on the west and Woodford County on the east.
Lou-ah-vuhle kinda sucks too. But the 150 square miles we’ve narrowed it down to is pretty good.
Well, you just left out the entire state. But what about Cincy, you don’t like that part either?
Northern KY is south Ohio.
Kentucky grows a metric fuckass load of weed.
Ranking the regions of Kentucky:
1) Central/Bluegrass
2) South Central
3) West
4) Appalachia
5) Louisville
6) 3 Northern KY counties included in the Cincy metro area. Terrible accents, terrible food, immigrant stock. All the worst things about the midwest, transplanted South.
terrible food
The Hofbrauhaus makes up for a lot of other sins.
I suggested on that other site a meetup of the Creation Museum followed by Hofbrauhaus.
I would still be up for that.
I’ll gladly get shitty drunk and eat potatoes for any cause
Putting spaghetti and cinnamon into meat sauce and calling it chili is a war-crime.
I spoke with some of the growers of the metric fuckass load. Some real characters. Budz as long as yer leg! Don’t be going round yonder without ya’ll boys let me know, you could some buckshot in yer behind!
“All the worst things about the midwest”
So you’ve never been to Indiana? Well, ok then.
Indiana is garbage. It just can’t compete with how garbage Ohio is.
I’ll never respect a place where they don’t allow you to buy booze on Sunday to nurse your hangover. Never.
Kentucky grows a metric fuckass load of weed.
Hypothetically, if I were passing through there, where would I find such? Asking for a friend. A hypothetical friend.
I’ll ask my friend if his dad still grows
If you were at Fort Campbell, I understand. That part of the state isn’t really KY to me. My wife is from not far from there, I am going to be buried not far from there. But it still isn’t KY to me.
Um wot? Fort Polk is in Louisiana.
dammit. nvm I got the joke now.
Try Fort Leonard Wood in the winter. There’s a good reason troops call it “Little Korea”.
I was ignorant about this (and many other areas) so thanks for the interesting history lesson