The Barbary Wars, Islam in American History & Churchill on Wahhabism

One historical perspective of Islam concerns the very first war America fought after its Independence from Britain. It was a 32 year war against the Muslim Barbary pirates who believed their religion justified attacks on the shipping of non-believers and enslaving all Christians they could take prisoner. A second perspective that we get is through the eyes of Winston Churchill, who wrote of his observations of Islam in the Sudan and Afghanistan, and warned against the Wahhabi Islam of the Sauds. Had we but listened to Churchill, our world would be very different today.

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There are a couple of fascinating posts that I have stumbled across today. The first, with a hat tip to Red Alerts, is a very good article on the history of Islam in our nation and the first war that our nation ever fought against the Muslm pirates of the Barbary Coast. This from Wallbuilders:

. . . The Barbary Powers (called Barbary “pirates” by most Americans) attacked American civilian and commercial merchant ships (but not military ships) wherever they found them. Prior to the Revolution, American shipping had been protected by the British navy, and during the Revolution by the French navy. After the Revolution, however, America lacked a navy of her own and was therefore left without protection for her shipping. The vulnerable American merchant ships, built for carrying cargoes rather than fighting, were therefore easy prey for the warships of the Barbary Powers, which seized the cargo of the ships as loot and took their seamen (of whom all were considered Christians by the attacking Muslims) and enslaved them.

In 1784, Congress authorized American diplomats John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to negotiate with the Muslim terrorists. Negotiations proceeded, and in 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson candidly asked the Ambassador from Tripoli the motivation behind their unprovoked attacks against Americans. What was the response?

The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet [Mohammed] – that it was written in their Koran that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that is 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 [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

Given this “spiritual” incentive to enslave and make war, the Muslim attacks against American ships and seamen were frequent. In fact, in the span of just one month in 1793, Algiers alone seized ten American ships and enslaved more then one hundred sailors, holding them for sale or ransom. Significantly, when Adams and Jefferson queried the Tripolian Ambassador about the seizure of sailors, he explained:

It was a law that the first who boarded an enemy’s vessel should have one slave more than his share with the rest, which operated as an incentive to the most desperate valor and enterprise – that it was the practice of their corsairs [fast ships] 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.

The enslaving of Christians by Muslims was such a widespread problem that for centuries, French Catholics operated a ministry that raised funding to ransom enslaved seamen. . . .

This is a long article and there is much more. Do read the whole article. It is footnoted, though I have deleted them in the section quoted above.

And as long as we are speaking of historical perspectives on Islam, one should never forget the observations of one of the greatest men of the West, Winston Churchill. As a young man, Churchill served in the military in the Sudan, eventually writing his first book about his experiences, The River War:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries.

Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.

Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248 50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899). And later, Churchill would write specifically about the Wahhabis and Ibn Saud:

"A large number of Bin Saud's followers belong to the Wahabi sect, a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relationship to orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvinism would have borne to Rome in the fiercest times of [Europe's] religious wars.

The Wahhabis profess a life of exceeding austerity, and what they practice themselves they rigorously enforce on others. They hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahhabi villages for simply appearing in the streets.

It is a penal offence to wear a silk garment. Men have been killed for smoking a cigarette and, as for the crime of alcohol, the most energetic supporter of the temperance cause in this country falls far behind them. Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and blood-thirsty, in their own regions the Wahhabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account, and they have been, and still are, very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Read the entire article. Unlike our modern Nero's, Churchill spoke the truth about what he saw. How prescient and clearheaded was Churchill? In 1919, he wanted to fully invest the White Revolution and end Boshevism before it took hold and became the communist state of the Soviet Union. In 1933, he wanted to threaten military force against Nazi Germany to stop their rearmanent. In between, he argued against backing Ibn Saud to take over Arabia. Amazing, that this one man clearly saw the three greatest threats to civilization of the past century, and had we but listened to him at any of those junctures, how many tens of millions of lives would have been spared?

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Der Spiegel Interviews a Teenage Iraqi Terrorist

There is an interesting interview in Der Spiegel of a teenage boy who was recruited to become a terrorist. Unfortunately, the article does not go into detail about what group recruited the boy or many additional specifics, but it is an interesting read nonetheless, if for not then all the contradictions apparent in the article - among them: the boy's hatred of Americans in respect of the fact that its the presence of Americans near his jail that assures him good treatment; the boy would like to visit America; and the real possibility that this would be killer may in fact be straightened out by a few whacks on his thick skull by an irate father:

Many of the insurgents building bombs and carrying out attacks in Iraq are hate-filled teenagers. Diya Muhammad Hussein, 16, is one of them.

. . . It was on a Wednesday a few weeks ago when Diya Muhammad Hussein went out to kill Americans. It was shortly after one o'clock in the morning and the curfew had just begun in the western Iraq town of Rawah. Diya crept out of his brother's house and walked to the tree where he had hidden the explosive device three days before.

It was a cold night, the 16-year-old recalls as he sits on the sofa of the police chief in his home town. After several hours a patrol of US Marines approached but Diya couldn't get the batteries back in the remote control unit fast enough. The Marines drove past unharmed.

. . . Diya calls himself a mujahedeen, a freedom fighter. The Iraqi government, the coalition troops, and the population exhausted by years of violence call him a terrorist. Diya's bomb could have killed several people, the US Marines say.

. . . A few hours later he was sitting in an Internet café with his friend Ahmed and was angry. The man who had incited him to commit the attack called him a coward in an Internet chat room conversation. Diya was unaware that the police has started monitoring such Internet contacts by local youths.

He was arrested as he left the Internet café to play football with Ahmed. He still had the remote control detonator in his coat pocket.

There are a number of possible reasons why the police chief of Rawah allowed us to interview Diya. For one, the US Marines asked him to, and they support the Iraqi police with a special training program as well as occasional equipment supplies, paying for an air conditioning unit here or a flashlight there. When the American friends make a request, it's hard to turn them down.

But the police chief is also proud of the arrest his officers made. Diya may look like just an ordinary teenager as he answers questions with his hands stuffed under his armpits, but his capture has averted a lot of harm. Diya led the police to an unusually large arsenal of weapons stored in plastic barrels buried in gardens. They contained a number of explosive devices, more than a dozen detonators, two precision rifles for snipers, Kalashnikovs, three grenades, 10 rockets, rocket launchers, TNT and a hundred hand grenades.

Diya went through what one could describe as the classic career of an Iraqi insurgent. About a year ago his father decided to take his wife and 11 children away from the increasing violence in Rawah and moved his family to a rural part of the country. There, in the small village of Hassah, Diya met Maad, an experienced fighter. The older man gained Diya's confidence and kept telling him how the Americans were godless occupiers. Fighting them was the duty of every Iraqi, he said.

Diya was thrilled, wanted to join the fight. As an initiation test into the group of local muhajedeen he was told to detonate a homemade mine. He recalls being told that he could one day attack the Marines as a suicide bomber, and didn't take that offer particularly seriously. "I found the notion strange, even funny," he says.

When Diya started preparing his first mission, he had a big network of helpers at his disposal. Rawah is a town like almost every other in Iraq -- everyone knows each other, and everyone knows who has been involved in the fight against the "occupiers" in the last few years. There's scarcely a family that doesn't have at least one son or cousin who worked as a henchman or leader of the local branch of "al-Qaida in Iraq" or other terror groups.

It was Ahmed's brother who told the boys about the weapons stashes, shortly before he was arrested as an insurgent. Diya learned how to use a detonator from Anas Fa'iq, another former fighter. His name is on a long list of wanted Iraqi Qaida members which is hanging in the US Marines' command headquarters.

Diya has been lucky in one respect. The building in which he is incarcerated also houses the company of Marines stationed in Rawah. They all live on the same floor: US Marines, Iraqi police and the prisoners. The Americans guarantee the prisoners at least a minimum of good treatment.

. . . "We still hate the Americans. In truth no one likes them. Iraq isn't free, that's why we have to keep on fighting," says Diya.

What would he do if he got a visa tomorrow to travel to the US? He would definitely take it, says Diya. Asked if he is aware of how contradictory that sounds, he smiles bashfully and buries his hands deeper into his armpits.

It's the irony of fate that Diya's brother became a policeman a few days after his arrest. They've rarely been closer than they are now. Diya squats in his cell behind a barred door while his brother stands guard outside.

"He spat on me when he saw me here," says Diya. His brother told him that his father is waiting for him to be released. "My father is beside himself with rage and will punish me severely, my brother said." . . .

Read the entire article.

(H/T Eye On The World)

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Interesting News From Around the Web

In multicultural Britain, the Labour Party now wants to rewrite the British anthem, ‘God Save the Queen,’ to make it “more inclusive” and a little less unfriendly to its northern cousins. Specifically, the verse that calls for the “rebellious Scots” to be crushed seems to be problematic.

A fascinating post at Right Truth on the White Man’s Burden in the 21st Century

This is worrisome. Hillary Clinton seems to think Adam Smith no longer has application to our economy.

CAIR and the canard of rampant Islamaphobia at Q&O

CAIR has picked the dhimmi candidate for President. No surprises. Its John Edwards

The ACLU has a real problem with Marines praying on duty. The Marines have some suggestions for the ACLU

Remember the days when a person could figure out how to build a nuclear weapon from open sources in a library . . . . . Cheatseeking Missles has the modern Michael Crichtonesque equivalent.

From the No Good Seed Goes Unpunished category . . .

Christian Arabs are being cleansed from Palestinian controlled areas

Carl in Jerusalem tells us that Israel looking askance at the NIE on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Iraq the Model discusses how to eat an elephant in Iraq

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