The Barbary Wars, Continued

The Barbary Wars, Continued

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The four Barbary States of North Africa - Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli - had plundered seaborne commerce for centuries. Surviving by blackmail, they received great sums of money, ships, and arms yearly from foreign powers in return for allowing the foreigners to trade in African ports and sail unmolested through the Barbary waters. They demanded tribute money, seized ships, and held crews for ransom or sold them into slavery. American merchant ships, no longer covered by British protection, were seized by Barbary pirates in the years after United States independence, and American crews were enslaved. In 1799, the United States agreed to pay $18,000 a year in return for a promise that Tripoli-based corsairs would not molest American ships. Similar agreements were made at the time with the rulers of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis.

In 1805, Marines stormed the Barbary pirates' harbor fortress stronghold of Derna (Tripoli), commemorated in the Marine Corp Hymn invocation "To the Shores of Tripoli." Following the War of 1812, two naval squadrons under Commodores Decatur and Bainbridge returned to the Mediterranean. Diplomacy backed by resolute force soon brought the rulers of Barbary to terms and gained widespread respect for the new American nation. Decatur obtained treaties which eliminated the United States paying tribute. In the years immediately after the Napoleonic wars, which ended in 1815, the European powers forced an end to piracy and the payment of tribute in the Barbary states.



Washington and Madison, meet Barack Obama, the newest American president forced to deal harshly with murder and mayhem on the high seas. Over the last week, virtually all news in America was dominated by an attack on the unarmed cargo ship Maersk-Alabama by pirates off the coast of Somalia. The crew managed to fight off the attack, but the pirates made off with the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, and were demanding $2 million for his release.

(visit the link for the full news article)

So, now we have to deal with Pirates interfering with shipping lanes. I imagine if this continues America and its mighty military will sing these fools a lullaby. This is something we really don't need with the current economic state we are in. Anyone have any thoughts on this or is this more disinformation to distract us from the truth?

www.truthout.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

The attack of an American ship by pirates based in Somalia constitutes, in my opinion, and I beleive according to international law, is an act of war! If Obama has a pair, he will insist on a NATO mission to stop these atrocities. The United Nations is so impotent not even viagra can help them get it up. Nato ships are attacked, then NATO gets involved and blows away the bad guys.
They need a severa ships, some drones for arial survallence and a few special ops teams(perhaps one from each country). Saturation of the area in this manner should convince the bad guys it's time to give up. If it doesn't then we move inland and locate some of their enclaves, and take them out that way.

I really can't stand these stupid analogues to the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean.

Just stop with always looking for a historical precedent to compare things to, as if to try pawn off some of the blame onto the events of antiquity.

The Somali pirates are not raiding ports with massive Galleons and plundering the coasts of other countries, taking their inhabitants as slaves. They are not destroying other countries naval forces in pitched, one on one battles.
Okay?

They're criminals. They pull heists and they disappear, and that's about as complex as you need to make the current situation in Somalia.
Bank robbers on the high seas. That's it.

Guys from a desperate country in a desperate situation who want money. Period.

All these alleged connections to the events of the 1800's hold no merit.

The Turkish Barbary Corsairs were driven by a PURELY military objective to dominate the Mediterranean, in the face of up and coming European powers, just as the Ottoman Empire had for centuries before been the pre-eminent Naval force of Europe.

The Somali pirates NEVER have been and NEVER will be a true naval power.

What they will be are criminals looking to score big time.

End of discussion.

While those in the Mediteranian may have been looking for military might, they were capturing American shilps, holding the crews for ransom. I really don't see the difference. Some rogue criminals have attacked American ships. They have committed an act of war. Only the undeserved mercy of the United States has, so far, kept Somalia from being bombed into a parking lot.
And lthat may not be foar off!