Umm...About that Treaty with Tripoli Again
Back in November, I posted a comment I made about some drivel posted at Marginal Revolution regarding the Treaty with Tripoli. I'm reviving because it has led a lot of people to this blog...and because the National Review has brought up the subject of the Barbary Pirates.
The bottom line is this: there are those on the left who will whine till the cows come home that the Treaty With Tripoli is "proof" that America was not founded on the Christian Religion who are wrong. They tend to be the same types who believe the fallacy that Islam is a "religion of peace." Contemporary Liberals. Go figure.
Iraq may well establish a free system of elections and appear to be a great democratic success (or not) over the next few years, but the real proof is what happens there in the long-term. I believe that it is both arrogant and irrational to proffer that people who not only are of Islam, but also are antagonistically "diverse" can establish "Democracy." Democracy simply cannot work over the long term in an Islamic state; some iteration of Sharia Law must eventually become the standard. America's form of Government, and that of the democratic west, is dependent on cultural ethos immersed in Christianity. Turkey may have given a good go at Democracy after Ataturk worked to westernize, but today the pendulum is swinging rapidly back toward Islamification of its ideas about justice, liberty and inalienable rights.
To expect Islamic states to form and maintain governments modeled on the ethos of the Dar al Harb is lunacy.
Similarly, to posit that any treaty entered into with the Barbary States by our government was indicative of orginal intent is asinine because it supposes the leaders of our nascent nation were incredibly ignorant.
Technorati tags: Barbary Pirates, Treaty with Tripoli
The bottom line is this: there are those on the left who will whine till the cows come home that the Treaty With Tripoli is "proof" that America was not founded on the Christian Religion who are wrong. They tend to be the same types who believe the fallacy that Islam is a "religion of peace." Contemporary Liberals. Go figure.
Barbary Piracy & the War on Terror
Joshua E. London, National Review Online
"Although there is much in the history of America’s wars with the Barbary pirates that is of direct relevance to the current “war on terror,” one aspect seems particularly instructive to informing our understanding of contemporary Islamic terrorists. Very simply put, the Barbary pirates were committed, militant Muslims who meant to do exactly what they said.All of this history gets intertwined with present day problems. Surprise! I'll preface the following with the prayer that we do succeed in creating some stability in Iraq. But I fervently believe it is foolhardy to even hope that the end-result government there is going to benefit us.
Take, for example, the 1786 meeting in London of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Tripolitan ambassador to Britain. As American ambassadors to France and Britain respectively, Jefferson and Adams met with Ambassador Adja to negotiate a peace treaty and protect the United States from the threat of Barbary piracy.
These future United States presidents questioned the ambassador as to why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity. Ambassador Adja answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress, “that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged 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 Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
Sound familiar?"
Iraq may well establish a free system of elections and appear to be a great democratic success (or not) over the next few years, but the real proof is what happens there in the long-term. I believe that it is both arrogant and irrational to proffer that people who not only are of Islam, but also are antagonistically "diverse" can establish "Democracy." Democracy simply cannot work over the long term in an Islamic state; some iteration of Sharia Law must eventually become the standard. America's form of Government, and that of the democratic west, is dependent on cultural ethos immersed in Christianity. Turkey may have given a good go at Democracy after Ataturk worked to westernize, but today the pendulum is swinging rapidly back toward Islamification of its ideas about justice, liberty and inalienable rights.
To expect Islamic states to form and maintain governments modeled on the ethos of the Dar al Harb is lunacy.
Similarly, to posit that any treaty entered into with the Barbary States by our government was indicative of orginal intent is asinine because it supposes the leaders of our nascent nation were incredibly ignorant.
Technorati tags: Barbary Pirates, Treaty with Tripoli
