What should be taught at school (1)

It is clear that the invasion of Iraq will remain the most controversial military action undertaken by the United States and Britain decades to come, with the a consensus that it was a fiasco on the one hand and those who believe the surge turned the war around and Iraq will over time bear the fruits of a modern democratic state on the other. And, of course, everything in between.

So I found it both refreshing and insightful to look back 200 years to when America first planted its flag in foreign soil. It did so in the soil of a Muslim country, but it was far from unprovoked and it would be a warped mind indeed whose sympathies didn't lie with the US at this time in its history.

The First Barbary War took place between 1801-1805 and saw a young United States of America take on the quasi-autonomous states of North Africa, then part of the Ottoman Empire and today known as Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Morocco was also one of the Barbary states but stayed out of the war having signed a peace treaty with the US a few years beforehand. Morocco was, incidentally, the first country to recognise the independence of the United States of America.

Historians estimate that between 1750 and 1820 a million and a half white people (Europeans and North America) were taken as slaves by these states and pressed into servitude as were their ships and properties. In 1631 Algerian pirates sacked and enslaved the entire population of the Irish village of Baltimore (108 people).

Before American declared independence its merchant vessel were protected by the Royal Navy. This protection obviously ceased but after the War of Independence the ships of the US Navy were either sunk, sold, or in need of some serious work. Indeed it wasn't till 1794 that the US Navy was recommissioned. Yet one fifth of America's Atlantic coast exports went to the Med, in the holds of around 100-American owned ships. They became easy pickings for the Barbary pirates who in 1784 boarded the Betsy and subsequently two more vessels. The sailors were taking through jeering crowds to Hassan, the ruler of Algiers, who denounced them as Christian dogs, threw them in a dungeon and fed them 15 ounces of bread a day. Hassan then asked for a $60,000 ransom.

In 1785 Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli's envoy to London, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, and asked him what right his country 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 recognise 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 would go to heaven.

For the next fifteen years the US agreed to pay 'tribute' (as opposed to 'ransom'), but this amounted to $1m a year at a time when the entire revenue in the Federal Reserve amounted to just $10m. So for fifteen years the US gave 10% of its revenue to pirates supported by religious monarchist Muslim states to not enslave any of its citizens.

But when Jefferson became inaugerated as president in 1801 he denied to pay the $225,000 demanded by the Pasha of Tripoli. The Barbary states declared war on the US in May by cutting the flag staff from the US consulate in Tunis. Jefferson decided enough was enough and sent a naval fleet to the Med.

The turning point of the war came in 1805 in the Battle of Derma when General Willian Eaton and US Marine First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon led eight marines and 500 Greek, Arab and Berber mercenaries from Egypt to capture Derma. This was the first time the US flag was raised on foreign soil.

Alas, despite demonstrating it meant business and its armed forces could operate cohesively pirates once again became the scourge of American shipping in 1807. It wasn't until the Second Barbary War in 1815 that pirating was effectively put to rest in the Med.

This piece of history is interesting because it can be compared to so many of the issues we face today, from fighting fundamentalist Islam to Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa.