So, I was selecting a halloweeny themed costume for Freak Train last night. I had a Sheiky getup for a dinner theater gig this week, and leftovers from Talk Like A Pirate Day. So, naturally, I decided to go as an Islamic Pirate. I figured it’d be fun to use that comic costume mish-mash as a justification for talking about the first Barbary war. Unfortunately, I wound up running late, and didn’t manage to get a slot.
So, you should all spend a great deal of time researching the novelty of this little war. It was our first time dealing with radical Islamists backed by rouge states who were operating outside the scope of agreed international law. We handled it by paying them off and supporting them, right up until we turned around and had an undeclared war with them which was all the bloodier because they funded their side of the war using the money we had been giving them. (Sound familiar?)
The war even started when Islamists brought down a tall American structure. When his demands for ransom and tribute were denied, the Pasha of Tripoli “declared war” by walking down to the U.S. consulate and chopping down the flag pole out front.
Our conflicts with the Barbary Coast states even gave us one of the earliest documents explaining whether or not the American government is founded in Christianity. Modern politicians refer to us as One Nation Under God and insist that we have always been a Christian nation. The early leaders of our nation saw things a bit differently: “…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;…” according to the 1797 Treaty With Tripoli. The treaty had unanimous support from the Senate, and was published in newspapers at the time. There is no record of contemporary complaints or public outcry. It was a hundred years after the start of the Revolutionary war before God started to gain any foothold in the government.