Posted on Apr 20, 2016
CSM Charles Hayden
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Why the Marine Hymn Contains the Verse "To the Shores of Tripoli" A very interesting bit of American history. Everyone should read this, because the past is present.
Most Americans are unaware of the fact that over two hundred years ago
the United States had declared war on Islam and Thomas Jefferson led the
charge!

At the height of the eighteenth century, Muslim pirates were the terror of the
Mediterranean and a large area of the North Atlantic. They attacked every ship in sight, and held the crews for exorbitant ransoms.
Those taken hostage were subjected to barbaric treatment and wrote heart-breaking letters home, begging their government and family members to pay whatever their Mohammedan captors demanded.

These extortionists of the high seas represented the Islamic nations of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers – collectively referred to as the Barbary Coast – and presented a dangerous and unprovoked threat to the new American Republic.


Before the Revolutionary War, U.S. Merchant ships had been under the
protection of Great Britain. When the U.S. Declared its independence and entered into war, the ships of the United States were protected by France. However, once the war was won, America had to protect its own fleets.


Thus, the birth of the U.S. Navy. Beginning in 1784, seventeen years before he would become president, Thomas Jefferson became America’s Minister to France. That same year, the U.S. Congress sought to appease its Muslim adversaries by following in the footsteps of European nations who paid bribes to the Barbary States rather than engaging them in war.


In July of 1785, Algerian pirates captured American ships, and the Dye of Algiers demanded an unheard-of ransom of $60,000. It was a plain and simple case of extortion, and Thomas Jefferson was vehemently opposed to any further payments. Instead, he Proposed to Congress the formation of a coalition of allied nations who together could force the Islamic states into peace. A disinterested Congress decided to pay the ransom.


In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Great Britain to ask by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved American citizens, and why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

The two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran that all nations who would 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 (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."


Despite this stunning admission of premeditated violence on non-Muslim nations, as well as the objections of many notable American leaders, including George Washington, who warned that caving in was both wrong and would only further embolden the enemy, for the following fifteen years the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to over twenty percent of the United States government annual revenues in 1800.


Jefferson was disgusted. Shortly after his being sworn in as the third President of the United States in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli sent him a note demanding the immediate payment of $225,000 plus $25,000 a year for every year forthcoming. That changed
everything. Jefferson let the Pasha know, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with his demand. The Pasha responded by Cutting down the flagpole at the American consulate and declared war on the United States. Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers immediately followed suit. Jefferson, until now, had been against America raising a naval force for anything beyond coastal defense, but, having watched his nation be cowed by Islamic thugery for long enough, decided that is was finally time to meet force with force.


He dispatched a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean and taught the Muslim Nations of the Barbary Coast a lesson he hoped they would never forget. Congress authorized Jefferson to empower U.S. Ships to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli and to “cause to be done all other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war would justify”.


When Algiers and Tunis, who were both accustomed to American cowardice and
acquiescence, saw the newly independent United States had both the will and the right to strike back, they quickly abandoned their allegiance to Tripoli. The war with Tripoli lasted for four more years, and raged up again in 1815. The bravery of the U.S. Marine Corps in these wars led to the line “to the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Hymn, and they would forever be known as “leathernecks” for the leather collars of their uniforms, designed to prevent their heads from being cut off by the Muslim scimitars when boarding enemy ships.


Islam, and what its Barbary followers justified doing in the name of their prophet and their god, disturbed Jefferson quite deeply. America had a tradition of religious tolerance, the fact that Jefferson, himself, had co-authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, but fundamentalist Islam was like no other religion the world had ever seen. A religion based on supremacism, whose holy book not only condoned but mandated violence against unbelievers, was unacceptable to him. His greatest fear was that someday this brand of Islam would return and pose an even greater threat to the United States.


This should bother every American. That Muslims have brought about women only classes and swimming times at taxpayer-funded universities and public pools; that Christians, Jews, and Hindus have been banned from serving on juries where Muslim defendants are being judged; Piggy banks and Porky Pig tissue dispensers have been banned from workplaces because they offend Islamist sensibilities; ice cream has been discontinued at certain Burger King locations because the picture on the wrapper looks similar to the Arabic script for Allah; public schools are pulling pork from their menus; on and on and on and on….


It’s death by a thousand cuts, or inch-by-inchas some refer to it, and most Americans have no idea that this battle is being waged every day across America. By not fighting back, by allowing groups to obfuscate what is really happening, and not insisting that the Islamists adapt to our own culture, the United States is cutting its own throat with a politically correct knife, and helping to further the Islamists agenda. Sadly, it appears that today’s America's leaders would rather be politically correct than victorious!

Any doubts, just google "Thomas Jefferson vs. the Muslim World." Also watch the
Video!!!
Posted in these groups: F3af5240 Military History6262122778 997339a086 z Politics
Edited >1 y ago
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Responses: 4
Capt Mark Strobl
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CSM Charles Hayden - While I don't disagree that there were a fair amount of Islamic pirates, the presence of the privateers & European expatriots creates a haze about their motivations. Many of those thugs not ideologically motivated. Rather, they were just on-board for the loot.
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CSM William Payne
CSM William Payne
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A lot of reading concentrating on the fact they were Muslims. Jefferson didn't declare war on Muslims, he declared war on pirates that happened to be Muslims. The British were stopping our ships, taking our ships and taking our sailors, was that because they were Muslim, because they were Christians or because they could? The Somalia pirates today aren't pirates because they are Muslim, they are thieves of the sea because they are poor and pirating seems to them to be a high reward, low risk occupation. The same reason pirates have been doing that since man first went to sea.
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CPO Frank Coluccio
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Thomas Jefferson was the President when the First Barbary War was fought in 1801 to 1805. The verse "To the shores of Tripoli" was in reference to the following action:
"On the night of 16 February 1804, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a small detachment of U.S. Marines aboard the captured Tripolitan ketch rechristened USS Intrepid, thus deceiving the guards on Philadelphia to float close enough to board her. Decatur's men stormed the ship and overpowered the Tripolitan sailors. With fire support from the American warships, the Marines set fire to Philadelphia, denying her use by the enemy. British admiral, Horatio Nelson, himself known as a man of action and courage, reportedly called this "the most bold and daring act of the age.""
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LTC Stephen F.
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Edited >1 y ago
That is a good question CSM Charles Hayden it mist have happened after the War with the Barbary Pirates and since the next phrase is to the Halls of Montezuma in must have been after 1846.
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Capt Mark Strobl
Capt Mark Strobl
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LTC Stephen F. - And any good historian will discover that the Marines showed up first in Tripoli (Battle of Derna 4/27/1805) then on to the Halls of Montezuma (9/13/1847). Thus, the lyrics are chronologically reversed. Sorry, had a "Cliff Claven" moment.
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LTC Stephen F.
LTC Stephen F.
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Capt Mark Strobl - Since the Mexican American War started in 1946 I knew that the POTUS who was in office must have been after that. Thanks for letting me know the Halls of Montezuma was fought on 9/13/1847. I edited my response based on your comment.
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CPO Frank Coluccio
CPO Frank Coluccio
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Capt Mark Strobl - One of the first actions Marines were used was in the burning of the USS Philadelphia, which had run aground in Tripoli Harbor, to prevent the Barbary Pirates from using her on 16 Feb 1804.
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Capt Mark Strobl
Capt Mark Strobl
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CPO Frank Coluccio - I thought the Philly was destroyed by a Naval detachment under the command of LT Decatur? <--I suppose some Marines could have been recruited to help. Regardless (back to the point), Under the command of 1stLt O'Bannon, Muslim & Christian mercenaries (together) advanced to Derna.

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars1800s/p/derne.htm
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