From: John K. Pollard Jr.

Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006 12:43 PM
To: gevisser@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Well worth reading. Our first brush with terrorists

	April 29, 2006

DOW JONES

A Vintage U.S. War on Terrorism

While Europe appeased the Barbary pirates, America sent in the Navy

By JONATHAN KARL
April 29, 2006; Page P11

The End of Barbary Terror
By Frederick C. Leiner
Oxford, 239 pages, $28

In 1815, Washington was in ruins: the White House and Capitol building burned and sacked by the British, the national treasury depleted, the U.S. bruised and battered (but not defeated) by the War of 1812. President James Madison called the Congress to its make-shift chamber at the Post Office Building and asked for something extraordinary: a declaration of war against a state thousands of miles away.

What followed was the U.S.'s first war on terror. This little conflict is now largely forgotten, but it had great and lasting consequences, establishing the U.S. as a global naval power and ending more than two centuries of state-sponsored terrorism in the Mediterranean.

"The End of Barbary Terror" by Frederick Leiner recounts Madison's decision and the war that followed against an enemy that had attacked and tormented European powers greater than the U.S. since the 1500s. The Barbary states of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and Morocco had run a lucrative kidnapping and slavery racket in the Mediterranean, capturing commercial ships, enslaving thousands of Christians and extorting millions of dollars in ransom and protection money from Europe.

"Slave taking was jihad," writes Mr. Leiner, and the tactics employed by the Islamic leaders of the Barbary states "were a form of terrorism, a method of seaborne violence meant to intimidate the peoples of Europe." It was essentially a system of government-regulated kidnapping. The pirates would capture ships, forcing their passengers to work as slaves onshore until somebody came up with enough ransom money to buy their freedom.

Stephen Decatur, a national hero for his naval exploits, died in a duel in 1820.

Eventually the major European states simply paid protection money, deciding it was easier to appease the pirates than confront them. "Paying the Barbary rulers a 'license' for trade was less expensive than constantly convoying ships or attacking the Barbary powers in their heavily fortified ports," Mr. Leiner explains. America played the game too. In the five years before the war, the U.S. counsel in Algiers doled out a half-million dollars in "gifts" and "tributes" intended to buy safety for American ships.

In August 1812, a 71-foot-long American trading ship, the Edwin, sailing off the coast of Spain found itself facing an all too common situation in the Mediterranean. A much larger ship from Algiers armed with two rows of cannons overcame the Edwin, capturing the ship and her 10-man crew. The pirates looted the ship and sold the men off to slavery in Algiers.

After the end of the War of 1812, Algiers decided to play hardball with the U.S., demanding a staggering ransom of $1 million for the return of the Edwin's crew. There was logic to the demand. The rulers of Algiers figured that America, its Navy ravaged by war with Britain, could not afford another fight and would decide it would be cheaper to pay the ransom.

It was a serious miscalculation. President Madison dispatched an armada of the U.S.'s 10 available fighting ships, headed by Stephen Decatur, to the Mediterranean. Decatur's mission: bring back the American hostages and their ship. Madison ordered him not to pay a single cent in ransom or tribute to Algiers.

"The End of Barbary Terror" may go into a bit too much esoteric detail for most readers, but the book recounts a stunning military success. With a mix of bravery and luck, Decatur defeated two enemy ships on his way to Algiers. Within 48 hours of arriving on the shore of the most powerful Barbary state, Decatur was able to force peace on American terms ("dictated at the mouths of our cannon," as he later said). The U.S.'s infant Navy had scored a victory that had eluded European powers for nearly three centuries.

America's quick victory embarrassed the Europeans and demonstrated that there was no reason to fear the Barbary pirates. Within months, England battled to free British subjects enslaved in Tripoli and soon the entire system of paying tribute to the pirates came crashing down. The American example gave Europe the backbone to fight the terrorists rather than appease them.

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Mr. Karl is the senior national security correspondent for ABC News.