200 years ago, everyone called terrorists by another name: pirates
- Washington Post
For most Americans, every event is new and unprecedented in the world. That's because most American's grasp of history is deplorable.
An embarrassingly large percentage of Americans are completely unaware that this isn't America's first global war with terrorism. To make matters worse, a large percentage of the public that is familiar with our first global war on terrorism is under the false impression that we won a clear victory.
Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!
"They are more like monsters than human beings."
- an American captive of the Barbary pirates
"There is but one language which can be held to these people, and this is terror."
- U.S. consul William Eaton wrote to the Secretary of State in 1799
Our neocon friends tend to hear only what they want to hear:
It would be interesting to ask Paul’s opinion on Jefferson’s handling of the Barbary Pirates, incidentally. If I recall those signatures at the end of the Constitution correctly, he actually was one of the founding fathers, and I don’t seem to think "blowback" was amongst his concerns.
Actually one of the reasons that Jefferson never asked Congress to declare war on the Barbary Pirates is because there was no consensus that it would pass. Instead, Congress passed a resolution authorizing a use of force, just like our Congress today. President Adams believed that it would be cheaper and wiser to just pay off the pirates, as many european nations already did. Between the time of the first ships being seized, and when the pirate nations agreed to stop terrorizing American shipping, 30 years had passed.
While history books normally lead us to believe that the First Barbary War was a smashing success (and hence, a blueprint for our current war against terrorism), the reality was very much different.
Sluggish in recognizing the full nature of the threat, America entered the war well after the enemy’s call to arms. Poorly planned and feebly executed, the American effort proceeded badly and at great expense — resulting in a hastily negotiated peace and an equally hasty declaration of victory.
As timely and familiar as these events may seem, they occurred more than two centuries ago. The president was Thomas Jefferson, and the terrorists were the Barbary pirates. Unfortunately, many of the easy lessons to be plucked from this experience have yet to be fully learned.
The undeclared war had several examples of individual heroism and boldness that would set a very standard for conduct in the American military. But it was matched by embarrassing mistakes.
Philadelphia being destroyed
For instance, easily the most daring of actions was Lieutenant Stephen Decatur's night raid into harbour of Tripoli where he killed the pirates that were aboard and burned the Philadelphia before escaping back to the fleet. The problem was that this risky adventure was made necessary when the Philadelphia had run herself aground when trying to block the harbor all by herself. The captain then failed to properly scuttle the ship. So even after Decatur's daring deed, the entire crew of the Philadelphia still languished in slavery.
Philadelphia captured
The capture of the pirate ship renamed Intrepid was matched by the tragic attempt to use it as a fire ship which cost the lives of the entire crew.
Intrepid's End
In the end America agreed to a peace treaty with the Bashaw of Tripoli that didn't look anything like a resounding victory.
The Bashaw of Tripoli shall deliver up to the American Squadron now off Tripoli, all the Americans in his possession; and all the Subjects of the Bashaw of Tripoli now in the power of the United States of America shall be delivered up to him; and as the number of Americans in possession of the Bashaw of Tripoli amounts to Three Hundred Persons, more or less; and the number of Tripolino Subjects in the power of the Americans to about, One Hundred more or less; The Bashaw of Tripoli shall receive from the United States of America, the sum of Sixty Thousand Dollars, as a payment for the difference between the Prisoners herein mentioned.
The fact that we had to pay for the American prisoners should be a major clue of how the war went against these pirate states that had been in decline for over a century. We also abandoned our arab allies to their fates after they had risked their lives at the Battle of Derna.
Just two years after the end of this war, Algiers had gone back to taking American ships and selling the prisoners into slavery. By 1815 the American navy was forced to sail back into war against the pirates. The second war ended without the destruction of the pirate nations yet again. The Barbary states never truly came to end until France invaded Algeria in 1830 and laid waste to the lands.
"We were taught, in the schoolbooks, that the United States in its first real war had cowed the dastardly Barbary princes. This was not so."
- author Donald Barr Chidsey
History Lesson
Piracy in the Mediterranean goes all the way back to the beginning of western civilization. Ancient Greek pirates used the Lipari Islands as their base for over 2500 years. To give you an idea, Pharaoh Ramses III launched a major punitive raid against pirate bases in Asia Minor in 1194 B.C. Julius Cesear himself was captured by pirates at one time.
America is hardly a blushing virgin in the arena of pirating. During the American Revolution the new government authorized privateers to operate against British shipping. More than 300 British merchant ships fell victim to these legal pirates. George Washington himself was an investor in a privateer operation. Banker and tobacco baron Robert Morris owned several privateers during the war. During America's colonial days corrupt governors openly exchange safe haven to pirates for a piece of the action.
But the true institutionalizing of modern piracy can be traced directly to the second-most important event of the year 1492, and the lessons learned are still useful today. The place: Grenada, Spain.
Reconquista
The Christian reconquest of Spain took nearly eight centuries to complete. It was a long and bloody war.
A by-product of the conquest of Spain was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious land now ruled by Christian fanatics. There were especially large jewish communities in Seville and Grenada, where muslim tolerance of the jewish religion far outstripped christian tolerance of the times. Unlike the christian community, the islamic rulers tolerated the jewish religion as long as they paid a token tax. As early as 1391 christian zealots began pogroms against the jewish communities in the name of Limpieza de sangre (i.e. cleanliness of blood).
To escape this persecution, Jews officially converted to christianity. However, these conversos were never trusted as they often continued to practice the jewish faith. So on November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV gave the go-ahead for the Spanish Inquisition. The first auto de fe was celebrated a few years later by burning six people alive.
With the fall of Grenada, Ferdinand and Isabella decided to expel all jews and mulims from Spain who refused to convert to christianity. Many who converted to avoid being expelled had to endure the Inquisition. Those that fled usually had all their assets seized, thus making the practice very profitable for the corrupt. Eventually most of them fled to the muslim states of northern Africa. The conversos continued to suffer persecution, torture, and death for decades to come.
Rise of the Barbary States
It shouldn't be all that hard to realize that if you expel hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and seize their assets that it is going to create a certain level of resentment in those refugee communities. As so, like the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees today, the refugees from Spain sought revenge. They found a pair of leaders known as the Barbarossa Brothers, Aroudj and Hizir (Hayreddin).
What probably turned Aruj’s career from peaceful trading into warfare at sea, was when his father’s small galleot under Aruj’s command was attacked and captured by a large galley belonging to Christian Knights. These so called "knights" were nothing but brigands bent upon plundering commerce at sea and abducting non-Christian men, women and children to be used or sold as slaves, under a religious guise.
In the attack on Aruj’s boat, his brother Ishaq was killed and he himself taken prisoner. Being ransomed about a year later, it would seem that he was immediately given command of another ship. The harsh treatment he received as a galley slave no doubt left little love in him for the knights and those of their kind.
The Mediterranean had been the battleground of competing crusades since the 11th Century. Ottoman privateers captured christian ships and enslaved their crews in the name of Allah. The Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John operating out of Rhodes, and Malta starting in 1530, ran their own crusade in the name of the Christian God. These christian holy warriors captured muslim merchants ships, enslaving their crews and stealing their gold. After awhile, when the picking of muslim merchant ships was thin, the Knights of Malta began attacking greek ships and enslaving their crews because the greeks weren't catholic.
You needed a program to tell the good guys from the bad guys to sail the Mediterranean in the 16th Century.
Barbarossa Aruj
One of the first successes of the Barbarossa brothers was the capture of the Pope's very own trading galley. By 1512 the brothers had become some of the most wealthy in all the lands, owning twelve corsairs, 1,000 men at arms, and much land and slaves.
The fame of Aruj increased when between 1504 and 1510 he transported Muslim Mudejars from Christian Spain to North Africa. His efforts of helping the Muslims of Spain in need and transporting them to safer lands earned him the honorific name Baba Oruç (Father Aruj), which eventually— due to the similarity in sound— evolved in Spain, Italy and France into Barbarossa (Redbeard in Italian).
Their successes gathered them more followers. In just one month in 1512 they captured 23 ships. Increasingly their raids resembled full military actions, rather than just pirate raids. Their attacks targeted the Spanish coast more and more, and Spain retaliated.
Spain sent troops to take coastal cities like Oran, Algiers and Tunis. The invasions didn't always work, but Spain managed to create a set of fortresses that interfered with the pirate's operations. Cardinal Cisneros, the leader of the Spanish Inquisition and architect of the mass expulsions of muslims from Spain, led the capture of Oran. Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1708.
Charles V himself led an invasion of Tunis in 1535. It remained in Spanish hands until 1574 when the Ottomans retook it.
But the truly large clashes were over Algiers. Spain took the city of Algiers in 1512, but were driven back to the fortress near the mouth of the harbor. Aruj lost an arm leading one of many assault against this fortress by Aruj's counterattack. When the Sultan of Algiers refused to respond to the Spanish threat, Aruj led a force of corsairs against him. After killing the Sultan, Aruj proclaimed himself Sultan.
Realizing that they needed help against the Spanish, Aruj relinquished his title of Sultan of Algiers to the Ottomans. He did this in 1517 and offered Algiers to the Ottoman Sultan. The Sultan accepted Algiers as an Ottoman Sanjak (province), appointed Oruç as the Bey (Governor) of Algiers. The following year Aruj was killed in a huge battle against the Spanish at the town of Tlemcen.
Barbarossa Hayreddin
The title of Barbarossa now fell to his brother, Hazir. Hayreddin continued the practice of bringing muslim refugees from Spain to Algiers, thereby assuring himself of a sizeable following of grateful and loyal Muslims, who harbored an intense hatred for Spain. His raids of Spanish shipping and the Spanish coast continued, as well as the drive to kick the Spanish out of north Africa. More than once, Barbarossa drove back Spanish invasion fleets trying to recapture lands recently freed from christian rule. He became so successful that in 1532 Suleiman appointed him Admiral of the Ottoman Fleet.
It was under his command that the Ottomans defeated a combined christian navy at Battle of Preveza in 1538, which allowed the Ottomans to completely dominate the Mediterranean for the next 33 years. In 1540, Emperor Charles V contacted Barbarossa and offered him to become his Admiral-in-Chief as well as the ruler of Spain's territories in North Africa, but he refused.
Battle of Prevesa
Lessons learned and ignored
Several lessons can be learned from this history. One lesson is that if Spain would simply have tolerated muslims to live in peace in Spain that they would have saved themselves a great deal of trouble.
Another lesson learned is that Spain's attempts to stop the terrorism of the Barbary pirates by invading north Africa was a complete failure. The short-term accomplishments were minimal, and in the long run it only managed to create more enemies, both in the local population and amongst rivals. The christian crusade in Spain against the muslims may have "purified" the homeland, but it caused Spain to be even more insecure within a generation. The christian crusade in north Africa left no lasting accomplishments. Cities like Tunis had to be captured and recaptured several times, and eventually nothing was solved except that a lot of people got killed.
The lesson that massive, forced refugee problems leads to terrorism and retaliation is something we see repeated in history over and over again. Military response is simply not enough. That's why we see Israel unable to find peace because it also refuses to recognize the refugee problem it created. And the refugee problem created by our invasion of Iraq is sure to have retaliations as long as our forces are in the middle east.
Another lesson learned is that the punitive raids by America against the declining Barbary states had mixed results at best. The only thing that ever stopped the pirate raids was a near genocidal invasion of Algeria by France in 1830. And while this stopped the pirate raids, the French can speak from experience that this never stopped the terrorism.
So if none of this worked, what can be done to stop terrorism? The answer is surprisingly simple: make it uneconomical. The Barbary States, and the Knights of Malta, had been in decline for at least a century before their final fall. The reason is simply risk vs. reward.
Better economic opportunities were presenting themselves in other areas, while the risk of punishment from pirating was also rising. While important, it wasn't enough that a military response was ready to punish terrorists. It also required other political and economic alternatives.