John Kerry Now An Expert On Islam: ISIS’ 'Hateful Ideology Has Nothing To Do With Islam” - Let's See What Real Experts on the Subject Say...

He perfects the September 10th mentality.

'ISIL claims to be fighting on behalf of Islam but the fact is that it’s hateful ideology has nothing do with Islam. ISIL a manifestation of evil, a vicious terrorist organization and it is an organization that achieves its goals only through violence, repression, and destruction. Fed by illicit funding and a stream of foreign fighters, it has seized territory and terrorized the people who live there regardless of their sect or ethnicity. There is literally no place for their barbarity in the modern world.'

-Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry, 10 September 2014

The Qur’an:

Slay kaffirs (infidels) wherever ye find them and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter.

- Sura 2:191

Fight against kaffirs (infidels) until idolatry is no more and Allah’s religion reigns supreme.

- Sura 2:193

And fight them until there is no fitnah and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah.

- Sura 8:39

Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it.

- Sura 2:216

O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Those of you who make them his friends is one of them. God does not guide an unjust people.

- Sura 5:54

Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah’s religion reigns supreme.

- Sura 8:39

O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there are 20 steadfast men among you, they shall vanquish 200; and if there are a hundred, they shall rout a thousand unbelievers, for they are devoid of understanding.

- Sura 8:65

It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land.

- Sura 8:67

Allah will humble the unbelievers. Allah and His apostle are free from obligations to idol-worshipers. Proclaim a woeful punishment to the unbelievers.

- Sura 9:2-3

When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.

- Sura 9:5

Fight those who believe neither in Allah nor the Last Day, nor what has been forbidden by Allah and his messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay the tribute and have been humbled.

- Sura 9:29

O Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites. Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey’s end.

- Sura 9:73

Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and worldly goods, and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for His cause, kill and be killed.

- Sura 9:111

Believers! Make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Let them find harshness in you. Ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers.

- Sura 9:123

Allah has cursed the unbelievers and proposed for them a blazing hell.

- Sura 33:60

Unbelievers are enemies of Allah and they will roast in hell.

- Sura 41:14

When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads, and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly.

- Sura 47:4

Muslims are harsh against the unbelievers, merciful to one another.

- Sura 48:25

A Yazidi child

Muhammad is Allah’s apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another. Through them, Allah seeks to enrage the unbelievers.

- Sura 48:29

Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal sternly with them. Hell shall be their home, evil their fate.

- Sura 66:9

Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy the breasts of a believing people.

- Sura 9:14

I’m pretty sure that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic State, who obtained BA, MA and PhD degrees in Islamic studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad, knows more about Islam than John Forbes Kerry.

The statue memorialising the First Barbary War with severed heads and all.  It used to be in front of the US Capitol, but as Americans are wont to do when it comes to blood-thirsty, barbarian Islamists, it was later moved - out of sight, out of mind - to Anapolis.  We never seem to want to learn the lesson and finish the job.

As if that is insufficient... 

James Foley

Letter from Thomas Jefferson, United States Minister to France, and John Adams, United States Minister to the Court of St. James, to John Jay, United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs, dated 28 March 1786:

From JOHN ADAMS And THOMAS JEFFERSON
Grosvenor Square, 28 March 1786

Sir,

Soon after the arrival of Mr. J. in London, we had a conference with the Ambassador of Tripoli, at his House.

The amount of all the information we can obtain from him was that a perpetual peace was in all respects the most advisable because a temporary treaty would leave room for increasing demands, upon every renewal of it, and a stipulation for annual payments would be liable to failures of performance which would renew the war, repeat the negotiations and continually augment the claims of his nation and the difference of expense would by no means be adequate to the inconvenience, since 12,500 Guineas to his Constituents with 10 per Cent upon that sum for himself, must be paid if the treaty was made for only one year.

That 30,000 Guineas for his Employers and £3,000 for himself were the lowest terms upon which a perpetual peace could be made and that this must be paid in Cash on the delivery of the treaty signed by his sovereign, that no kind of Merchandize could be accepted.

That Tunis would treat upon the same Terms, but he could not answer for Algiers or Morocco.

We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretensions to make war upon Nations who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.

The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should 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 who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise. That it was a law that the first who boarded an Enemy’s Vessell should have one slave more than his share with the rest, which operated as an incentive to the most desperate Valour and Enterprize, that it was the Practice of their Corsairs to bear down upon a ship, for each sailor to take a dagger in each hand, and another in his mouth, and leap on board, which so terrified their Enemies that very few ever stood against them. That he verily believed the Devil assisted his Countrymen, for they were almost always successful.

We took time to consider and promised an answer, but we can give him no other than that the demands exceed our Expectations and that of Congress so much that we can proceed no further, without fresh instructions.

There is but one possible way, that we know of to procure the money, if Congress should authorize us to go to the necessary expense and that is to borrow it in Holland. We are not certain it can be had there. But if Congress should order us to make the best terms we can with Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, and Morocco, and to procure this money wherever we can find it, when terms like those of the last loan in Holland, our best endeavours shall be used to remove this formidable obstacle out of the way, of the prosperity of the United States.

Inclosed is a Copy of a letter from P. R. Randall Esqr. at Barcelona. The last from Mr. Barclay was dated Bayonne. It is hoped we shall soon have news from Algiers and Morocco, and we wish it may not be more disagreeable than this from Tunis and Tripoli.

We are etc.

J.A.

T.J.

We paid the tribute for awhile until it became apparent that we would have to defeat them. Period. Story. End of.+

Steven Joel Sotloff

Thomas Jefferson to the Continental Congress about the brutal pirate attacks of the Muslim Ottoman Barbary States which prompted the first two wars of the newly independent United States of America, – the Barbary Wars. (1801–1805 and 1815):

‘These future United States presidents questioned the ambassador as to why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity. Ambassador Adja answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress, ‘that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should 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 who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise’.’

Letter from General George Washington to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, 15 August 1786:

‘Let me ask you, my dear marquis, in such an enlightened, in such a liberal age, how is it possible that the great maritime powers of Europe should submit to pay an annual tribute to the little piratical states of Barbary? Would to Heaven we had a navy able to reform those enemies to mankind or crush them into non-existence.’

John Quincy Adams’ understanding of the Qur’an, Mahomet, and Moslems written in 1829:

'In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE.

The precept of the koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.

 

Oxford theologian, John Wesley:

‘Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it…have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are razed from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind.’

Ben Franklin:

‘Nor can the Plundering of Infidels be in that sacred Book [the Quran] forbidden, since it is well known from it, that God has given the World, and all that it contains, to his faithful Mussulmen, who are to enjoy it of Right as fast as they conquer it.’

I guess Secretary Kerry thinks he knows more about Islam than those Americans that were involved in fighting the first two wars against it – like George Washington, Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, John Jay, Ben Franklin, and John Wesley, among others.

Pope Benedict/Byzantine Emperor Paleogus:

‘Show me just what Prophet Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’

- Pope Benedict/Byzantine Emperor Paleogus

Pope Benedict XVI:

‘Islam has a total organization of life that is completely different from ours; it embraces simply everything. There is a very marked subordination of woman to man; there is a very tightly knit criminal law, indeed, a law regulating all areas of life, that is opposed to our modern ideas about society. One has to have a clear understanding that it is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of a pluralistic society.’ 

- Pope Benedict XVI 

President Theodore Roosevelt:

‘During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier and the Polish king, the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any “social values” whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence. There are such “social values” today in Europe, America, and Australia only because during those thousand years the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do – that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.’

- President Theodore Roosevelt

Winston Churchill:

‘How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, lovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.’

- Winston Churchill, 1899

‘Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralysis the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Muhammadanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.’

- Winston Churchill

Maharishi Swami Dayanand Saraswati:

‘Having thus given a cursory view of the Qur’an, I lay it before the sensible persons with the purpose that they should know what kind of book the Qur’an is. If they ask me, I have no hesitation to say that it can not be the work either of God or of a learned man, nor can it be a book of knowledge. Here its very vital defect has been exposed with the object that the people may not waste their life falling into its imposition…

… The Qur’an is the result of ignorance, the source of animalization of human being, a fruitful cause of destroying peace, an incentive to war, a propagator of hostility among men and a promoter of suffering in society. As to defect of repetition, the Qur’an is its store.’

- Maharishi Swami Dayanand Saraswati (19th Century Indian Sage and Rational Reformer)

Professor Bertrand Russell:

‘Over a billion people believe in Allah without truly knowing what Allah supposedly stands for or what he really demands of them. And the minority that do understand continue to be Moslems because they have redefined their morality and ethics to fit within the teachings of Islam, which are floridly lacking in morality. They therefore redefine what is good and evil in order to fit their lives into what is preached by Islam, instead of examining Islam to see if it fits within the good life. Backwards thinking, imposed by a backward religion.’

- Professor Bertrand Russell 

Secretary Kerry also seems to think that he knows more about Islam than Pope Benedict/Byzantine Emperor Paleogus, Pope Benedict XVI, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Maharishi Swami Dayanand Saraswati (19th Century Indian Sage and Rational Reformer), and Professor Bertrand Russell.

Gregory Palamus of Thessalonica:

‘I am afraid that God has sent these men to lay waste the world.’

- Gregory Palamus of Thessalonica, while negotiating the surrender of Alexandria to the Muslims, 1354.

Vernon Richards:

‘The true Islamic concept of peace goes something like this: “Peace comes through submission to Muhammad and his concept of Allah” (i.e. Islam). As such the Islamic concept of peace, meaning making the whole world Muslim, is actually a mandate for war. It was inevitable and unavoidable that the conflict would eventually reach our borders, and so it has.’

- Vernon Richards, who was educated at King’s College London and was an Anglo-Italian anarchist, editor, author 

Earnest Renan:

‘Muslims are the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain others in the practice of this religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him.’ 

- Earnest Renan, French Intellectual

Will Durant (U.S. Historian):

‘The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.’

- Will Durant (U.S. Historian)

Jane Roberts, Seth:

‘Muhammadanism fell far short. In this case the projections were of violence predominating. Love and kinship were secondary to what indeed amounted to baptism and communion through violence and blood…

…So the concept of God began to change as the ego recognized its reliance upon inner reality, but the drama had to be worked out within the current framework. Muhammadanism was basically so violent precisely because Christianity was basically so gentle. Not that Christianity was not mixed with violence, or that Muhammadanism was devoid of love. But the psyche went through its developments and battled with itself, denying some feelings and characteristics and stressing others, so the historic religious exterior dramas represented and followed these inner aspirations, struggles, and searches.’

- Jane Roberts, Seth (20th Century Spiritualism)

So, Secretary Kerry thinks he knows more about ‘The Religion of Peace’ than Gregory Palamus of Thessalonica, Vernon Richards, Earnest Renan, Will Durant, and Jane Roberts, Seth.

Pakistan

I love how:


* Barack Obama (United Church of Christ)

* John Kerry (Roman Catholicism w/ Jewish ancestry)

* Chuck Hagel (Episcopalian)

* Martin Dempsey (Roman Catholicism)

* John McCain (Baptist)

* Hillary Clinton (Methodist)

* Lindsey Graham (Southern Baptist)

* Samantha Power (Roman Catholicism)

* Susan Rice (Agnostic)

* Joe Biden (Roman Catholicism)

* David Cameron (CofE Anglicanism)

* Ed Miliband (Jewish)

* Nick Clegg (agnostic atheist)

* Ed Balls (CofE Anglicanism)

* Tony Blair (Roman Catholicism)

ALL claim to know more about 'REAL' Islam than Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic State, who obtained BA, MA and PhD degrees in ISLAMIC STUDIES from the Islamic University of Baghdad.

Why do white elites think that they know more about a subject than brown-skinned man, who is quite obviously supremely educated on the matter?

I wonder if al-Baghdadi ever utters words like 'the soft bigotry of low expectations' although I doubt he thinks it is soft. 

Anyhoo, let's check out what these people have to say...

From Ayatollah Khomeini:

‘Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. BUT THOSE WHO STUDY ISLAMIC HOLY WAR WILL UNDERSTAND WHY ISLAM WANTS TO CONQUER THE WHOLE WORLD…. THOSE WHO KNOW NOTHING OF ISLAM PRETEND THAT ISLAM COUNSELS AGAINST WAR. Those [who say this] are witless.

Islam says Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers] Islam says Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us Islam says Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender to the enemy Islam says Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Koranic] verses and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.’

 

- Ayatollah Khomeini, 1942

Houari Mohamed Boumedienne:

‘One day, millions of [Muslim] men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.’

- Houari (Mohamed) Boumedienne, President of Algeria, in a 1974 speech at the UN

British Imam Anjem Choudary:

‘Well, you know, as a lecturer in Sharia law I would say to the people in Russia, the Muslims and the non-Muslims, that every action for a Muslim must be based upon the Koran, the word of Allah, and the teachings of the messenger Mohammed…who is the final messenger for mankind. I mean I would first invite the people to think about and embrace Islam but those who are already Muslim must know that Allah mentions in the Koran, in fact if you look in chapter 8 verse 60 he said prepare as much as you can “steeds of war” to terrorize the enemy. So terrorizing the enemy is in fact part of Islam. I mean this is something that we must embrace and understand as far as the jurisprudence of Islam is concerned.’

- British Imam, Anjem Choudary, 5 September 2014

Norwegian Imam Mullah Krekar:

‘We’re the ones who will change you. Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children. Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours.’

- Norwegian Imam Mullah Krekar, Dagbladet, 2006

Senaid Kobilica:

‘It isn’t possible to live homosexually and at the same time say that one practices Islam. These are two incompatible things… Homosexuality goes against what Islam stands for, and therefore it can’t be combined.’

- Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council of Norway, which represents 80,000 Muslims

Unni Wikan, Norwegian feminist:

‘Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes because Muslim men find their manner of dress provocative. [The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite] ‘Norwegian women must realise that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.’

- Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo

Nina Shea:

‘Saudi Arabia is continuing the religious cleansing that has always been its official policy. It is the only nation state in the world with the official policy of banning all churches. This is enforced even though there are over 2 million Christian foreign workers in that country. Those victimized are typically poor, from Asian and African countries with weak governments.’

- Nina Shea, director of the Washington-based Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom

So, Secretary Kerry thinks he knows more about ‘The Religion of Peace’ than the Ayatollah Khomeini, Houari Mohamed Boumedienne, British Imam Anjem Choudary, Norwegian Imam Mullah Krekar, Senaid Kobilica, Nina Shea, and Unni Wikan.

THE MYTH OF 'MODERATE' ISLAM IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The Mirage Of Moderate Islam In The Middle East

Foreign Policy: The Myth of Moderate Islam

The UK Spectator: The Myth of Moderate Islam: Patrick Sookhdeo says Islamic teaching has been aggressive for 1,400 years, and requires radical re-interpretation

Barack Obama’s Biggest Lie: The Islamic State Is Not Only Islamic,It Is The Very Paradigm Of Islam.

 

 

 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

From TheRightScoop.com:

It seems to be the goal of this president and his administration to ‘protect’ Islam, if you will, to ensure that the world believes Islam is peaceful and has nothing to do with the violence and barbarity of ISIL. But this is absolutely untrue and we proved yesterday that what ISIL is doing is based on the Koran. Even David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, knows that it is part of Islam and has called ISIL Islamic extremism.

You can expect tonight in Obama’s prime time address to the nation that he will basically say what John Kerry has just said, that ISIL has nothing to do with Islam. I would be shocked at this point if he didn’t say it because it’s clear this is part of his agenda.

+:

 

Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams and James Madison: Young America’s Fight with Islamism by Andrew Walden

SOURCE: America has been fighting Islamists for longer than many realize. Even before independence was declared, American ships were pirated and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the “Dey of Algiers”—an Ottoman Islamist warlord ruling Algeria. When the colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American ships lost Royal Navy protection. A Revolutionary-War era alliance with France offered French protection to US ships, but it expired in 1783. Immediately US ships came under attack and in October 1784 the American trader “Betsey” was taken by Moroccan forces. This was followed with Algerians and Libyans (Tripolitans) capturing two more US ships in 1785.

Lacking the ability to project US naval force in the Mediterranean, America tried appeasement. In 1784, Congress agreed to fund tributes and ransoms in order to rescue US ships and buy the freedom of enslaved US sailors.

In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, then US ambassador to France, and John Adams, then US Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’ vote of funding. To the US Congress these two future Presidents later reported the reasons for the Muslims’ hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

“…that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should 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.”

Sound familiar?

In this 1790 satirical piece, his last published letter, Ben Franklin, in the midst of a Congressional debate on slavery, compares the arguments of pro-slavery Southerners (“Mr. Jackson”, a South Carolina delegate) to the arguments of a hypothetical Algerian Muslim “Mussulmen” pirate, Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim. The rationalizations, justifications and excuses of Franklin’s “Sidi” are almost word-for-word those of the Georgia and South Carolina Congressional delegates. The Algerian Islamic “Erika” sect was an allegory to members of the American Christian “Quaker” sect who in 1790 unsuccessfully petitioned Congress, with Franklin’s support, for an end to the importation of slaves from Africa. (Text and link below)

Ben Franklin died on April 17, 1790 just twenty-five days after his letter was published.

Congress in 1790 did not come up with a means to end the slave trade, much less slavery itself. This is largely because representatives of South Carolina and Georgia threatened secession which would have led to war. As with any appeasement of evil to avoid war, the problem continued and festered, growing worse until finally a much larger war–the Civil War– broke out 71 years later causing 600,000 US casualties. Also killed by appeasement; untold numbers of African slaves during the Atlantic crossing and while held in slavery in the US.

And the Muslims? By 1800 the annual tribute and ransom payments first agreed in the mid 1780s amounted to about $1 million–20% of the federal budget. (For fiscal year 2007, 20% of the US revenues would equal $560 billion.) In May, 1801 Yussif Karamanli, the Pasha of Tripoli, declared war on the US by chopping down the flagpole in front of the US Consulate. Seventeen years after appeasement and tribute payments had begun; President Thomas Jefferson led America into the First Barbary War.

From May 1801 to June 10, 1805 sailors and Marines of the young American nation fought battles immortalized in a line of the Marine Hymn: “…to the shores of Tripoli”. As American forces approached Tripoli on land threatening to capture it, Karamanli suddenly became interested in negotiations. The war ended with a treaty exchanging prisoners, Americans giving Karamanli another $60,000 in ransom and an agreement from the Muslims to cease attacks on US ships.

But for a Muslim to keep his word to an Infidel at the expense of opportunities to expand Islamic power is the Islamic equivalent of a mortal sin. In 1807 Muslim pirate attacks on American ships began anew. As a result Americans led by President James Madison fought Algerians in the Second Barbary War in 1815, leading to another treaty under which the Muslims paid American $10,000 for damages. The Algerian ruler almost immediately repudiated the new treaty after the US departure and again began piracy and the enslavement of captured Christian sailors necessitating an 1816 Anglo-Dutch shelling of Algiers and ultimately the colonization of Algeria in 1830 and Tunisia in 1881 by France and Libya in 1911 by Italy. By then most of the Islamic world was under Christian domination. With the Ottoman Empire defeated in WW1, secularist Turkish rebels in 1923 overthrew the last Islamic Caliphate, destroying the pinnacle of Islamist power and ending a line of succession allegedly reaching back to Mohammed.

The trend of Muslim defeat began to reverse after the Second World War even though many Muslim leaders had backed Hitler’s Third Reich. Most Islamic countries became independent of Christian colonial rule between 1946 when Jordan achieved independence and 1971 when Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE finally became independent of Britain. The next year Muslim terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes and one German police officer at the Olympic Games in what became known as the Munich massacre, an attack which some see as opening the current war between Islam and the West. In an echo of the Barbary Pirates, an airliner was hijacked in October 1972 causing Germany to release to Libya the two terrorists being held for trial in the attack.

And the Quakers? Today the Quaker “American Friends Service Committee” no longer demands resolute action against slavery. They are on the other side–serving the modern equivalents of Franklin’s allegorical Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim by demanding that America once again appease the Islamists. Their demand for withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan in the face of Islamist attacks aimed to re-enslave the populations of those countries will get US into a much larger war a lot sooner than the 17 years to took for appeasement to lead to war at the end of the 18th Century.

Ben Franklin’s use of an imaginary Algerian pirate to satirize a pro-slavery Congressman shows his clear understanding of the danger posed by Islamism. Modern-day Americans would do well to consider the lessons of the War with Islamism fought by Thomas Jefferson and again by James Madison and this alternate meaning in Franklin’s final words of warning.

http://www.islam-watch.org/ThomasJefferson/Founding_Fathers_Fight_Islam.htm