September 9, 2004

A Lesson on Dealing with Terrorism

By Congressman Joe Pitts

More than 200 years ago the United States, a fledgling state, made its first attempt to fight a battle overseas to protect its citizens and advance its interests. 

Our enemy then was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa.  They were supported by the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers and provided a means of income for their bosses: hostages to ransom, slaves to trade, treasures to invest, and weapons to protect themselves.

In 1784, as United States Minister to France, Thomas Jefferson surmised that these pirates presented the biggest threat to shipping U.S. products into Europe and the Mediterranean.  With no navy, our fledgling democracy could not defend its vessels against this threat.  Jefferson disagreed with Europe’s approach to the pirates: both France and England paid the pirates off, despite knowing that they used the money to expand their own arsenal and terrorize more ships and people.  Far from mollifying these pirates, the policy of bribery led only to the enslavement and killing of innocent people.

Jefferson did not believe that purchasing peace from these terrorists could be a long-term solution.  However, Congress followed Europe’s lead above Jefferson’s objections.

In July 1785, Algerians captured two American ships and Algiers held their crews of twenty-one people for a ransom of nearly $60,000.  Jefferson opposed the payment of the ransom.  Paying the tribute would merely invite more demands, he argued.  A strong navy would end these demands once and for all.  "[I]t will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them,” argued Jefferson in a letter.  He was overruled; the tribute was paid.

As Secretary of State, Jefferson pushed the navy to build warships whose primary mission would be to rescue American hostages held in North Africa.  In 1792, he commissioned John Paul Jones to go to Algiers under the guise of diplomatic negotiations, but with the real intent of sizing up a future target of a naval attack.

A year later as Jefferson prepared to leave his post as Secretary of State, America was attacked.  In the fall of 1793, pirates seized 11 U.S. merchant ships and enslaved more than 100 Americans.  Word of the attack reached New York, causing a stock market crash.  Ports were closed.  Shipping companies went out of business.  Longshoremen lost their jobs. 

The incident caused widespread panic and economic hardship here in America.  Like 9/11 prompted 21^st century America to reassess our security apparatus and foreign policy, this incident spurred an 18^th Century Congress into action; they began to build a fleet of warships four months later.

The captors demanded a ransom.  And though Secretary Jefferson had declared to the American consul to Morocco in 1791 that it is "lastly our determination to prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form, and to any people whatever," the United States negotiated a cash settlement: $1 million and a new warship, “The Crescent,” to the ruler of Algiers in exchange for the release of the surviving hostages.

During the ensuing year, the United States paid nearly a million dollars in cash, naval stores, and a frigate to ransom 115 sailors from Algiers.  Annual gifts were then settled by treaty with Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli.

In 1801, a newly elected President Jefferson refused Tripoli’s demand for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual tribute of $25,000.  Tripoli declared war on the United States.  President Jefferson sent the American navy to the Mediterranean.

The American show of force caused Tunis and Algiers to break their alliance with Tripoli.  Despite severe losses and opposition from his own cabinet, Jefferson stayed the course for four years.  When American forces threatened to capture Tripoli, a treaty brought an end to hostilities.  However, the treaty did not bring to a complete end the payment of tributes to these nations.  That happened following our second war with Algiers in 1815 when several major naval victories convinced pirates that we could not be bullied any longer.

Piracy worldwide declined after this.  Even the European nations began to distance themselves from the pirates and the bribery policies.

The lesson from our first war overseas rings true today.  One of our nation’s greatest heroes was right then:  you cannot buy terrorists off and you cannot appease them.  The 9/11 Commission has said the same thing about our enemy today. 

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