Hi Maurice, I am here, working on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, readying contingency plan to drastically alter the cost equation of my business. The IRA, yes, appreciate your point, and note that they are providing training to some Columbians in exchange for tuition, to counter the War on Drugs effort. The Internet and air transportation have enabled all manner of trouble-makers. The Taliban, I believe, is also in the drug trade.
The network is shocking, even when only viewing the iceberg tip, awesome compared to Hollywood fiction.
We need this sort of action, with folks on the ground, not way up high in the air ...
dailyreckoning.com
NOBLE RETALIATION
By Bill Bonner
"This is not the first time that America has been at war
with Muslim terrorists," writes Ben Macintyre in the
London Times.
Exactly 200 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson faced
"a daunting enemy: a loose-knit, ill-defined group of
barbarous Muslim terrorists armed with knives,
bankrolled by a wealthy extremist who...declared war on
America."
The cast of characters of the drama included the new
president, who came to office with scarcely any greater
mandate than George W. Bush. But unlike President Bush,
President Jefferson presided not over a superpower, but
a mini-power...a small, newly-hatched nation that had
only been able to win its independence from Britain
thanks to the intervention of the French Fleet.
Instead of being on top of the world, as America is
today, the United States was closer to the other end.
"On Jefferson's accession," explains Macintyre, "almost
$2 million, one-fifth of the entire annual revenue of
the United States, was being paid out in tribute, or to
retrieve Americans captured by the corsairs."
Which brings us to another important character, the
Pasha of Tripoli, the Osama bin Laden of his day. The
Pasha encouraged the "barbary pirates" to capture
American vessels and hold them for ransom. American
sailors were often killed...or "took the turban,"
converting to Islam to escape death.
Another character who needs introduction is General
William Eaton, a former U.S. army officer who had been
made consul in Tunis and promoted himself to the rank of
general. "Bad tempered, foulmouthed and a hard-drinking
habitu‚ of the local brothels," Eaton sounds like a man
we might like. Eaton so detested the Pasha of Tripoli
that his anger sometimes "rendered him semi-incoherent,"
says Macintrye.
Jefferson sent the U.S. navy, which, like America's
naval and air forces of today, could shell Tripoli from
a safe distance. But the real breakthrough came when
Eaton launched a daring overland attack.
And here, dear reader, I interrupt the story for
editorial comment and philosophical reflection. What is
striking about this tale is the modesty of both the
means and aims of the U.S. forces. Here at the Daily
Reckoning we have a fondness for modesty. In fact, it
may be our only redeeming charm. We like stocks at
modest P/Es, wine at modest prices and women with modest
tastes. We know that we are neither smart enough, nor
well-informed enough, nor lucky enough to understand the
latest technologies or to predict the future. Nor do we
even hope to outperform the market's long-term mean
performance. If we have one hope, it is to progress up
to the mean, rather than regress down to it. We aspire
to mediocrity...and feel happy to achieve it.
And if we have a competitive edge it is a modest one. We
know we are fools; we don't have to wait for the market
to prove it to us. So rather than race down the highway
of life, we poke along like an old, owlish drunk,
knowing that our faculties are impaired and our judgment
is poor. Oddly, driving so slowly, after a lap or
two...we often find ourselves in the lead!
And so, we appreciate the scale of General Eaton's
endeavor. Macintrye describes it: "Eaton's 'army' gave
new definition to the word motley, consisting of 16 U.S.
Marines and other American sailors, 40 Greeks, a number
of itinerant Italians, a squad of Arab cavalry, a
hundred other assorted mercenaries and 190 camels."
With this force at his command, Eaton set off across 500
miles of the Sahara desert, from Alexandria to Tripoli.
The troops nearly starved to death or died of
dehydration. The mercenaries mutinied three times...each
time checked by the marines, who threatened to shoot
them. Finally, the rabble arrived, "half-dead" at the
seaport of Derna. Three American brigs opened fire from
the port while Eaton, "half mad before the march and
considerably madder at the end of it," immediately
attacked. Most of Eaton's army were too frightened or
exhausted to move forward. Still, the audacity of his
attack carried the day. The Arab force, much larger and
better armed, surrendered.
The Pasha sued for peace and a treaty was negotiated.
The Pasha agreed to stop interfering with American
shipping.
This was, however, not the end of America's problems
with North African pirates. A few years later, the U.S.
was again at war with Britain and pirates based in
Algeria once again preyed on U.S. ships. James Madison
announced a war of "noble retaliation." Minor skirmishes
were fought with the pirates over the next 3 years -
until 1815, after which no further tribute was paid.
Bill Bonner
P.S. Pirates plagued the Mediterranean long before the
Declaration of Independence. The Roman historian Appian
wrote that by 67 BC the pirates of Asia Minor had become
a power in their own right.
"From attacking ships at sea they began to assail
harbours, castles and whole cities. It seemed a great
and difficult undertaking to destroy so large a force of
seafarers who were scattered abroad, had no fixed
possessions to encumber their flight, no single
homeland. It was such an unprecedented type of war,
subject to none of the rules and with nothing clear-cut
or certain about it, that it caused a sense of
helplessness and fear in the capital."
But Pompey the Great (106-48BC) decided to rid the
Mediterranean of them. With 500 ships, 5,000 horses, and
120,000 troops, he swept the sea, from Spain to Libya to
Cilicia, now part of Turkey. Finally, cornering the
pirate fleet, Florus writes that "as soon as they saw
the beaks of our ships all round them, they threw down
their weapons and oars, and with a great clapping of
hands - which was their sign of supplication - begged
for their lives." |
