We've done it before. Remember the war against the Barbary pirates during Thomas Jeferson's administration. (The origin of 'the Shores of Tripoli' line in the marine corp. hymm, I believe).
I personally don't believe that either party to a major conflict need be a 'nation state' for war to be in effect.
Call it 'Buddy's rule of systemic aggression #1' if you like :)
Re the Barbary Pirates:
"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 so detested the Pasha of Tripoli that his anger sometimes "rendered him semi-incoherent," says Macintrye.
Jefferson sent the U.S. navy (such as it was), 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.
"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.
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."
- But piracy was not abolished from the world... |
