The War on Terrorism is nothing new!

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We like to think of the war on terrorism as a pretty new problem. True, it wasn't a buzzword until the Bush Jr. administration, but terrorism from Islamic extremist is even older than the U.S. herself. Long before Thomas Jefferson was the 2nd US President, he was the ambassador to France. One of the things that really irked his cookies was the practice of paying "Tribute" to the nations of the Barbary Coast (northern African nations that used piracy as a means of raising revenue). The pirates would take a ship, hold the crews and cargo hostage, then release them on payment of their demands (sound familiar)? When Jefferson became president, he refused to pay this blood money. He got little support from the other nations, they decided that paying the ransoms was cheaper than war. Jefferson knew that it was better to stand up to the cowardly nations than support their crimes... thus began the Barbary Wars. When he approached the Muslim leaders of the Barbary coast, they said that it was their right, under sharia law, to take tribute from "infidels". In other words, they were being humane just allowing the non Muslims to live, and whatever monetary demands they made were justifiable. So anytime anyone tells you that you are just playing into some Bush propaganda, or there is nothing to this "war", remind them that history proves them wrong... dead wrong.