Fight and Defend American Soil Abroad? No! Close and Retreat! What Bravery We Show!

It’s tough to imagine a more humiliating week for the world’s sole superpower. Fears of “another Benghazi” are prompting not massive reinforcement to defend our citizens and our diplomatic soil but closure and retreat in 19 American embassies in the Middle East and Africa. In the meantime, our withdrawal from Afghanistan — according to publicly advertised timelines, with the equally publicly advertised possibility of total abandonment — proceeds right on schedule. Let’s not forget the scorecard in Iraq, where a once-supine al-Qaeda slowly but surely reconstitutes after our diplomatic failure to retain even a toehold in that country after the hard-won military success of the surge...

How could we possibly cap off this sad record of appeasement and retreat? By arming jihadists ......Lest we think that this military aid will only reach the “good guys,” let’s recall this April report from the New York Times.... (more).

~ACLJ

What real American men did in the old days when faced with Islamic terror...and you can bet they didn't wave the white flag in fear. No, our response was far different and very effective, as Christopher Hitches writes:

America's two main diplomats at the time were John Adams in London and Jefferson in Paris. Together they called upon Ambassador Abdrahaman, the envoy of Tripoli in London, in March 1786. This dignitary mentioned a tariff of three payments--for the ransom of slaves and hostages, for cheap terms of temporary peace and for more costly terms of "perpetual peace." He did not forget to add his own commission as a percentage. Adams and Jefferson asked to know by what right he was exacting these levies. The U.S. had never menaced or quarreled with any of the Muslim powers. As Jefferson later reported to the State Department and Congress, "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."  

Jefferson became President in early 1801, shortly after Yusuf Karamanli, the ruler of Tripoli, unwisely issued an ultimatum to the U.S.: If it did not pay him fresh tribute, he threatened, he would declare war on America. The new Commander in Chief coolly decided to let the ultimatum expire and take the declaration of war at face value. 

Over the next four years, in what Jefferson laconically described as a "cruise," the new American Navy bombarded the harbors of Algiers, Morocco and Tunisor threatened them with bombardment--until the states gradually agreed to cease cooperating with Karamanli. 

~Christopher Hitchens, Time Magazine

Where are the men today?