U.S. History in the Middle East

One hopes that Joe Biden knows his history, especially if he’s called to the Oval Office to advise President Obama on the next steps the United States should take against Middle Eastern terrorists.

Perhaps a Vice President Biden will recall the Betsy, the Maria and the Dauphin, American-owned merchant ships that were seized by Middle Eastern pirates, becoming the first victims in the war on terror – way back in the eighteenth century.

What, you say? The war on terror wasn’t created by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the diabolical Donald Rumsfeld, the most evil man to ever occupy the defense secretary’s office?

No, the war against Arab terrorism is almost as old as the country itself, stemming back to the 1780s, when those three American merchant ships were hijacked and seized by Arabian pirates.

The “evildoers” back then were pirates from the Barbary sheikdoms of Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. American political leaders were so alarmed by these attacks that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, on diplomatic duty in Europe, were ordered to negotiate a peace treaty with the sheikdoms – or, as we would say today, find out how much of a bribe the United States needed to pay annually so U.S. ships would no longer be attacked.

George Washington, frustrated with seeing American merchant ships attacked, by both Arab pirates and European navy ships, proposed the construction of the U.S. Navy during the last year of his presidency. The first Navy ships that were built would, at President Jefferson’s direction, successfully attack the Barbary Pirates, providing the young country with its first military victories since the Revolution.

Part of the reason that the United States finds itself fighting Arab terrorists is because the U.S. embraced ideas that were sprung from John Locke and the European Enlightenment, concepts that advance, endorse and support the notion that markets should be free, government should be limited, religion should be kept at an arm’s length (at least from the government), and that people are endowed with natural human rights, allowing them to live as they see fit, accepting any religion they find suitable, and selecting those who seek to govern them. In addition, the United States accepts the notion of tolerance, property rights and rule-of-law.

The acceptance of the ideas from Locke and the European Enlightenment, and the advancement of them, led the United States and its western Allies to become economically successful, tolerant of variety of people, and politically viable; these ideas stand in stark contrast to the beliefs of Arab jihadists, who are quick to blame others for all that ills their countries and their fellow believers.

That’s the word from Melvin E. Lee, a U.S. Navy captain based in Naples, Italy, where he serves as the special operations officer for the Sixth Fleet. He wrote this nearly 3,700 word article, “The Fallacy of Grievance-based Terrorism,” for the Middle East Quarterly, earlier this year.

Capt. Lee, who recently completed his master’s degree at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., has written an outstanding article that is heavily sourced. He provides solid research, showing that a number of high-minded thinkers are coming to the same conclusion – Islam must embrace the ideas of John Locke and the European Enlightenment so its followers and its citizens no longer live in a ghetto; failure to accept these ideas and the Islamists will continue to resort to terrorism to resolve their problems. A former submarine commander, Capt. Lee provides a detailed account of U.S. actions in the Middle East for more than 200 years.

“Only Islam’s fundamental reform will resolve the conflict” between the United States and the terrorists, writes Lee.

In the interests of full disclosure, your correspondent knows Mel Lee. We went to college together and shared a suite in one of the residence halls. Lee, a double major in physics and chemistry, was (and, as far as I’m concerned, remains) the sharpest knife in the drawer. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona but cut short his studies to pursue his naval career.

Capt. Lee is an excellent Navy officer and I hope that one day he’s advising a president on national security. I’ll rest easier at night knowing he has the president’s ear on complicated and delicate issues.

Capt. Lee’s idea – that Islam needs to reform itself – has been accepted by other leading thinkers. Max Rodenback, the Middle East correspondent for The Economist, in reviewing the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth M. Pollack’s latest book, A Path Out Of The Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, compliments Pollack for concluding that terrorism coming from Middle Eastern (Arab) states will not end until “they manage to produce better schools, more opportunities for youth, wider social justice and more inclusive, accountable government.”

Rodenback went on to say, in his New York Times review, that Pollack was quite right to admit that “George Bush showed unwonted acuity when he called for draining the swamps of extremism by promoting reform.”

This is a recipe for democracy.

You can find Capt. Lee’s article here: http://www.meforum.org/article/1830

On The Other Hand: American Troops Defeated

Friday, February 26, 1943
By Combined News Services
ALLIED FORCES HEADQUARTERS, NORTH AFRICA – Germany’s battle-hardened Afrika Korps soldiers, led by the infamous “Desert Fox,” attacked U.S. troops in Tunisia’s Kasserine Pass, handing the Allied forces its second defeat in two months at the cost of more than 6,000 American casualties.

The three-day battle, which pitted American troops against Nazi soldiers led by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, nicknamed the “Desert Fox,” cost U.S. troops dearly: 300 were killed, 3,000 were wounded, and another 3,000 were reported missing, most of them likely to be prisoners of war, Allied military officials said.

German forces pushed American soldiers back more than 80 miles.

This was the second Allied defeat in North Africa in eight weeks and puts the entire Allied war plan on the continent into doubt, Allied military officials said.

“The general accepts full responsibility for this defeat,” said Maj. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith of his commanding officer, Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allies’ commander-in-chief in North Africa. “It causes us to reconsider our strategy and tactics.”

As the Germans struck U.S. lines, American military officials said, chaos ensued, with troops abandoning their positions and weapons and fleeing to the rear. It was, said a U.S. general who requested anonymity, “The worst performance of U.S. Army troops in their whole proud history.”

The first defeat came back in December, just after Christmas, when Allied forces were prevented from liberating Tunis, an important Allied objective because the city’s ports are vital to re-supplying Nazi troops in North Africa.

More than 350 U.S. troops were reported killed, wounded or missing in December’s battle while another 180 British troops were reported killed, wounded or missing.

Earlier this week, British Lt. Gen. Harold Alexander was appointed the new ground commander, leading all Allied ground forces in North Africa and reporting to General Eisenhower.

After inspecting U.S. soldiers on Wednesday, Alexander told one American reporter that “American troops are soft, green and quite untrained. They lack the will to fight.”

Officers on General Eisenhower’s staff told reporters that some American generals in the African theatre may be relieved of their duties as a result of this latest defeat. Eisenhower, however, apparently remains safe in his job.

“There will be no change at the top,” said U.S. Army chief of staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, from Washington. “Eisenhower is our general.”

The latest casualty numbers from North Africa come about six weeks after the War Department reported that the United States lost 60,000 soldiers, Marines, sailors and aviators last year.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Theatre, Army Maj. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, commander of American forces on Guadalcanal, announced that the island has been liberated from the Japanese. Nearly 1,600 American soldiers and Marines were killed in the six-month battle for the island.

The U.S. Navy also lost of a number of ships and sailors during the battle.

“Total and complete Japanese defeat on Guadalcanal effected today,” said General Patch.

Allied forces on New Guinea are making progress against the Japanese, too.

The latest Gallop poll shows that 53 percent of Americans say that Japan is America’s chief enemy while only 34 percent report that Germany is.


Writer’s question: Would American confidence on World War II have suffered if some of the battles had been reported in this fashion?