The Shores of Tripoli

The oldest military monument in the United States is the Tripoli Monument, now on site at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It's there to remind us of the First Barbary War (1801-5), our original foreign war, fought under President Thomas Jefferson. Arab pirates along the Barbary Coast, seeking ransom and tribute, had been attacking our merchant ships and holding them for ransom. The USS Enterprise helped put an end to all that.

Piracy was, after all, a government sponsored business, and after some sharp battles, a business arrangement (treaty) was signed in 1805.

More recently Osama Bin Laden, mass-murderer, founder and leader of al-Qaida, was shot to death by American Navy Seals in his hideout in Pakistan. The Seals had been instructed to take Osama prisoner if he managed to surrender, and a team of experts had been assembled to question him. As it turned out, the Seals killed Bin Laden, leaving roughly 11% of Americans to mourn his passing. As someone asked recently, "Who are these people?"

I am not one of the 11%, mostly because Bin Laden was intent on murdering me. I understand how self-centered that sounds, but there you have it. I feel safer with Osama buried at sea.

It's not unusual, in a war, for one side to target the other side's leader (check out the fate of Admiral Yamamoto in World War Two). As Osama has discovered, wars are hell, and he should not have started one.