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| October 21, 2014 |
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Ignoring
Clint Eastwood's advice in "Dirty Harry" that
opinions, like certain body parts, are best kept to
yourself.
| Modern-Day
Barbary Pirates |
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| The burning of the
USS Philadelphia in Tripoli Harbor. |
Last Sunday, on "CBS Sunday Morning",
guest commentator Ben Stein suggested that the way to stop
these beheadings in the Middle East is to go ahead and pay
the ransoms demanded. "We've got plenty of money",
Ben said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ben-stein-time-for-us-to-pay-ransom-to-terrorists/
Ben Stein evidently isn't up on the
history of Muslim extortion tactics over the past couple of
centuries, paying ransoms only encourages more ransoms. One
viewer made this comment:
The Barbary states
got carried away and demanded exorbitant ransoms for the
release of US sailors. The ransoms got so high as to equal
1/6th of the entire US budget. The cold calculation by
Jefferson was that it was cheaper to fight a war than to pay
the ransoms. As a result the US recommissioned the navy in
1794 and once our navy was sufficiently strong, we quit
paying the ransoms and went to war.
Kidnapping
and holding for ransom is a practice that is continued by
modern-day Barbary Pirates. A few weeks ago, I had a link to
an article about Al Qaeda kidnapping Europeans for ransom
becoming a big business, bankrolling its operations across
the globe, with a photo of an Al Qaeda terrorist holding up
his big head-cutting-off sword.
Where is Thomas
Jefferson when we need him?
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