THIS TELLS WHY OUR MARINES ARE CALLED LEATHERNECKS. IN THE 1700'S THE MUSLIMS WOULD CUT OFF THE HEADS OF OUR NEWLY FORMED MARINE CORPSMEN, SO THEY WORE LEATHER AROUND THE NECKS OF THEIR UNIFORMS.
Most Americans are unaware of the fact that over two hundred years ago, the United States had declared war on Islam, and Thomas Jefferson led the charge! At the height of the eighteenth century, Muslim pirates were the terror of the Mediterranean and a large area of the North Atlantic. They attacked every ship in sight, and held the crews for exorbitant ransoms. Those taken hostage were subjected to barbaric treatment and wrote heart breaking letters home, begging their government and family members to pay whatever their Mohammedan captors demanded. These extortionists of the high seas represented the Islamic nations of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers collectively referred to as the Barbary Coast and presented a dangerous and unprovoked threat to the new American Republic.
Before the Revolutionary War, U.S. merchant ships had been under the protection of Great Britain. When the U.S. declared its independence and entered into war, the ships of the United States were protected by France. However, once the war was won, America had to protect its own fleets. Thus, the birth of the U.S. Navy. Beginning in1784, seventeen years before he would become president, Thomas Jefferson became America's Minister to France. That same year, the U.S. Congress sought to appease its Muslim adversaries by following in the footsteps of European nations who paid bribes to the Barbary States, rather than engaging them in war.
In July of 1785, Algerian pirates captured American ships, and the Dey of Algiers demanded an unheard-of ransom of $60,000. It was a plain and simple case of extortion, and Thomas Jefferson was vehemently opposed to any further payments. Instead, he proposed to Congress the formation of a coalition of allied nations who together could force the Islamic states into peace. A disinterested Congress decided to pay the ransom.
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoliâ's ambassador to Great Britain to ask by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved American citizens, and why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts. The two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, 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, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise." Despite this stunning admission of premeditated violence on non-Muslim nations, as well as the objections of many notable American leaders, including George Washington, who warned that caving in was both wrong and would only further embolden the enemy. For the following fifteen years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to over twenty percent of the United States government annual revenues in1800.
Jefferson was disgusted. Shortly after his being sworn in as the third President of the United States in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli sent him a note demanding the immediate payment of $225,000 plus $25,000 a year for every year forthcoming. That changed everything. Jefferson let the Pasha know, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with his demand. The Pasha responded by cutting down the flagpole at the American consulate and declared war on the United States. Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers immediately followed suit. Jefferson, until now, had been against America raising a naval force for anything beyond coastal defense, but having watched his nation be cowed by Islamic thuggery for long enough, decided that it was finally time to meet force with force.
He dispatched a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean and taught the Muslim nations of the Barbary Coast a lesson he hoped they would never forget. Congress authorized Jefferson to empower U.S. ships to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli and to â cause to be done all other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war would justify."
When Algiers and Tunis, who were both accustomed to American cowardice and acquiescence, saw the newly independent United States had both the will and the might to strike back, they quickly abandoned their allegiance to Tripoli.
The war with Tripoli lasted for four more years, and raged up again in 1815. The bravery of the U.S. Marine Corps in these wars led to the line to the shores of Tripoli in the Marine Hymn, They would forever be known as "leathernecks" for the leather collars of their uniforms, designed to prevent their heads from being cut off by the Muslim scimitars when boarding enemy ships.
Islam, and what its Barbary followers justified doing in the name of their prophet and their god, disturbed Jefferson quite deeply. America had a tradition of religious tolerance, the fact that Jefferson, himself, had co-authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, but fundamentalist Islam was like no other religion the world had ever seen. A religion based on supremacism, whose holy book not only condoned but mandated violence against unbelievers was unacceptable to him. His greatest fear was that someday this brand of Islam would return and pose an even greater threat to the United States.
This should bother every American. That the Islamists have brought about women-only classes and swimming times at taxpayer-funded universities and public pools; that Christians, Jews, and Hindus have been banned from serving on juries where Muslim defendants are being judged, Piggy banks and Porky Pig tissue dispensers have been banned from workplaces because they offend Islamist sensibilities. Ice cream has been discontinued at certain Burger King locations because the picture on the wrapper looks similar to the Arabic script for Allah, public schools are pulling pork from their menus, on and on in the newspaper..
It's death by a thousand cuts, or inch-by-inch as some refer to it, and most Americans have no idea that this battle is being waged every day across America. By not fighting back, by allowing groups to obfuscate what is really happening, and not insisting that the Islamists adapt to our own culture, the United States is cutting its own throat with a politically correct knife, and helping to further the Islamists agenda. Sadly, it appears that today's America would rather be politically correct than victorious.
Any doubts, just Google Thomas Jefferson vs the Muslim World.
School System In Michigan Plans to Serve Muslim Food
Published: February 25, 2001 New York Times
DEARBORN, Mich. Feb. 24— Kindergartners sometimes eat forbidden chicken because they are so hungry. Other children eat grilled cheese and vegetables for days on end because their school cafeterias do not have the proper meat.
Dearborn schools do not serve food that meets Muslim dietary rules, a policy that has prompted thousands of parents to demand cafeteria food in keeping with the ethnic diversity of a city in which some grade schools are more than 90 percent Muslim.
But officials are working on a plan to serve food that is halal, or permitted under Islamic rules, in several Dearborn schools by this fall.
''We have a system of food,'' said Sheikh Jowad Al-Ansari, spiritual leader at the 5,000-member Islamic Institute of Knowledge. ''This is very, very important to us. But children, when they are far away at school, how can you control what they eat?''
Halal laws are similar to kosher laws. Mainly, animals must be slaughtered in a way intended to cause the least pain, and the blood is drained. Like kosher Jews, Muslims do not eat pork.
The lack of halal meat in Dearborn has forced scores of students to throw out lunches, school officials say. Others simply break the rules.
''My parents tell me, 'Don't eat it if it's not halal,'' said Maha Alway, 10, a fifth grader at Salinas Elementary School.
That is not always easy, however.
''Sometimes, when I'm hungry, I just eat it,'' Ghuzlan Mawry, 10, said.
Dearborn Public Schools is accepting proposals from halal food distributors to provide food at several of its 28 public schools. The program is likely to be tested by this spring, and will go districtwide, barring problems, this fall, Bob Cipriano, the district business manager, said.
''The whole point is to give kids food they can eat, so they're nourished and can function in the classroom,'' Mr. Cipriano said. ''If we can do that financially, we're going to do it.''
The district provides meatless lunches for Catholics on Fridays during Lent, Mr. Cipriano said. And eight years ago, the district banned pork from its lunches so Muslim children would not eat it by accident. ''We look at this as providing for our ethnic diversity,'' he said. ''We make concessions to all our ethnic populations, where and when we can.''
Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, has the highest concentration of ethnic Arabs outside the Middle East, according to the Arab-American Institute. About 35 percent of Dearborn's 17,000 students are Muslim.
Many of those students eat breakfast and lunch at school.
''So much is thrown away,'' Nada Harajli, assistant principal at Salinas, said. ''They revert to junk food, cookies and candy. Having halal meats would be good for everyone.''
[This message has been edited by Tony Kania (edited 01-14-2015).]
Since halal and kosher requirements are so similar, doesn't the accommodations for serving Jewish students kosher foods also serve the Muslim requirement?
Originally posted by Formula88: Since halal and kosher requirements are so similar, doesn't the accommodations for serving Jewish students kosher foods also serve the Muslim requirement?
You're expecting them to be rational. Stop that.
quote
Originally posted by ILVMYGT: Any doubts, just Google Thomas Jefferson vs the Muslim World.
You can also search for "barbary pirates", or "barbary wars".
But yeah, even our country's founding fathers had to deal with Muslim aggressors. It isn't just a recent development. It's actually been going on since long before our country existed. We didn't "poke the dog" back then, as some apologists like to put it. The dog poked us. But nevertheless, the apologists will hold onto their little fantasy where we censor the media outlets and the Muslim aggressors magically go away.
[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 01-14-2015).]
Since halal and kosher requirements are so similar, doesn't the accommodations for serving Jewish students kosher foods also serve the Muslim requirement?
Yes, exactly correct, BUT kosher is much more expensive. The simple solution that does not cost the tax payers any extra money is to offer vegetarian meals. The vegetarian meals are acceptable for both kosher and halal.
"In Arabic, the word halal means permitted or lawful. Halal foods are foods that are allowed under Islamic dietary guidelines. According to these guidelines gathered from the Qu'ran, Muslim followers cannot consume the following:
■pork or pork by products ■animals that were dead prior to slaughtering ■animals not slaughtered properly or not slaughtered in the name of Allah ■blood and blood by products ■alcohol ■carnivorous animals ■birds of prey ■land animals without external ears These prohibited foods and ingredients are called haram, meaning forbidden in Arabic."
Slaughtered in the name of Allah would be taken to mean offered / sacrificed to / blessed by their god. I could see how people of other beliefs may take issue with eating a food that has passed through such a process.
