We've been dealing with Islam for hundreds of years.
Most people have no idea how big a problem Islam was for the United States in the very beginning of the country.
On July 25th, 1785, Barbary Pirates captured the schooner Maria. One week later they captured the schooner Dauphin. And soon other ships were captured and the crews held hostage.
These were not pirates in the sense we normally think of, but privateers operating under the protection and for the benefit of the four Barbary States. The Barbary States demanded $660,000 each in ransom from the United States to release the hostages from the ships.
In March 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy, ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman. When they enquired "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:
It was written in the Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.
The hostages were held for
ten years until the United States and Algeria came to a settlement. In 1795, the United States paid Algeria
ONE MILLION DOLLARS ransom, which was one sixth of the entire budget of the United States. The United States ended up paying one million dollars every year to Algeria for several years.
In 1798, in order to combat the Barbary Pirates, the United States formed the
United States Navy. Yes, that's right, the United States Navy was formed to combat
Islam.
When Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated in 1801, Yusuf Karamanli, the Pasha of Tripoli, demanded $225,000 (equivalent to $3.39 million in 2018) from the new administration. Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, on 10 May 1801, the Pasha declared war on the U.S.
In the ensuing war, (the first war fought overseas by the US) Tripoli captured the USS Philadelphia. The crew was taken hostage and the ship was used by Tripoli. In 1804, US Marines stormed the Philadelphia and burned it to deny it's use by Tripoli.
In 1805, eight U.S. Marines crossed the desert in a surprise attack on the Tripolian city of Derna, and captured the city. The U.S. then used the captured city as leverage in negotiating the release of the hostages, which ended the war.
And that was just the
FIRST Barbary war. There was a Second Barbary War.