History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

bjcsc

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My former Colonel emailed this to me. I thought it was interesting. I do not know the author's name...


"Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.

Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota. The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.

Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.

There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia and Tripoli.

Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.

Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.

The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty"of only young women and children could be collected.

Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.

Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.

When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.

Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.

Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.

Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.

In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.

The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.

During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

In a later meeting with the American Congress, 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."

For the following 15 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 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.

Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.

Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.

The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.

In 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves. (Hence the phrase "to the shores of Tripoli" in our Hymn and a note that the Marine in Command, Lt Presley O'Bannon received a Mameluke sword for his action - to this day, similar model carried by all Marine officers. )

During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.

Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country's battles on the land as on the sea."

It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.

Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad."
 

bekosh

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

So the first muslim in congress is sworn in using a Koran owned by the first american president to fight Islamic terrorism.

Yup. Irony.8)
 

Haut Medoc

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

So what are you saying?
Ban Islam in the U.S?
Our own 'Fatwa', if you will?
That would be agin' the constitution.....
& since they quit trading slaves in 1815 & it it took us until 1865, one could say that they were more civilized.....:$
Either we need to allow all religion or.....
Ban all religion.....JK
 

tommays

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

And western nations NEVER tryed to take over other parts of the world ? :)


Tommays
 

Haut Medoc

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

Ya mean like colonialism?
But thats O.K. don'tchaknow........;)
 

Plainsman

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

Wow haut, now your defending slavery of Americans?
 

Haut Medoc

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

Nope, you just didn't comprehend what I wrote.....JK
 

OBJ

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

Don't often enter opinions on politics and the separation of Church and State....

But...the way I look at it, it's not going to be long before some "group" says, "Hey! The politicions have there hand on a Bible (enter Koran or what ever you want) and swearing to "God" to be honest and forthright in there execution of duties with the office. That's not separation of Church and State. That's not right! That has to stop!"

And it probably will in this day and age. So what does it matter what he "swears" on or to?

Way too many changes to the Constitution and what the writers ment it to be.

Personnally......I think it sucks.

OK....that's my opinion on politics and things that make Washington suck for the next couple years or so.
 

Haut Medoc

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

Plainsman said:
Wow haut, now your defending slavery of Americans?

Still don't see how any statement that I made defends slavery of Americans....
Please elaborate.......JK
 

Plainsman

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

What I read was that Ellison used the quran that TJ had, and that TJ, as President, went to war with islam to protect Americans from slavery, to be safe and to stop slavery.

But you said "Ban Islam in the U.S? Our own 'Fatwa', if you will? & since they quit trading slaves in 1815 & it it took us until 1865, one could say that they were more civilized", so I guess you liked the way that islam ran things, therefore your for slavery.
 

Haut Medoc

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

one could say that they were more civilized
I meant that they stopped slavery before we did....
I was just being a smart a$$......
We kinda forced them to....
I'm not defending Islam....
But, the constitution says we cannot pick & choose which religions are OK & which are not....
So, it is all religions or none......:)
 

Plainsman

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

"But, the constitution says we cannot pick & choose which religions are OK & which are not....
So, it is all religions or none...... "

I agree with this, but it also means not to suppress religions ,Christianity comes to mind....

Can't learn about God in school because of the ACLU, but learning about islam is ok?
http://ww2.aps.edu/cgi/displaypress2.cgi?205

See the hypocrisy?
 

treedancer

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

Just curious, would anybody believe him if he took the office, and swore on the bible a book that he does not believe in. Are would you have more trust in him if he was sworn in on the book that he believes in, the Koran?
 

Haut Medoc

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

He is a politician....
I wouldn't believe him if he swore on a stack of bibles or korans......;)
What's with this Q crap anyway?
Quran & Quadaffy?
Koran &
Khadaffy duck work for me!....8)
 

bassman284

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

Sounds pretty simple then. All we have to do is send in The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid and kick Islam ass.
 

jtexas

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

But you said "Ban Islam in the U.S? Our own 'Fatwa', if you will? & since they quit trading slaves in 1815 & it it took us until 1865, one could say that they were more civilized", so I guess you liked the way that islam ran things, therefore your for slavery.

beautiful bit of logic there. dude applauds them for giving up the slave trade, means he favors slavery.

got a good laugh out of that one...keep 'em coming!


[incidently, book I finished reading recently, The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks, nonfiction, touches briefly on Kidd's interactions with some Muslim (and European) slave-trading vessels:
http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Hunter-True-Story-Captain/dp/0786865334 bit of a slow read at times, but overall pretty interesting.]
 

ricksrster

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

The Muslims didn't abolish slavery in 1815. They quit taking American slaves and pirating American shipping.
Those treaties are long gone. The participants dead.
There is Muslim slavery and piracy happening in this very day.
Although the shipping world is demanding protection, neither the United Nations nor the United States sees piracy as a priority. The American Government's concern for seafarers' security is no greater than its attention to the health and safety of industrial and mining workers in the United States, where protective regulations are vanishing in the quest for easier profits. The only way to make Washington, and thus the rest of the maritime world, take notice is to project a connection between the pirate enemy and global terrorism. The connection is not far fetched.

Private security firms, such as Tim Spicer's Aegis in London and British- American Defence Ltd in Dubai, have been warning for the past few years that a seaborne terrorist attack is inevitable. The IMB and the US Coast Guard, charged with protecting American ports from attack, concur. Air and land transport routes have come under tighter scrutiny since 11 September 2001, but improvements to maritime security are few. An oil tanker can carry a load that is far, far more explosive than any civil aircraft. And most piracy, including the seizure of oil tankers, takes place near countries with powerful Islamist movements - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Yemen and Somalia. Lloyd's List reported on 4 November that Indonesia is 'the global black spot' with 87 attacks in the first nine months of this year - 'the number of attacks in the Malacca Straits leaped from 11 in 2002 to 24 this year.' Indonesia, which consists of two thousand islands, is the world's most populous Muslim country. It has experienced decades of repression by a kleptocratic military, communal violence and the degradation of a once vibrant economy. Radical Islamists have made it the focus of their activity and recruitment in Asia.
 

bjcsc

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Re: History and Irony...Democrat Keith Ellison

Haut: I don't have any problem with any religion being included in the fabric of this country. I just thought it was ironic, basically what bekosh said. Let's not get church and state tangled up in this, or I should say the current "Supreme Court convolution" of what church and state means...
 
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