From the Shores of Tripoli to the Tigris

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From From the Shores of Tripoli to the Tigris: In 1785, many Americans urged their government to follow the European practice of bribing the pirates of the Barbary States, but Jefferson believed that paying off pirates would only encourage them. America’s first foreign war was fought in the Middle East. After trying and failing to form an international coalition against Barbary, Jefferson sent the U.S. Navy to battle the pirates in 1801. American forces suffered many setbacks before 1805, when the Marines marched to “the shores of Tripoli” and defeated the enemy’s army. America has pursued similar goals in the

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Do the math

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We are constantly told by the spin doctors that there are 2 billion Muslims in the world, and that there are only 10% who are Islamic fundamentalists. We wanted to see those numbers on paper, so we did the math. Whoa. 10% of 2 billion is 200 million. So we thought that was a little high. So we figured – we must be wrong and that only 1% of 2 billion Muslims are Islamic fundamentalists. So, we did the math again and discovered that 1% of 2 billion is 20 million. Phew. We feel so much better now that there

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