Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates Christopher Hitchens
America’s first confrontation with the Islamic world helped forge a new nation’s character
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And then, finally, there is principle. It would be simplistic to say that something innate in America made it incompatible with slavery and tyranny. But would it be too much to claim that many Americans saw a radical incompatibility between the Barbary system and their own? And is it not pleasant when the interests of free trade and human emancipation can coincide? I would close with a few staves of Kipling, whose poem “Dane-Geld” is a finer effort than anything managed by Francis Scott Key:
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[also in City Journal <http://www.city-journal.org/html/ 17_1_urbanities-steyn.html>:]
Facing the Islamist Menace Christopher Hitchens
Mark Steyn’s new book is a welcome wake-up call.