Whether Thomas Jefferson ever actually said "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute", he certainly acted on it. As this post notes, "Religion was a factor, just as it is now. The Barbary Pirates were Muslims. Those they preyed upon were exclusively Christians and, if not released through the payment of tribute, faced slavery or worse. Those few who converted to Islam escaped slavery, and were treated as equals. If any Christian dared to blaspheme Allah, he risked being impaled or roasted alive. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, serving at the time as European Ministers, asked the ambassador from Tripoli why his government sanctioned such savagery. He replied that the Qu'ran stated non-Muslims were 'sinners' and Muslims had a '...right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners'.George Washington himself said, in 1786: "Would to Heaven we had a navy to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into non-existence." An American envoy of the time noted "there is but one language which can be held to these people, and this is terror."
Two hundred and twenty years into the Thousand Year War and not one damn thing has changed...
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