The Cool Blue Blog

Blasphemy

"When ye hear the signs of Allah held in defiance and ridicule, ye are not to sit with them unless they turn to a different theme." [Qur'an 4:140]

"Have patience with what they say, and leaves them with noble (dignity)." [Qur'an 73:10]

""If you offered to let me off this time on condition I am not any longer to speak my mind... I should say to you, "Men of Athens, I shall obey the Gods rather than you." Socrates at his trial.

Since the idea of Democracy was first proposed, the idea of Freedom of Speech was recognized to be an essential component. Unless there is free and open political debate, Democracy dies.

But free speech was never unrestrained, not even in the United State. There are restrictions. Clearly you can not defame someone and claim protection on the grounds of freedom of speech. You can not lie in Court or to official investigators.

But one thing that is sacrosanct in true Democracies is that no limits should be placed upon political speech

Pretenders to Democracy have used Treason to limit political speech. Consider Zimbabwe

"The government is trying to silence the opposition. If you publicly criticise the state leader, there’s a good likelihood that you will be charged with treason. That’s a threat to be feared. Treason carries the death penalty," [Edson] Chiota [the national coordinator of the Zimbabwe Association for Crime prevention and Rehabilitation of Offenders (ZACRO)] said.

Islamists have multiple methods for limiting political speech, but they are not pretenders to Democracy; they are opponents of Democracy.

“We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it.” - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh made and released a film critical of how women were treated by Islamists. It was a political statement. And he was killed.

Theo Van Gogh was shot eight times then his throat was cut until he was nearly decapitated. Two knives were left impaled in his chest, and a five page letter was attached. That letter was addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch politician and a Somali immigrant. They threatened her for what they considered attacks on Islam

Since your appearence in the Dutch political arena you have been constantly busy criticising Muslims and terrorising Islam with your statements. You are hereby not the first and not the last and also won't be the last to have joined the crusade against Islam.

With your attacks you have not only turned your back on the Truth, but you are also marching along the ranks of the soldiers of evil. U are not putting your hostility towards Islam under chairs and benches and therefore your masters have rewarded you with a seat in parliament. They have found in you an ally who gives them all the "powder" so that they dont have to dirty their own hands. It appears that you are blinded by your burning unbelief and in your rage you are not able to see that your are just an instrument of the real enemies of Islam....

This letter is Insha Allah (God willing) an attempt to stop your evil and silence you forever.These writings will Inshallah cause your mask to fall off....

Death, Mrs. Hirshi Ali , is a shared theme of everything that exists. You, I and the rest of creation cannot get loose from this truth.

There will come a Day when one soul will not be able to help another soul. A Day of horrible tortures and painful tribulations which will go together with with the terrible cries being pressed out of the lungs of the unjust .Cries. Mrs. Hirshi Ali, which will cause chills to run up someones spine, and cause the hair on their head to stand straight up....

So will we use the same names and send this out ahead of us, so that the heavens and the stars will receive this news and this will be spread as a tidal wave throughout all the corners of the universe.

"I surely know that you, O America, will be destroyed ".

"I surely know that you O Europe, will be destroyed"

"I surely know that you O Holland will be destroyed"

"I surely know that you, O Hirshi Ali will be destroyed"

Her response was to write a book

The Caged Virgin, which is subtitled An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam. The three themes of the story are: first, her own gradual emancipation from tribalism and superstition; second, her work as a parliamentarian to call attention to the crimes being committed every day by Islamist thugs in mainland Europe; and third, the dismal silence, or worse, from many feminists and multiculturalists about this state of affairs.

But she had to quit the Dutch Paliament because

After being forced into hiding by fascist killers, Ayaan Hirsi Ali found that the Dutch government and people were slightly embarrassed to have such a prominent "Third World" spokeswoman in their midst. She was first kept as a virtual prisoner, which made it almost impossible for her to do her job as an elected representative. When she complained in the press, she was eventually found an apartment in a protected building. Then the other residents of the block filed suit and complained that her presence exposed them to risk. In spite of testimony from the Dutch police, who assured the court that the building was now one of the safest in all Holland, a court has upheld the demand from her neighbors and fellow citizens that she be evicted from her home. In these circumstances, she is considering resigning from parliament and perhaps leaving her adopted country altogether.

In other words, the Islamists won this round and forced a Democracy to limit political speech: the greatest sin of a Democracy

The murder of Theo Van Gough occurred in November of 2004. In September 2005, the Danish newspaper  Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons critical of the Islamists. One of which follows

(See them all here)

The result was more threats and intimidation

Islam is no laughing matter. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is being protected by security guards and several cartoonists have gone into hiding after the newspaper published a series of twelve cartoons (see  them all here, halfway the article) about the prophet Muhammad. According to the Islam it is blasphemous to make images of the prophet. Muslim fundamentalists have threatened to bomb the paper’s offices and kill the cartoonists...

The publication led to outrage among the Muslim immigrants living in Denmark. 5,000 of them took to the streets to protest. Muslim organisations have demanded an apology, but Juste rejects this idea: “We live in a democracy. That’s why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures,” he said. The Danish imam Raed Hlayhel reacted with the statement: “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims. Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world.”

The Danes stood up, not just to the Islamists, but to Europe as well

For four months the imams and their radical Muslim organizations have unsuccesfully demanded government censorship. However, despite immense pressure (also from international organizations such as the UN and the EU) the Danish government refused to call the newspaper to account. Last week a couple of Norwegian papers decided to publish the cartoons in support of the Danish paper while in Denmark moderate Muslims, encouraged by the government’s refusal to be intimidated by the radicals, have distanced themselves from the imams. The latter announced on Friday that they no longer demand apologies from Jyllands-Posten for the publication. Instead they said they just want two things: a guarantee from the Danish authorities that Muslims can freely practice their religion without being “provoked and discriminated.” And a declaration from Jyllands-Posten that the cartoons were not published with the intention of mocking the Muslim faith.

Well that's easy since it is clear that the cartoons don't make fun of Islam, but they make fun of Islamist Jihadists.

Asked if wider publication will not lead to unnecessary confrontations between Christians and Muslims Sæle said the intention was not to provoke just for the sake of provoking, but rather to confront radical Islam in Norway.

In Norway and every other place where people want to control their government's rather than the other way around.

Last Thursday, Osama bin Laden again brought up the incursion of the cartoons

Although our tragedy in your killing of our women and children is a very great one, it paled when you went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings. This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.

Evil can take a lot, but it hates being laughed at.

"If any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.."[from 'On Liberty by John Stuart Mill]

"The principle of free thought is not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.."[Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes]

Neither free thought nor free speech is what the Islamists fight for.

Free thought and free speech is what the Islamists fight against.

And that is why we fight them.

UPDATE: Dan Moran links to this post and, now, I to his. He and I disagree on a number of issues. But at the core, we don't disagree on much. Approaches maybe, but not principles. And principles are what really matter.

And on the principle of freedom of political speech and the threat that the Islamists pose to it, we are in solid and violent agreement.

Only for Americans?

The Declaration of Independence

...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...

President John F. Kennedy

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge—and more....

Some think the truths our founders held to be self-evident were only for Americans. That the struggle against the forces of darkness should not cost American lives unless it is American freedom that is threatened. That you can abandon any ally once they have served their purpose of protecting Americans.

But the face of evil has been described. Many would obscure that face and point to something else instead.

But the evil must be faced and fought by those who have the courage and the will to do so. Do we have the courage and the will?

But if not us, than who?

Border war

On January 3, the new Mexican President Felipe Calderon initiated the us a Federal forces to crack down on drug trafficking in Mexico. He sent 3,000 soldiers and federal police to the border city of Tijuana.

The force -- backed by 28 boats, 21 planes and nine helicopters -- will hunt down drug gangs, patrol the coast and man checkpoints in a city that is a popular smuggling route for cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana entering the United States, Interior Secretary Francisco Ramirez Acuna said Tuesday at a news conference in Mexico City.

"We will carry out all the necessary actions to retake every region of national territory," Ramirez Acuna said.

Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon welcomed the additional forces.

He said he would like the soldiers and federal police to work hand in hand with city police to re-establish order.

But before the Federal and local police could work hand-in-hand, the Feds had to know who was on their side and who were compromised. To do this, they disarmed all of the Tijuana police officers so their guns may be tested for use in open murder investigations

Top officials in the Calderón administration have been blunt in their characterization of the Tijuana police department being riddled with informers and other organized crime operatives working for the Tijuana cartel of the Arellano Félix family.

The first major results of this operation were seen not on Tijuana, but further east in Mexicali where

state and federal agents working together captured a gang of seven kidnappers, rescuing three hostages in the same act.

It has been observed, that President Calderon is acting like a war-time president

President Calderón rallied federal troops Wednesday, urging them "not to lose heart" in what he said could be a drawn-out offensive against organized drug traffickers.

...Calderón indicated that the states of Michoacán and Baja California may be only the first of many theaters in his new drug war.

"We have been carrying out this joint operation in Michoacán and as of yesterday a similar one in the city of Tijuana," the president said Wednesday. "But we also need to attend to the needs of many other of the nation´s cities and regions that are threatened by crime and violence."

Wearing an olive-green cap with a five-starred insignia indicating his rank as the supreme commander of the military, Calderón used the language of national defense as he praised his troops for their effort so far in the so-called Michoacán Joint Operation that began Dec. 11.

"Organized crime in Mexico, especially in this state with the largest number of violent crime victims, has profoundly damaged our families´ quality of life and our ability to grow and be successful in the world," he said. "But if we continue in our work, our cities and our land will no longer be in the hands of the criminals."

And as wartime presidents often need to do, Calderón urged the gathered troops to be prepared for a long haul.

"The task will not be easy or quick," he said. "It will require an enormous commitment from the public, including, regrettably, the loss of human life. I ask you not to lose heart, and to continue with determination in this struggle against organized crime."

Further East, somewhere in the 120 mile stretch between Lukeville Arizona and Nogales, Mexico came news of a border incursion that may have something to do with Calderon's war on drug traffickers

A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.

A Guardsman who was at the scene claimed they didn't run, but were acting under orders: orders that include not shooting a illegals crossing the border. They retreated when it was determined the subjects were armed.

Getting control of the drug trafficking and border is a matter of national security. This must be clear to everyone. The government knows this, but as was the case prior to September 11, 2001, the information isn't being shared as Sara Carter of the dailybulletin.com writes

Evidence of "special-interest aliens" using the Mexican border to gain entry to the United States has been kept secret from the American public, according to federal law enforcement agents, terrorism experts and critics of U.S. foreign policy with Mexico.

In 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. illegally. Of those, 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico, and roughly 650 were, like Kamal, from special-interest countries, according to the Border Patrol.

Those interviewed by the Daily Bulletin say agencies including the FBI and CIA are not using information from Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration agents to make connections between the drug trade, illegal immigration and terrorist organizations.

"For us to believe that Mexican smugglers will not assist, knowingly or unknowingly, foreign terrorists trying to enter the United States is incomprehensible," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who, along with other congressional representatives, has pushed for stricter border security policies.

...the links between illegal immigration, expanded trade, Mexican narcotics organizations and terrorist groups has already been assessed by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies, according to DEA documents obtained by the Daily Bulletin.

According to an intelligence report written by the DEA, "La Entrada al Pac fico (Gateway to the Pacific)" - also the name of a Texas-Mexico plan to expand border trade - Asian narcotics traffickers, in collusion with Mexican drug trafficking organizations and terrorist groups, could use expanded trade routes to bring contraband into the United States.

"The DEA has made a conscious effort to generate predictive intelligence so policy makers can be aware and plan ahead for significant changes in narcotics and smuggling operations," said a DEA official who asked to remain anonymous. "Any time you send in a predictive piece of intelligence that has merit and it's ignored, then the consequences of that can be devastating to national security."

According to DEA intelligence reports, the link between terrorism and narcotics has been well known since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

But federal agents say getting bureaucrats to understand the growing danger is difficult when most lawmakers won't even acknowledge many of the problems already happening along the U.S. border.

I think President Calderon's war against the drug cartels is an important step to securing our border from terrorists and drug mobsters.

But it also seems to me that National Guard members patrolling our border should have the right to shoot, and kill, armed people who try to cross our border.

I sure as hell hope that legislation on illegal immigration, sure to come from the 110th Congress, includes such authorization.

Not Happening

Austrailian police are saying they prevented an attack by terrorists

Australian authorities arrested 17 terror suspects on Tuesday — including a prominent radical Muslim cleric sympathetic to Osama bin Laden — and said they had foiled a major terror attack on the country by men committed to “violent jihad.”

Meanwhile the Whitehouse has released this information about successes here

Overall, the United States and our partners have disrupted at least ten serious al-Qaida terrorist plots since September 11--including three al-Qaida plots to attack inside the United States.  We have stopped at least five more al-Qaida efforts to case targets in the United States or infiltrate operatives into our country.

10 Plots

1. The West Coast Airliner Plot: In mid-2002 the U.S. disrupted a plot to attack targets on the West Coast of the United States using hijacked airplanes.  The plotters included at least one major operational planner involved in planning the events of 9/11. 
2. The East Coast Airliner Plot: In mid-2003 the U.S. and a partner disrupted a plot to attack targets on the East Coast of the United States using hijacked commercial airplanes. 
3. The Jose Padilla Plot: In May 2002 the U.S. disrupted a plot that involved blowing up apartment buildings in the United States.  One of the plotters, Jose Padilla, also discussed the possibility of using a "dirty bomb" in the U.S.
4. The 2004 UK Urban Targets Plot: In mid-2004 the U.S. and partners disrupted a plot that involved urban targets in the United Kingdom.  These plots involved using explosives against a variety of sites.
5. The 2003 Karachi Plot: In the Spring of 2003 the U.S. and a partner disrupted a plot to attack Westerners at several targets in Karachi, Pakistan. 
6. The Heathrow Airport Plot: In 2003 the U.S. and several partners disrupted a plot to attack Heathrow Airport using hijacked commercial airliners. The planning for this attack was undertaken by a major 9/11 operational figure.
7. The 2004 UK Plot: In the Spring of 2004 the U.S. and partners, using a combination of law enforcement and intelligence resources, disrupted a plot to conduct large-scale bombings in the UK. 
8. The 2002 Arabian Gulf Shipping Plot: In late 2002 and 2003 the U.S. and a partner nation disrupted a plot by al-Qa'ida operatives to attack ships in the Arabian Gulf. 
9. The 2002 Straits of Hormuz Plot: In 2002 the U.S. and partners disrupted a plot to attack ships transiting the Straits of Hormuz. 
10. The 2003 Tourist Site Plot: In 2003 the U.S. and a partner nation disrupted a plot to attack a tourist site outside the United States.

5 Casings and Infiltrations

1. The U.S. Government & Tourist Sites Tasking: In 2003 and 2004, an individual was tasked by al-Qa'ida to case important U.S. Government and tourist targets within the United States.
2. The Gas Station Tasking: In approximately 2003, an individual was tasked to collect targeting information on U.S. gas stations and their support mechanisms on behalf of a senior al-Qa'ida planner.
3. Iyman Faris & the Brooklyn Bridge: In 2003, and in conjunction with a partner nation, the U.S. government arrested and prosecuted Iyman Faris, who was exploring the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.  Faris ultimately pleaded guilty to providing material support to al-Qa'ida and is now in a federal correctional institution.
4. 2001 Tasking: In 2001, al-Qa'ida sent an individual to facilitate post-September 11 attacks in the U.S.  U.S. law enforcement authorities arrested the individual.
5. 2003 Tasking: In 2003, an individual was tasked by an al-Qa'ida leader to conduct reconnaissance on populated areas in the U.S.

The President Lied and People Died

Most people have suspected for a very long time that the incident that precipitated a build up of military might in Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin event, was a lie perpetrated by President Johnson to justify increased military operations there.

Now there is proof that the incident was indeed a fabrication and that people knew it.

The U.S. National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a finding by an agency historian that NSA officers deliberately distorted critical intelligence during the Tonkin Gulf episode that helped precipitate the Vietnam War, according to two people familiar with the historian's work.

The historian's conclusion is the first serious accusation that communications intercepted by the NSA, the secretive eavesdropping and code-breaking agency, were falsified so that they made it look as if North Vietnam had attacked American destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, two days after a previous clash.

President Lyndon B. Johnson cited the supposed attack to persuade Congress to authorize broad military action in Vietnam, but most historians have concluded in recent years that there was no second attack.

The NSA historian, Robert Hanyok, found a pattern of translation mistakes that went uncorrected, altered intercept times and selective citation of intelligence that persuaded him that midlevel agency officers had deliberately skewed the evidence.

Hanyok concluded that they had done it not out of any political motive but to cover up earlier errors, and that top NSA and military officials and Johnson neither knew about nor condoned the deception.

The research by the NSA historian was detailed four years ago in an in-house article. It remains classified, in part because agency officials feared its release might prompt uncomfortable comparisons with the flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq, according to an intelligence official familiar with some internal discussions of the matter.

Matthew Aid, an independent historian who has discussed Hanyok's Tonkin Gulf research with current and former NSA and CIA officials who have read it, said he had decided to speak publicly about the findings because he believed they should have been released long ago.

"This material is relevant to debates we as Americans are having about the war in Iraq and intelligence reform," said Aid, who is writing a history of the NSA. "To keep it classified simply because it might embarrass the agency is wrong."

Ooops.

The CIA may have got many things wrong in Iraq, but it is quite obvious that Democrats believed Iraq had WMDs BB (Before Bush)

But one thing that was clear to everyone was that he was not complying with the UN inspection regime that ended the first Gulf War. And while the particular meme of historical revisionism involves "remembering" that the whole invasion rationale was based on WMDs, it was not. And we have as proof the Congressional authorization for a War in Iraq which lists a whole laundry list of reason for finally calling Iraq in breech of the agreements that the ended the Gulf War.

Was Johnson to blame for the Gulf of Tonkin event? This report may actually vindicate him, not indict him. The report may implicate bad intelligence, not malice.

But for Bush, not only will he not be given the benefit of the doubt with regards to WMDs, but people are actively misrepresenting the history of our involvement and their relationship to WMDs.

Intelligence mistakes or no, we had more justification to invade Iraq, as detailed in the Congressional authorization for war, than President Johnson had because his decision was based solely on bad intelligence.

Bush's was not.

al Qaeda and Iraq

You know, I'm tired of hearing that there was no connection between the Iraq of Saddam and al Qaeda. So I've decided that with this post, I will collect in one place all articles regarding that very connection of which I am aware so that anyone searching and finding this post will have easy access to the information.

If anyone would like to add links, I'll be glad to include them.

For now, here's the evidence that I have collected and believe is quite compelling. Compelling enough that you have to either be a partisan hack or an al Qaeda sympathizer to dismiss.

First up is a piece by Stephen F. Hayes of the Weekly Standard titled "Case Closed"

OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD...

Genesis

Islam, Wahabbism, al Qaeda; Clair lays it all out.

Go there now and get informed.

Fallujah: Small Wars and Microcosm

Fallujah has been out of the news for a while. It was once the news so long as Marines were getting killed and there was a hot war.

And many had varying opinions on what should and should not be done in Fallujah.

From my point of view, what the Marines did do could be predicted just by reading the Small Wars Manual.

Hotwire tactics

The AP is reporting this behind the scenes account of Udai Hussein's demise:

An Oklahoma soldier stationed in Iraq hot-wired Odai Hussein's Lamborghini sport utility vehicle, military records say, and the soldier goes on to claim his action lured the son of the former Iraqi dictator into a U.S. trap.

But the account from Spc. Jeremy Huhman of Enid, Okla., as passed along by his mother and Oklahoma U.S. Senate candidate Kirk Humphreys, differs on key points from the official version of the raid last July that killed Odai, 39, and brother Qusai, 37.

In Huhman's account, his hot-wiring of the expensive Italian vehicle caused a worried Odai to emerge from the villa where he and Qusai were holed up. The Army has said only that troops surrounded the building and stormed it after firing missiles and rockets. No other witnesses saw Odai come outside.

A U.S. Army document that led to a commendation for Huhman says he was asked to fulfill various missions in Iraq "... from hot-wiring Uday Hussein's Lamborghini SUV to generator repair to bringing captured facilities back online."

"Uday" is an alternative spelling of Odai.

The award recommendation, obtained by The Associated Press, does not describe the circumstances under which Huhman hot-wired the SUV.

The document is signed by 1st Lt. Philip Benner, Huhman's executive officer with Bravo Company, 558th Engineering Unit.

Benner, reached at company headquarters in Fort Hood, Texas, declined to comment. "It's a matter we haven't unclassified," he said....

Huhman's mother, Judy, was unavailable for comment, but she confirmed her son's account in a story Tuesday in the Enid News & Eagle.

"He was a teenager once," she said. "He knows about cars."

Humphreys, a Republican, has been telling the story during campaign stops to show, he says, that while politicians debate the war, soldiers are risking their lives to win. Democrats have accused Humphreys of making the story up to justify his support for the war and to criticize Democrats.

"I did not make it up. I did not embellish it," Humphreys said.

The War on Piracy

News-junkie that I am, I ran across this modern-day piracy story and it reminded me of something.

A persistant argument of "the left" is that a war on terrorism can not be won. There will always be terrorists and you can not eradicate it as a tactic. And to some extent, there is truth to this. But we are not trying to eradicate the tactic of terrorists, we are attempting to destroy as a cohesive force those who adhere to a particular politico-religious ideology that uses terrorism as a tactic.

There was a time when state-sponsered piracy threatened the world's shipping lanes and the security of citizens that travelled the seas. To quote a review of the book "Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror 1801-1805" by Joseph Wheelan:

Two centuries ago, the ostensibly pacifist president Thomas Jefferson launched America’s first war on foreign soil—a war against terror. The enemy was Muslim; the war was waged unconventionally, with commandos, native troops, encrypted intelligence, and foreign bases under short-term alliances.