By John Feffer

(source:The Wisdom Fund)

[John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies and writes its regular World Beat column. Kathryn Zickuhr contributed research assistance to this article.]

. . . In America’s first war against Islam, we were the ones who introduced the use of suicide bombers. Indeed, the American seamen who perished in the incident were among the U.S. military’s first missing in action.

It was September 4, 1804. The United States was at war with the Barbary pirates along the North African coast. The U.S. Navy was desperate to penetrate the enemy defenses. Commodore Edward Preble, who headed up the Third Mediterranean Squadron, chose an unusual stratagem: sending a booby-trapped U.S.S. Intrepid into the bay at Tripoli, one of the Barbary states of the Ottoman empire, to blow up as many of the enemy’s ships as possible. U.S. sailors packed 10,000 pounds of gunpowder into the boat along with 150 shells.

When Lieutenant Richard Sommers, who commanded the vessel, addressed his crew on the eve of the mission, a midshipman recorded his words:

"’No man need accompany him, who had not come to the resolution to blow himself up, rather than be captured; and that such was fully his own determination!’ Three cheers was the only reply. The gallant crew rose, as a single man, with the resolution yielding up their lives, sooner than surrender to their enemies: while each stepped forth, and begged as a favor, that he might be permitted to apply the match!"

The crew of the boat then guided the Intrepid into the bay at night. So as not to be captured and lose so much valuable gunpowder to the enemy, they chose to blow themselves up with the boat. The explosion didn’t do much damage — at most, one Tripolitan ship went down — but the crew was killed just as surely as the two men who plowed a ship piled high with explosives into the U.S.S. Cole in the Gulf of Aden nearly 200 years later.

Despite the failure of the mission, Preble received much praise for his strategies. "A few brave men have been sacrificed, but they could not have fallen in a better cause," opined a British navy commander. The Pope went further: "The American commander, with a small force and in a short space of time, has done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christiandom have done for ages!"

Read More »Our suicide bombers thoughts on western jihad

Norman Finkelstein – (interview on Press TV)
 
‘Several weeks ago, I guess about six weeks ago, I joined a US delegation to Gaza to see the aftermath of the Israeli massacre and also to get some sense of what we can do. I met with people at all levels of Gazan society; people in orphanages, in schools, hospitals and I also had several meetings with senior officials in the government in Gaza and there was a consensus from the top to the bottom of Gazan society that the main obstacle they are now facing is the siege.

The devastation was horrific enough, but beyond the devastation, the problem now is they can’t rebuild anything. The whole place is just rubble because even six months after the Gaza massacre, no cement is allowed in, no glass is allowed in and everything is exactly as it was on January 18th when the Israeli assault ended…I then proposed, when we were meeting with the parliamentary representatives that we should attempt to break the siege non-violently with a march. And the idea was enthusiastically received both by the members of the government and by the people in Gaza.

So, we began to organize, in the US initially, an international coalition to end the siege of Gaza. We now have a European branch, in Lisbon and chapters in several countries in Europe. And the main challenge now is twofold: number one to enlist prominent moral authorities internationally in support of the march – and that is one of the reasons I am here, because South Africa has a high concentration of internationally prominent moral authorities; everybody ranging from Nelson Mandela to Bishop Tutu to Ela Ghandi and others.

The second thing is, we have to bring over bodies. The more people we bring over, the more likelihood that when we march, Israel won’t be able to shoot and we’ll be able to lift the siege. So we are hoping for several thousand people, including from the Arab world and from South Africa.’

Read More »March to Gaza