War On Terror Part 2: David Barton gives us the history of America”€™s war against terror, going back 200 years! Learn about what drives the terrorists as well as why we fight!

Air Date: 09/19/2018

On-air Personalities: David Barton and Rick Green

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture.  This is WallBuilders Live where we talk about today”€™s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture. Always from a Biblical, historical, and Constitutional perspective.

David Barton is America’s premier historian and he is our founder here at WallBuilders. You’re about to hear from him. We’re actually going to be picking up right where we left off yesterday. Last week was the anniversary of 9/11. There wasn’t much coverage on it.

We wanted to bring some additional information on this, some history, and some historical perspective as we do here on WallBuilders live. This presentation is called a spiritual and historical perspective of America’s War on Terror.

Yesterday was the first half. If you missed that, it’s available right now in the archives section of WallBuildersLive.com, or you can go to WallBuilders.com and get the full CD. It’s right there available in the digital downloads and the CDs.

Let’s jump right in where we left off yesterday. Here’s David Barton on a spiritual and historical perspective of America’s War on Terror.

American Christianity

David:

John Adams called American Christianity, “rational” when compared to European Christianity. President John Quincy Adams called American Christianity, “civilized” as compared to the rest of the world. John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John J, Webster all said it, but maybe the best summation is given by Thomas Jefferson. This is what Thomas Jefferson said, “€œThe comparisons of our government with those in Europe is like a comparison between heaven and hell.”€ It’s that stark. That was the difference.

Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli says, “€œThe Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of muslims.”€

We”€™re not those kind of Christians. So when you hear the Treaty of Tripoli invoked, and secularist love to do that, across the country. They love to send letters to the editor about that treaty.

The Treaty of Tripoli

It’s like an evangelist campaign they”€™ve got. They keep quoting Article 11 in the Treaty of Tripoli, and most Christians don’t know what to say or what to do about them. The thing to do is, “€œHey guys, quick stopping in the sentence midway. Read the rest of it.”€ It says, “€œYou guys are Muslims, we’re Christians. The fact we’re Christians doesn’t mean we hate you just because you’re Muslims.”€ That’s what Article 11 says. So back to General Eaton.

He’s leading the American forces, and in his day to day records, in his memoirs, it”€™s really kind of humorous to see what he says. For example, here’s an entry from April the 8th he says-now remember he’s been a diplomat over there already. He”€™s coming back militarily.

“€œWe find it almost impossible to inspire these wild bigots with confidence in us, or to persuade them that being Christians we can be otherwise than enemies to Muslims. We have a difficult undertaking.”€ In other words, “€œWe keep telling these guys just because we’re Christians we don’t hate you, but they won’t believe that. They keep saying, “€˜No, we’re Muslims. You’re Christians. We have to fight you.”€™”€

That’s what the Treaty of Tripoli was about, and that’s not the only treaty. There were treaties done with Algiers and with Tunis and all these other Islamic nations as well. That was a common clause in it.

So that Treaty of Tripoli is completely out of context. But again here’s what Eaton said, “€œWe keep trying to tell them that we’re Christians you’re Muslims and we’re not your enemies!”€ But by the time we go from April the 8th, when he wrote that, to May 23rd, it’s like, “€œAll right, I’m tired negotiating.”€

“€œWhy Don”€™t He Come and Take It?”€

This is what he says on May 23rd, “€œThe commander in chief of the enemy’s forces has offered for my head $6,000,”€ which is a bunch of bucks back then, “€œAnd double the sum for me a prisoner. And $30 per head for Christians. Why don’t he come and take it?”€

That”€™s a great military attitude. Alright, he”€™s put a bounty on everyone. Let’s see if he can collect. Come on, let’s let’s see if you can collect your bounty on us.

So here the Muslims have put a bounty on the head of every Christian, they still pay bounties today.

The last I knew was during the War on Terror was that those who are willing to sacrifice themselves in car bombs, or walk into a restaurant and blow themselves up, are getting paid about $25,000. So their family gets it if they blow themselves up. So there’s still a bounty, they still pay for that kind of slaughter and death, nothing new under the sun.

We had, in that first conflict, five years of on-the-ground warfare in that region of the world right where we were fighting for so many years two centuries ago. We”€™re finally able to get a first kind of peace treaty signed with Tripoli and some others and they said, “€œOK we give up. We’re tired of being thumped by the Marines. You can send them back home. We’ll be good now.”€

When you look at Thomas Jefferson, he had been sent as a diplomat to negotiate with these guys in 1784, and here he is in 1805 finally getting the first peace treaty with them where we no longer have to pay. So you’re looking at 21-22 years that Thomas Jefferson has been negotiating with Muslim terrorists and fighting Muslim terrorists.

Jefferson Had a Qur’an?!

Now back in January of 2007 Keith Ellison, who was sworn in the U.S. Congress from the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota. When he was sworn in, he took his oath of office on the Qur’an owned by Thomas Jefferson. He was called by the media the first Muslim member of the American Congress and is sworn in on Jefferson’s Qur’an. Why in the heck would Jefferson own a Qur”€™an? Well, the answer is very simple and it comes from a principle of war given by the Chinese general 2000 years ago, Sun Tzu, who said, quote, “€œKnow your enemy.”€

When Jefferson had asked the question of the Muslim diplomat, “€œWhat is unprovoked attacks on us?”€ And that diplomat said, “€œWell it’s written in the Qur”€™an.”€ Jefferson wants to know for himself, so he read the Qur”€™an in order to learn how they thought. He used that, trying to learn how they thought in diplomatic proceedings, and finally when he went to war with them. So, interestingly, Ellison when he was sworn in back in 2007 on Jefferson’s Qur’an, says the fact that this was Jefferson’s Qur’an shows the positive influence Islam has had on the founding fathers.

Wrong.

The reason he had the Qur’an was to learn how to fight the folks who were attacking him, who were Muslim terrorists.

The First Muslim Congressman

By the way, another piece revision of the media, said this is the first Muslim sworn into Congress. Well, you need to go back to 1799, John Randolph of Roanoke.

John Randolph of Roanoke who served under all these early presidencies, under Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Jackson, etc. Long term member of Congress, John Randolph of Roanoke, who by the way is a descendant of Pocahontas, this is his quote. He said that he held a position, “€œIn favor of Mohamedism.”€ In other words, “€œI’m a big supporter of Islam.”€ He said, “€œRejoice in all of its triumphs over the cross of Christianity.”€

Whenever Islam thumped Christianity, he was standing and cheering. He said that he held a position of, quote, “€œNatural repugnance to Christianity.”€ So here’s John Randolph saying, “€œLook, I hate Christianity. I love Islam and I love it when Islam thumps Christianity.”€

Sounds to me like that might have been our first Muslim member of Congress in 1799. Oh, by the way, he didn’t stay a Muslim member of Congress. You may have heard of Francis Scott Key? The guy who did the Star-Spangled Banner? Francis Scott Key led John Randolph of Roanoke to Christ. Converted into Christianity, John Randolph became a strong advocate of Christianity, and I guess people are worried about a Muslim in Congress today.

That’s the right tack to take, is conversion, and that’s what John Randolph of Roanoke experienced through the witnessing of Francis Scott Key.

“€œ…will wonder that such absurdities have infected the best part of the world”€¦”€

So, going back to Jefferson. Jefferson brings some peace to America from these terrorist attacks. It’s interesting to see what happened the next year in 1806. That is the year in which the first American edition of the Qur’an is printed. Why would there be a Qur’an printed in America? Because we had just finished a war with those who had claimed the Qur’an as their basis for fighting America for the previous five years and for attacking her for the previous two decades. It was time for Americans to be able to read for themselves about the philosophy that had cost so many American lives and such great economic expense.

Interestingly, the publishers, who included a preface to that Qur’an, predicted that after Americans had read the Qur’an for themselves, quote, “€œThat will wonder that such absurdities have infected the best part of the world and will advance that the knowledge of what is contained in this book will render that law contemptible.”€ In other words, “€œAmericans, you won’t believe what you’re about to read in this book, and you won’t like it.”€ This first American addition to the Qur’an was printable.

Jefferson was president and after he had led the war to end those terrorist attacks, and the next president who comes in is James Madison.

1812 and Pirates

Madison immediately gets engulfed with the War of 1812, he’s having to defend America from what’s called the “€œSecond American Revolution”€ but the British are attacking America again. That war goes for several years.

Don”€™t ever think that enemies overseas don’t watch what’s happening domestically in America, because when Madison went to war against the British and the Navy is now tied up against the British Navy, all these Muslim terrorists overseas said, “€œOh look, they’re busy. They can’t do anything to us now.”€

They started renewing all the same attacks that they had been doing a decade before, now knowing that the American military can do nothing to them.

Judeo-Christian Teamwork

So during that period of time, President Madison dispatched prominent Jewish diplomat Mordecai Noah to go to those Muslim nations and try to negotiate the release of captured and enslaved Americans.

This is one of the many occasions in the early American history in which it is quite accurate to use the term Judeo Christian, that is Jews and Christians joint arm in arm to work side by side with each other, and this event is one of the many occasions that textbooks never mention.

Well, in 1815 we signed the peace treaty to end the War of 1812 that we were fighting against the British.

Dealing With the Pirates

As soon as we end that war, President Madison dispatches the American Navy back over to that same region of the world to deal with these Muslim terrorists. From our first round of problems with Muslim terrorists beginning back at the end of the American Revolution, Americans and George Washington learned that we needed a military that could not just defend Americans here at home, but one that would be able to defend them anywhere in the world they might be attacked.

While Thomas Jefferson was serving as President George Washington’s Secretary of State, he explained this way, declaring, quote, “€œThe persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the protection of our government and all places where they may lawfully go.”€

Defending Abroad

Hence, we built a Navy that could carry our military to wherever it needed to go in order to protect American citizens. With this recurrence of attacks during the War of 1812, President James Madison has learned a second important lesson.

The American military must be big enough to carry on a battle on two fronts at the same time, for the enemy watches for chances to attack, and if he knows that all of our forces are tied up in one war then that enemy feels free to start a second attack against us, knowing we can’t defend ourselves.

This Precarious Moment Book

David:

This is David Barton. I want to let about a brand new book we have called This Precarious Moment, Six Urgent Steps That Will Save You, Your family, and Our Country. Jim Garlow and I have co-authored this book and we take six issues that are hot in the culture right now.

Issues that we’re dealing with, issues such as immigration, race relations, our relationship with Israel, the rising generation Millennials, and the absence of the church in the culture wars, and where American heritage is, our godly heritage. We look at all six of those issues right now that are under attack and we give you both Biblical and historical perspective on those issues that provide solutions on what each of us can do right now to make a difference.

These are all problems that are solvable if we’ll get involved. So you can grab the book This Precarious Moment and find out what you can do to make a difference. This Precarious Moment is available at WallBuilders.com.

Returning to Africa

David:

Returning to President Madison.

Now being freed from the War of 1812, he dispatches our Navy and our marines back over to the same region of the world to deal with these Muslim terrorists. Leading the expedition that time you have two leaders, it’s another two prong attack. You have Commodore William Bainbridge and you also have Commodore Stephen Decatur. Stephen Decatur had been a young Naval Lieutenant back when Thomas Jefferson sent him the first time to the War on Terror. Decatur really showed himself as a great warrior at that point. Now he’s being sent back ten years later because he knows the turf, he knows the enemy. Maddison’s sending him back.

A lot Like Baghdad

For the next two years it is brutal hand-to-hand combat with these terrorists. It’s a lot like the urban kind of stuff that our guys had to do in cleaning out Baghdad and cleaning out Masul and all those other places. It was really hard hand-to-hand close quarters combat. There are very famous pictures of Stephen Decatur engaged in hand-to-hand conflict with these Muslim terrorists.

After two years of just again thumping these guys, they say, “€œOK, we give up America, we”€™ll be nice. Please don’t send your Navy back over anymore. Don’t send the Marines back. We don’t want to see them. We’ll be nice.”€

That brought to a conclusion that first War on Terror, 32 years of conflict.

Why did they Fight?

There were seven years of armed warfare on the ground in the same region. The same region where we’ve fought for so many years in the modern War on Terror, under four different military commanders. It was not a small thing, we never hear about that in our history books, but if you say, “€œNow why did they fight Americans back then? What was the cause?”€

You recall that the diplomat told Adams and Jefferson, “€œWe do this because it’s founded on the laws of our Prophet Muhammad. It’s written in our Qur’an, that all nations who should not acknowledge our authority or centers, and it’s our right and duty to make war on them wherever they can be found, and every Muslim who is slain in battle is sure to go to paradise.”€

This is Their Holy War

This is part of the theological belief that if you get killed in a holy war, you’re going right to heaven. See, that”€™s one of the problems with Islam as far as going to heaven. You don’t know if you’re going to get there till after you die. When you get there the Angels weigh your good works, weigh your bad works, and if the good works outweigh the bad works, then you get to make it to heaven, but you won’t know that till after you get there and those works are weighed.

Now, if you want a guaranteed, express ticket to heaven, what you got to do is get yourself killed in a holy war. That’s why the moms are so rapid to call for jihads, because once they declared a holy war, now if you get yourself killed you’re straight in heaven, that”€™s your straight ticket in, and what can be better than going to heaven? And the guaranteed way to get there is to be killed in a war, a holy war a war against Christians.

So that’s what was happening back then. That’s still what is happening now.

Another early Secretary of State was Timothy Pickering, who served under John Adams and George Washington. If you look at the diplomatic correspondence to the State Department when he’s Secretary of State. I thought one of the really compelling statements was this, one of the statements that was sent in by one of the diplomats.

Muslims, are induced to desperate fighting and are very powerful

He said, quote, “€œThey are taught by revelation that war with the Christians will guarantee the salvation of their souls, the Muslims induce some desperate fighting and are very powerful.”€

In other words, since they are taught in their holy book that if you war with the Christian and you get killed, that’s a straight ticket to heaven. Man that’s a great inducement for them to fight very viciously, because that’s the way to heaven. Trying to talk them out of a fight is like trying to talk them out of their salvation.

So when you look at where we are today, and you say now why are these guys so insistent on fighting Americans? Well, let me just repeat what was said 200 years ago, taught by revelation that war with the Christians will guarantee the salvation of the souls of the Muslims, are induced to desperate fighting and are very powerful.

But why did they attack the World Trade Center? Why fly those planes into the largest office building in the world, where you have tens of thousands of civilians inhabiting that building? Why do that? Very simple, taught by revelation that war with the Christians will guarantee the salvation of the souls, the Muslims and induced to desperate fighting and are very powerful.

A War Between Christians and Muslims

So we think in terms of fighting war against military forces, they don’t. They think in terms of  the war as Muslims against Christians, not military against military, that’s the way Americans think.

See, their thing is they find a bunch of Christians, take them out, and if you get killed doing that, that’s your straight ticket to heaven as long as you’re taking Christians out. In America all the seculars keep saying, “€œOh no we’re not a Christian nation.”€ Every other nation in the world believes America as a Christian nation except us. Ask any Islamic nation “€œIs America a Christian nation?”€ And they say “€œCourse America is a Christian nation.”€ So it’s real simple, you attack America, you’re attacking Christians and if you get killed that’s a guaranteed ticket to heaven.

But why attack the Pentagon? Well, again taught by revelation that war with the Christians will guarantee the salvation of their souls, the Muslims induced to desperate fighting and are very powerful. Same answer for every question.

The same statement, you can use it again and again.

People who say, “€œWell we just need to sit down, negotiate, and talk.”€ No, that’s like Christians sitting down and having someone try to talk them out of going to heaven. You might do it. It’s possible to do some occasions but it’s not very likely. So are we going to sit down with a different religion that believes the way to heaven is now? Not likely. You see, that’s why it did not work 200 years ago. It still doesn’t work.  We negotiate with them and finally said, “€œWe’ve got to do something different.”€ That’s where Washington called for the military, that’s where we started using it.

Refined by Fire

So when you look at where we are today, one of the guys by the way who was run over by that 757 plane when it hit the Pentagon, was Lieutenant Colonel Brian Birdwell. He was engulfed with jet fuel, he was set ablaze, he was a human torch, and amazingly, providentially, sovereignly, he survived that. He was fried to a crisp, no skin left on his body except some small parts, but generally it was burned clean off. As you see him today, if you see him, he’s got a great book. It’s a book worth getting online and reading is Refined by Fire. Colonel Brian Birdwell, you see him and yeah I see a little scar tissue, but around that he looks pretty good.

Then you read that his entire arm, from armpit to fingertips, is rebuilt and then grafted, his entire face, his ears, his eye sockets, his nose, all of that is reconstructed.

There was nothing there. Birdwell was just fried. He was overcome with that. Now he has a wonderful testimony that he shares and he’s a strong Christian, strong believer in what God did on that day and how he managed to survive that. But Colonel Birdwell points out something that we often forget. War against Terror commenced because of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the attacks on the Pentagon. They flew the planes into these American buildings. We said, “€œThat’s it, we’re going to war.”€ We think that’s what started that. What we forget is that they had been attacking us for 30 years before that, and we were doing absolutely nothing to defend ourselves.

We”€™ve Been Under Attack for Over 30 Years

Go back to 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when they attacked and took the entire U.S. embassy, and embassies are always considered home soil, they came onto American soil. When you step in a U.S. embassy in any country, you’ve stepped onto American soil. If you step into the Canadian Embassy in the United States you are Canadian soil. If you step into Saudi Arabian Embassy in the United States you’re on Saudi soil. That is international law. When you step into an embassy you’re on American soil and they stepped onto American soil and they took the entire embassy hostage. We didn’t provoke that.

Then you remember the four years later the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed.  I’m going to give you some figures of casualties here to remind you how many Americans were casualties. This is not talking about all the Nationals who live in those countries, who were also killed and wounded. In that 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, where the terrorists attacked Americans, 17 Americans were killed 100 were wounded, again that is on American soil.

That same year you had the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut. That attack was 242 Americans dead, 81 wounded. You also had the next year that the U.S. servicemen were attacked in Berlin by those terrorists at the nightclub, and they killed 2 Americans and wounded 79 others. Now not counting all the Germans that were killed and wounded, but this is just American casualties.

We Did Nothing

In 1984 terrorists kidnapped and murdered station chief William Buckley. In 1984 they attacked a U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut. In that attack there were two dead and 21 wounded, not counting all the others and Lebanese that were killed. In 1984 the Muslims attacked the American Air Force Base in Torrion, Spain killing 18, wounding 83 Americans. You may remember in 1985 the TWA Flight 847, famous pictures were that they found that American sailor on board, clubbed him death, and threw his body out on the tarmac. Terrorists did that.

We also had the 1988 Pan Am flight bombing over Lockerbie Scotland. Then we had 189 Americans killed in that bombing. Next there was the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, six Americans dead, 1000 Americans wounded. We had the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, 19 Americans dead, 372 wounded. Again, not counting the Saudis that were killed in that attack. In the 1998 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi by Muslim terrorists, we had 12 Americans dead, 6 wounded. Simultaneous attack on the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, where they wounded seven Americans. We had the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, 17 dead, that was in 2000, 39 wounded. Then we had the 9/11 attacks where we had 3,030 dead and 23 hundred and thirty seven wounded.

10,000 American Casualties Before we up and Did Something

That’s not all that’s been going for 30 years, but if you look over that period of time America took about 10,000 casualties in that period of time. Dead and wounded we took about 10,000 casualties and did absolutely nothing in that period of time.

Join The Bartons and Greens In Israel!

Rick:

Hey Friends! Rick Green here from WallBuilders Live. The WallBuilders team is going to Israel and we’d love to have you go with us. It”€™s going to be January 28 through February 7th, a Holy Land tour that is the experience of a lifetime.

Just imagine sailing on the Sea of Galilee. Imagine going to the Elah Valley where David slew Goliath and even picking up pebbles from the very brook where he picked up those stones to slay Goliath. We’re going to go to Jericho, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the pool of Bethesda, and so much more. And you can go with us.

David and Tim Barton, and myself, Rick Green, you”€™ll just have a great time. The Fellowship’s going to be phenomenal and the Bible is going to come to life right before your eyes. Join us January 28th through February 7th, 2019. But you need to get in and make your reservations now. Check it out at WallBuildersLive.com for this very special trip to the Holy Land.

Back to Exactly What They Said About Us 200 Years Ago

David:

So we’re back to exactly what they said about us 200 years ago, but the Americans are a feeble sect of Christians.

You have to fight well or pay well. These guys don’t fight well so we’ll just keep making them pay. We’ll just keep taking lives.

So attack, after attack, after attack, after attack, and finally 9/11 we said OK we’re not playing this game anymore. We had 10,000 American casualties and we suddenly went on offense. Well, we still took some casualties, so the question is not whether you get to have casualties. You’re going to have them whether you’re on offense or defense, but once we went on offense, oh, suddenly it’s the fall of the Taliban and you have an Afghan interim government, you have Afghan Republic, you have the removal of Saddam. Libya decided to abandon its nuclear program because it didn’t want to get invaded. You had an interim government in Iraq. You had Karzai elected, you had Iraqi elections, you had the Iraqi constitutional vote, President Maliki.

Now, there are still plenty of problems over there, but from the American standpoint, you get all these changes that happened that were not happening before. The effectiveness of the attacks against American civilians plummeted when we finally went on offense rather than saying on defense.

Drain the Swamp, or Live with the Mosquitos

Carol Bergwall points out great stuff on that. We forget all the attacks that have been going for years and years and years, just like it was in the American Revolution attacks for years and years before we finally did something about it back then, and it was going that way in modern years. Colonel Birdwell looked at that region of the world when we were fighting, and he likened that to a swamp.

He said, “€œYou can either learn to live with the mosquitoes that come out of the swamp, or one day you can decide that you’re going into the swamp to drain the swamp and permanently take care of the mosquitoes.”€

And that’s really what the War on Terror is about.

America had been living with mosquitoes that have been coming out of that swamp. We finally decided to go in and drain the swamp. To take care of the mosquitoes so that we didn’t have to keep dealing with them anymore. Yes, there were modern American casualties. There were thousands of American casualties before the modern War on Terror ever started. So as you look back on the War on Terror, remember that the perspective given in the media toward this war was often negative. It excluded both the historical and the spiritual aspects. Both of these make all the difference in understanding what actually occurred in the modern War on Terror.

God bless you.

The War on Terror, for more Information go to…

Rick:

Well friends, that was the conclusion of a spiritual and historical perspective of America’s War on Terror. If you tune in today, and you happened to miss yesterday, both programs are available right now at WallBuilderslive.com It’s a two part series, so be sure to get both of those and share it with your friends and family, get it out there on social media so people can be educated on this in the aftermath of 9/11, and you can also go to our website WallBuilders.com and get the CD if you prefer to have that or the digital download. Thanks so much for listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.