Modern xtians, whose history is generally as shitty as their biology, fail to understand the reason for Paragraph 11 is to distance the US from the traditional European enemies of the Barbary Pirates who were all, of course, xtians. The Pirates were long engaged in commerce raids and slave taking among the shipping of the Med as well as coastal raids of with the intent of capturing xtians for the slave markets of North Africa.
The more powerful European navies were able to enforce treaties against the pirates and prevent attacks on their own shipping. But the British were not going to protect France and Spain was not going to protect Italy. It was not until after the defeat of Napoleon that the major European powers got together to finally stamp out the Barbary pirates and, curiously, when they did so they used the same method which Pompey the Great had used against the Cilician pirates 1900 years earlier: occupy their ports and turn them into colonies.
The more powerful European navies were able to enforce treaties against the pirates and prevent attacks on their own shipping. But the British were not going to protect France and Spain was not going to protect Italy. It was not until after the defeat of Napoleon that the major European powers got together to finally stamp out the Barbary pirates and, curiously, when they did so they used the same method which Pompey the Great had used against the Cilician pirates 1900 years earlier: occupy their ports and turn them into colonies.
