Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
far longer than that...
Amen to that, Ken.

You could trace the USA's conflict with violent, Islamic elements all the way back to 1784, when the ink was barely dry on the peace treaty with Britain. The Barbary Pirates, anyone?

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, and John Adams, then the ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from Tripoli. The Americans asked Adja why his government was hostile to American ships, even though there had been no provocation. The ambassador's response was reported to the Continental Congress:

It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_pirates

Citing the Koran as a justification to kill, rob, and/or enslave American infidels was well chronicled in history long before Nixon or Carter occupied the White House. U.S. Marines singing about fighting "to the shores of Tripoli", doesn't have anything to do with Colonel Khadaffi.