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"Our country, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong." This is a quote from a speech by Lieutenant (later Admiral) Stephen Decatur, the Navy commander who was the hero of the Barbary War in 1803-4. Decatur defeated the Barbary pirates by capturing their ships in naval battles and sending US Marines ashore to clean out their bases in what is now Libya. Their heroic actions inspired lyrics of the Marine hymn, "...to the shores of Tripoli".

Were Decatur's actions legal under international law? That was debated then in the US and by other countries, because his aggression involved invading another country allegedly at peace with the US. It was well known that the Libyan kingdom condoned and profited by the actions of the freebooter Muslim pirates, who raided international shipping off the northern coast of Africa without much opposition until Decatur found them.

After the pirates had brutally captured several US ships and murdered or pressed Americans into slave gangs, a fleet under Decatur's command was dispatched to fight them. The ensuing battles ended the pirate control of the area, but not the anger of Libya and other Muslim nations that had cooperated with the pirates and shared their loot. Substitute the word terrorist for pirate and the story will seem disturbingly familiar with today's scenario in the same part of the world.

The only way the US can continue to exist in a world where hostility is aimed at its citizens is if everyone totally supports its political and military ventures, as deemed necessary by our government. This may be illogical to people who disagree with specific US actions, particularly in starting an aggressive war, but ... right or wrong ... there is no other choice.

Since the Barbary actions, the US has had to act many more times to protect its citizens. When Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, 3,000 military and civilian deaths were the results. There were very few dissenters at that time when the US declared war on the Japanese government, and the war effort went on until final victory.

When suicide bombers destroyed the World Trade Center, they killed 3,000 Americans. Unlike the Japanese, the attackers were not regular military men obeying government orders, but freebooter Muslim terrorists who came from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. What was the US to do when its citizens are murdered? Allow the horrendous crime to go unpunished?

Right or wrong, the attack in New York City and elsewhere on September 11, 2001, resulted in American troops invading Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, those troops, our sons and daughters, must have total and unquestioning support from all US citizens. All American citizens must also support the decisions and resulting efforts of our elected government leaders and professional military officers. There is absolutely no other choice. Anti-war politics, pacifism and other personal beliefs become meaningless when those who attacked the US and the governments that support them are sworn to destroy us.

You can be sure that many of the US sailors who died in the sneak Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had no desire to go to war with Japan, and many of the civilians in the World Trade Center had no quarrel with Muslim extremists who have been killing each other in the Middle East for centuries. However, like a house invaded by criminals, Americans have no choice but to band together to fight the common enemy, whose well-known aim is to destroy our country.

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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