Talk:First Barbary War
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An event mentioned in this article is a May 10 selected anniversary (may be in HTML comment)
Later historical battles by the United States in North Africa aren't really related to the Barbary Wars. With an intervening 100+ years of French colonialism, as well as post-colonial independence, North Africa of today is significantly different from the Barbary pirate times.
-- ESP 03:06 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Convinced the American whom/what?
A largely successful undeclared war with French privateers in the late 1790s convinced the American naval power was sufficient to protect the nation's interests -- Polaris999
- Changed "convinced" to "showed". Thanks. -- ESP 21:22 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
This is about the first Barbary War. Where there others? RickK 00:54, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Barbary Wars, mentioned just above on this page :-), points to a Second Barbary War in 1815. Stan 01:17, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
So, I took out the big ol' Warbox that was added to this page. Here's why:
- It took up a huge amount of space on a page that's about the First Barbary War. It wasn't about the First Barbary War.
- The first 40 lines of Wiki markup in the page were now unreadable table stuff. That kind of thing really puts off potential contributors and editors.
- It dictates one way of looking at the war: "This war is one in a line of wars between the United States and other people." The warbox tries to line it up as if it were a chapter in a book -- but it's not. It a node in a network. There are other ways of linking this article with other related articles. It's got tons of hyperlinks to people, places, and events surrounding the war. I think that's a better way to do things.
- I think tables for tables' sake are silly.
I added a link at the bottom of the page to Military history of the United States, which probably gets everything necessitated by the warbox without a great big box. --ESP 21:58, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- And yet we have a whole bunch of WikiProjects that use many tables. Tables can be useful by offering a set of data available to the reader at a glance. WikiProject tables can be very useful by having that data in a predictable place and format. Granted the warbox removed was skeletal but it should go back as soon as all the fields can be filled in. All tables should be headed by an HTML comment telling the editor to scroll past the table code. --mav 10:07, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Declaration of war
Someone removed the sentence in the lede about this being the first declared war under the Constitution, calling it "misleading". I re-added the sentence. A declaration of war is a vote by Congress to commit troops to a conflict. It's one of the enumerated rights of the legislative branch of the US federal government. "Declaring war" doesn't not mean "they started it" -- it's a legal formality. There are only so many declared wars in US history -- the First Barbary War is the first of them. So, I think it's worth maintaining. --ESP 16:49, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Interesting article about whether or not committing troops constitutes a formal declaration, or whether such a declaration is even required when another state has already formally declared war.
- http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/41.html
- I'll try some more neutral and illuminating language. Jinian 18:18, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
- I removed the sentence. Is there a citation that the Congress declared war? I cannot find any. The Naval History Center (http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/foabroad.htm) indicates that while Tripoi declared war on the U.S., the U.S. did not issue a declaration of war in turn. as described in the article, A Declaration of War is a formal declaration issued by a national government indicating that a state of war exists between that nation, and one or more others. It does not seem to be merely a commitment of troops to a conflict. older≠wiser 18:20, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
- I concur. I did move the "declaration of war" section to its proper place in the timeline, though. I had always understood that the First Barbary War was the first declared war of the US, which is why it was in the lede. If it wasn't, then there's no reason to feature this fact. --ESP 20:14, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Kleptocracy
In a previous edit, the note about the North African pirate states was removed "for the NPOV policy". NPOV does not require removing uncomplimentary facts about any party. The Barbary states, financed almost exclusively by piracy, were about as close as you can get to a pure kleptocracy.
At the very least, the face that North Africa presented to the European world was purely piratical. At the very least, we need to mention why this war came about. --ESP 20:14, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)