If you guessed Thomas Jefferson then you would be correct.
President Thomas Jefferson sent U.S. Marines into Tripoli in northern Africa and replaced the leader with his brother. The purpose was to stop piracy on American ships in the Mediteranean and the paying of tribute.
Years before, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had spoken to the Ambassador from Tripoli as in the excerpt below from the Wikipedia article First Barbary War
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:
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 muslim 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.
The more things change the more they stay the same."History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme" - Mark Twain
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