When Jefferson and John Adams went to call on Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, they asked him by what right his Barbary pirates raided  American ships, stole their cargo, killed, enslaved, and ransomed their crews. As Jefferson later reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress, the ambassador answered

that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

That was in the early 1800s. Seems little has changed regarding the mindset of the leaders of the Ummah. Now it turns out that Obama (Kerry?) clandestinely ransomed four American captives held by Iran.

The Obama administration secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Iran in January at the same time Tehran was releasing four jailed Americans, payment that a top congressional Republican is calling “ransom.” The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. and European officials and congressional sources, reported that the administration procured the money from central banks in Switzerland and the Netherlands. The money was stacked on wooden pallets and flown to Tehran in an unmarked cargo plane.

The Iranians know desperation when they see it and Obama was desperate for the appearance of success in the Middle East. Seems we have a president more concerned with his image than with the honor and reputation of the U.S. and its citizens. Compare this to Stephen Decatur, the hero of the Tripoli wars:

He and nine volunteers made straight for the gunboat and borded her, with Decatur leading the charge. They were outnumbered five to one but fought ferociously. Decatur found the burly Muslim captain who killed his brother, and immediately confronted him...

Decatur, and the men he led, must be rolling over in their graves.