While sorting through one of those stacks, I came across an old file containing an old article written by the late Christopher Hitchens.

The young United States suddenly faced a serious question: would it tolerate this extortion, or would it defend its commerce and its citizens?... - Michael Smith

Hitchens was, by any fair description, a man of the left.

He was an atheist, an intellectual, and often a fierce critic of religion and conservative thought—but he was something else as well: he was principled and honest...
Published in City Journal in the Spring 2007 issue and titled “Jefferson versus the Muslim Pirates”, the article recounted an early and often overlooked chapter of American history: the Barbary Wars. 

As Hitchens explains, one immediate consequence of the American Revolution was that American merchant ships lost the protection of the British Royal Navy. 

That left them exposed in the Mediterranean to the North African states of the Ottoman Empire—roughly corresponding to modern-day Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia—which had long engaged in piracy and the seizure of Christian sailors for ransom or slavery.
The young United States suddenly faced a serious question: would it tolerate this extortion, or would it defend its commerce and its citizens?...