Our new Secretary of State, Ms. Hillary Clinton, has announced that a goal of the United States is to improve our image with countries which champion Islam.  One way to achieve this noble ambition would be to brush off the Treaty of Tripoli, created during the Washington administration and signed by President John Adams in 1797.  It involved a form of terrorism – piracy on the high seas – and contained an idea very familiar to the founders of our then young nation:

“Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

from http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html