Carlos Mesa Quotes
Direct access to sea is an essential part of foreign policy.
Mesa, Carlos. "Address to the 59th Session of the United Nations General Assembly." United Nations, 22 Sept. 2004.
America’s oldest foreign policy problem has been freedom of the seas for American shipping. Since the end of WWII, the U. S. however performed this function—and pays for it—for the entire world with some minor exceptions.
He was referring to attacking the Barbary States. The Barbary Pirates had an incredible extortion racket going in the Mediterranean. If nations would pay them an annual sum each year, they would not attack and seize merchant ships of that country and sell the ships and goods while holding the sailors for ransom. See {640846}.
See {629350} for his reason that we had to have a strong navy.
This quotation illustrates Jefferson’s isolationist streak. He would have abandoned all American oceangoing ships and thereby avoid war. When he became President, however, he rethought his earlier position and was aggressive in developing the American Navy, using it at the risk of war.
Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert is a Bolivian historian and politician who served as the 63rd President of Bolivia from 2003 to 2005. He was the 37th Vice President of Bolivia from 2002 to 2003. Mesa previously had been a television journalist. His widespread recognition prompted the MNR candidate Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to pick him as running mate in the 2002 Bolivian presidential elections.
