Actually this was NOT against Islam, just against piracy.

"The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Tripolitanian War and the Barbary Coast War, was the first of two Barbary Wars, in which the United States and Sweden fought against the four North African states known collectively as the "Barbary States". Three of these were nominal provinces of the Ottoman Empire, but in practice autonomous: Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis. The fourth was the independent Sultanate of Morocco.[4]

The cause of the U.S. participation was pirates from the Barbary States seizing American merchant ships and holding the crews for ransom, demanding the U.S. pay tribute to the Barbary rulers. United States President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay this tribute. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800.[5]"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

AS for Barbary Pirates, they were more like the so much more admired Vikings, who were just heathens of course.

The Barbary pirates, sometimes called Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Ottoman pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber inhabitants. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard[citation needed] and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing merchant ships, they engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in the British Isles,[1] the Netherlands[citation needed] and as far away as Iceland.[2]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_pirates

PS from the USMC Hymn
"From the Halls of Montezuma

To the shores of Tripoli;"