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Posted on 11/18/2005 7:16:40 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
There was an appalling lack of historical perspective in the House debate Friday night on the Murtha Resolution. It called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq (to a safe haven from which they could return). What would have happened to the United States, had France held a similar debate in 1781?
Let’s set the stage. The American Revolution was then four years old. French officers and soldiers under the leadership of General Lafayette, had fought along side General Washington. The French fleet under Admiral de Grasse had recently entered the conflict, and blocking the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
General Washington cornered British General Cornwallis at the small Virginia town of Yorktown. But, if France had its Assembly then, how might the debate have gone? We take our script from the debate a small number of Americans just watched on C-SPAN.
(I summarize an hour of debate by scores of Members into just two statements. One is FOR the Resolution for immediate withdrawal of all French forces from the Americas to a safe haven, conveniently available in the French colony of Haiti. The other is AGAINST.)
Mr. Speaker: This military adventure in the Americas has gone on for four years, with no end in sight. Much French blood has been shed. Millions of francs have been spent. And yet the Crown has no plan to end this war, and save French blood, and French treasure. It is time to withdraw our forces, since they are only provoking the British to greater ferocity.
Mr. Speaker: There is a purpose in our participation in the American Revolution. If history teaches anything, it teaches that we will encounter the British on the field of battle. If we do not resist them by joining the American Revolution and fighting the British across the ocean, we will assuredly fight them on the outskirts of Paris. Besides, it is our national interest to have as a national trading partner, this new United States of America, free of British influence, troops, and ships. Not just France, but the entire civilized world, will benefit from that favorable outcome. The only strategy we can have, we should have, is to stay committed until that victory is won.
What would have happened if the French had voted to withdraw from their American adventure?
Without French soldiers under Lafayette, most importantly without the fleet under de Grasse, the Battle of Yorktown would have turned out differently. Without the French fleet at his back, General Cornwallis could have escaped the closing ring of American bombardment at Yorktown. Instead of being forced to surrender, Cornwallis and his army would have lived to fight again.
And there were still other British armies in the field in the Americas, though Cornwallis led the most formidable army at that time.
Without the surrender of Cornwallis and his entire army, not only would the American Revolution not have been won with that critical battle, it would have gone on, and might never have been won. The English Prime Minister, Lord North, resigned as a direct result of this battle, and British policy on the war abruptly changed as a result.
If the French had “cut and run” at the critical time in the American Revolution, the Americans might have lost their war for independence from Britain. All those Americans, beginning with John Hancock, who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, would have been duly tried, and then hung by the neck until dead for their treason against King George III, as expressed in that document.
America would have remained a British colony, and would never have become a world power. It would never have written and established its Constitution. It would have served as an example, but a bad one, to those in any other nation who believed in freedom, self-determination, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people, to coin a phrase.
Oh, and we would have to play “God Save the Queen” before our NFL Games.
The consequences for the Iraqis, if the Americans retreat, will be far worse. Instead of dozens of their leaders being executed as traitors, millions of their citizens will be executed for participating in this folly of freedom and democracy. Given the kinds of weapons that the world possesses, and outlaw regimes can buy or develop if left to their own devices, the consequences for the rest of the world will be similarly disastrous, with deaths measured in the millions.
In this entire debate, there were only a few, minor references to American military history, other than references only to progress (or lack of progress) in Iraq itself. Rep Louie Gohmert, R, Tex.) made such a reference, quoting from a letter from John Adams to his wife Abigail, that “we have victory within our grasp.”
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
or Hitler's favorite folk song
An absolutely brilliant essay!
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Add me to the list of those who love your this thought. Yes, "murtha" has become a verb. Let's all start using it.
...Thanks, short and very concise.
"Cowards Surrender, Americans Don't."
bttt
"What If the French Had Pulled a "Murtha" in 1781?"
Billybob has provoked another serious question. Has Murtha lived in France all these years AFTER 1781?
Many thanks to Congressman Billybob and LS for watching the action on the Murtha Resolution and their excellent commentaries and analysis. But the sad truth is that the freedom WE the people won at Yorktown thanks in part to the French fleet, has been surrendered to politicians and bureaucrats in Washington. Lee'sGhost has given us a clue as to how WE can recover our lost freedoms.
A small group of Freepers is publishing a series of articles that detail a plan to restore the Constitution based on a more conventional and secure financing mechanism than winning the lottery, but the basic premise is the same. As long as politicians have to engage in campaign fund raising, they are going to incur too much baggage to become effective conservative political leaders and as long as career-oriented politicians control Congress, more socialism can be expected until the US goes broke. Here is a link to the most recent article in the series. Please drop by and give the thread a ping. And while you are there, please follow the links to the other articles in the series and consider taking The Pledge.
Thank You.
thank you for your post
Besides that....the soldiers are already there. The money has been spent. Might has well collect some return on the investment.
France lost part of their government, but their ancestors also enjoyed protection from us from horrobile fates through 2 world wars and a cold war. Plus, they lost a monarchy to a government lead by its own citizens. It wasn't overrun by the British, which was its worst fea
Hey, handsome--good looks can fade; intellect such as yours is eternally attractive!!
Your argument falls apart at this point. How would this be bad? The Iraqis are Muslims who want to kill us. There's no such thing as democracy & freedom when you're talking about Muslims, at least not the kind of democracy & freedom that you and I know. Their democracy & freedom would be directed against us.
"Otherwise, there's no reason for anyone to vote.
"
Kinda how I feel about most candidates. I generally end up voting against somebody, not for somebody.
The French involvement in the American Revolution had nothing to do with the colonists' fight for independence, and you can be sure that if someone in the French government in Paris had said that it was vital to support the colonists "to make the world safe for democracy," he would have been laughed off the Continent.
Here in the U.S. we have a tendency to define history according to how it affected ourselves, which means we like to divide history into clearly-defined periods that fit nicely into history textbooks. Hence the need to separate U.S. history into blocks of time like "the American Revolution and Early America," "Recontruction," "the Great Depression," "World War II," "the 1960s," etc.
From the French perspective, the American Revolution probably isn't seen as a major historical event, but as nothing more than another element of a war that had been waged with England over dominance in North America for decades. France and England had been in a near-constant state of war since 1689 over various territorial disputes in North America. In the latter half of the 18th Century, Franch believed it had a vested interest in the outcome of the American Revolution only insofar as it helped them re-establish their territorial claims in the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains (particularly in the Ohio River valley where they had built a series of forts years earlier).
The parallel you've presented between the American Revolution and the Iraq war might offer one interesting item for contemplation, though. Even after the British defeat and the establishment of an indepentent United States of America, the French had every intention of attempting to establish control the rest of North America regardless of how this conflicted with the visions of the founding fathers of this country. Perhaps this is precisely why the people of Iraq don't seem so enthusiastic about the U.S. military presence there.
And let's not forget that the Democrats led us to losses in the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs. They just wanted the losing streak to continue after 911.
That intent was defeated by the revolt in Haiti, which tied up both French fleets and armies, so that France was willing to sell the Louisiana Territory at a very reasonable price to President Jefferson. Sometimes the outcomes of history are determined by accidents, rather than plans.
John / Billybob
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