International Law Matters, Part XXII
March Of Folly
By William Brinton
Originally Published on 3/11/03

In the late eighteenth century, when George III was the King of England, the British lost all the American colonies by their own ineptitude. King George III was a monarch who left nothing to chance, the chance that the great speakers of the 17th century might prevail despite the king’s desires. Successive British ministries in the face of constant warnings by men and events repeatedly took measures that injured the relationship between the Crown and its colonies. These measures, insofar as they progressively destroyed goodwill and the voluntary connection, were demonstrably unwise in practice, besides being impossible to implement except by force. Since force could only mean enmity the cost of the effort, even if successful, was clearly greater than the possible gain. The late Barbara Tuchman, author of The March Of Folly, has taken the trouble to define folly.

“Folly,” she wrote in 1984, “is the pursuit of a policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved. Self-interest is whatever conduces to the welfare or advantage of the body being governed; folly is a policy that in these terms is counter-productive…To qualify as folly, the policy adopted must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, a feasible alternative must have been available at the time, and the policy in question must have been that of a group, not an individual ruler."

The Bush Administration since January 20, 2001 has acted at all times as a government with policies that are counter-productive with viable alternatives. Here are a few examples. On March 29, 2002 the Washington Post carried an article entitled Europe’s Anger With Bush Growing. It was written by distinguished editor David Broder. In a misguided effort to placate his campaign contributors, Bush announced he was imposing tariffs as high as 30 percent on steel imported from Europe and Asia. The French and Germans were furious, and the European Union adopted tariffs covering products made in Wisconsin, plus retaliatory tariffs on steel exports from Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Thus, only a year after taking his oath of office, Bush was in the soup on quite a few issues. On January 22, 2001, Bush angered proponents of family planning. He banned funds for international family planning groups that support abortion. Family planning organizations were quick to point out that the effect of the Bush initiative would lead to increased poverty, suffering and death. It would result in the cutoff of family planning funds to some of the world’s most impoverished women and families in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The environment is another point of friction. The Bush Administration’s Assault on the Environment was put together by the Natural Resource Defense Council. It is entitled "Rewriting the Rules, Year-End Report", January 2003. This report (53 pages) is important to read. It chronicles the cumulative effect of almost daily damage to air and water, precious wetlands and the marine world with its huge and threatened population. Dedicated citizens, having seen Bush’s environmental policies, are now expressing anger. One of Bush’s bad habits is that he derides the feelings of others, contemptuously as though they were tree huggers, not concerned citizens.

In just a short time, two years, George Bush as president has lost the respectful attention of most, if not all the free world, by alienating its rulers, first the collective leadership of the Security Council of the United Nations, followed by some NATO leaders, and then the European Union. Heedless of consequences, he gave away most of the support he might have had from more than nine nations, itinerant members of the Security Council. Those who opposed the invasion of Iraq were either bribed in Washington or demanded and received huge sums of money furnished by American taxpayers. Turkey, for example, was demanding $26 billion in loans and grants. In the Persian Gulf War of 1991, Egypt demanded and got a waiver of payment due on a $7 billion loan. The so-called “coalition of the willing” will be known to posterity as the coalition of the ”paid off.”

In the run up to the final hearing before the Security Council, Bush lost the battle to disarm Iraq. He was obsessed when he was told to let the United Nations inspectors do the job of disarming Iraq. Bush then lost Western European countries, Asia, and the Middle East by constantly derogating the role of the United Nations in resolving disputes. He could not muster the nine votes essential to passage of a new resolution. He was left with only Great Britain and Spain as countries solidly behind the United States; as of March 1, 2003 only a few doubtful countries were behind the United States.

Even Muslim Turkey, a NATO partner of the United States, has resisted US plans. On Saturday, February 28 the Turkish Parliament voted (264-250 with 19 abstentions), to deny the deployment of 62,000 U.S. combat troops in Turkey, which could open a northern front against Iraq. Bush did not foresee that the Turks would place a higher value on the risks of involvement than billions in aid. The United States had offered to let the Turks join an invasion of Northern Iraq, which the Iraqi Kurds had said they would resist; American troops could be caught in crossfire. Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul is stepping down to make way for the ruling party leader Tayyip Erdogan, a move that may trigger a fresh bid to seek approval for U.S. forces to attack Iraq from Turkey.

Colin Powell’s foreign policies have been complicated by a growing resentment over what many foreign diplomats see as the Bush Administration’s heavy-handed and bullying tactics over the past two years. Bush himself has been acting like a child deprived of its toy. If and when a veto ends Bush’s aim at disarmament, he can come home with a reputation in tatters.

A decade or so before the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the colonies knew the Crown was on its own. The great orators of this period all sensed the end of colonialism but denied it would happen. William Pitt the Elder called for a repeal of the Stamp Act but demanded it be replaced with a ringing declaration of sovereignty. The Stamp Act was repealed but later policies dealt mostly with enforcement laws that angered the pesky frontiersmen.

Edmund Burke perceived this situation and said, “The retention of America was worth far more to the mother country, economically, politically, and even morally than any sum which might be raised by taxation, or even than any principle so-called of the Constitution.” In short, although possession was of greater value than principle, nevertheless the greater was thrown away for the less, the unworkable pursued at the sacrifice of the possible. George Grenville was a well-known parliamentarian and wrote the text of the Revenue Bill, hoping that enactment would establish without fuss the principle of Parliament’s right to impose a revenue tax. John Wilkes, a Member of the House of Commons bellowed louder than most. His voice became a call to liberty that made him an ally of the colonists who resented its loss. Wilkes was editor of the North Briton and used its pages to libel King George III. Wilkes had already fled England to avoid trial for seditious libel.

The major issue was the right, if one even existed, to tax the colonies The colonists never accepted such a right since they had no members of Parliament representing their views. Taxation without representation was deemed to be tyranny. The quiet revolution in America began near the end of Seven Years War in 1763, and Parliament needed money. So it fortified its trade with Custom’s duties and used Writs of Assistance to collect this tyrannical tax. The Attorney General of Britain had ruled the Writs of Assistance were legal to enforce the Navigation Acts. However, the resulting cost in alienation far outweighed the revenue collected from the ensuing duties and fines. Furthermore, these writs allowed search without a warrant based on reasonable cause. The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution protects the citizen from such an intrusive search without a warrant. From the colonies, resentment was not long in raising its ugly head. An American colonist, John Dickinson, was the author of the Farmer’s Letters. It first appeared in 1767. In it, he noted the passage by Parliament of the Quartering Act of 1765. This act required colonial authorities to provide the King’s troops with barracks, to furnish them gratis with candles, firing, bedding, cooking utensils and a gill of rum each day. The New York Assembly refused to honor this act as “a ruinous and insupportable tax.” Parliament suspended the Assembly, declaring all its acts null and void until such time that it complied. The Assembly of 1769 caved in.

In 1791 the Founding Fathers added the Third Amendment to the Constitution as mute witness to this gratuitous insult to the colonies. “No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house, without consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be described by law.” Section 4, of Article IV of the Constitution offers another example where the colonists preserved certain rights. “The United States shall guarantee to every state in the Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.” The language of the First Amendment speaks for itself; it guarantees freedom of speech and the press. The Establishment Clause prevents governmental support for religion. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from intrusive searches without a warrant issued for good cause. The Writs of Assistance fathered this constitutional offspring.

Parliament kept ahead of colonial resentment by enacting further laws. William Pitt the Younger finally appeared in the House of Commons to deliver his peroration on repeal of the Stamp Act. He said to them that the subject before them was “of greater importance than ever engaged the attention of this house” since their own liberties were at stake in the revolution of the last century and that “the outcome will decide the judgment of posterity on the glory of this kingdom and the wisdom of government during the present reign.” Taxation was “no part of the governing or legislative power; it was a “voluntary gift” of representative assemblies. The idea of virtual representation of America “is the most contemptible idea that ever entered into the head of man, and it does not deserve a serious refutation." Referring to remarks by George Grenville denouncing those in England who encouraged colonial resistance, Pitt continued. “I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest…”. Pitt went on to announce that "the Stamp Act must be repealed, absolutely, totally immediately”, and at the same time “accompanied by a statement of sovereign authority over the colonies.”

All this and more captured the imagination of the colonists. A British ship, the Gaspee, was deployed to catch smugglers. Its captain was relentless, until his ship was driven ashore and set fire. Considering this to be treason, the British established a Board of Inquiry to hold hearings in London. The arsonists could not be found, but the Gaspee incident stirred the resentment cup to overflowing. Parliament chose to enact Coercive Acts leading up to the Tea Act of May 1773. This statute was meant to end or at least modify the monopoly of the East India Company. As the late Barbara Tuchman wrote: “The Tea Act proved a startling disappointment. Instead of happily acquiescing in cheap tea, Americans exploded in wrath, not so much from popular feeling as from agitation inspired by the merchants, who saw themselves eliminated as wholesalers and their trade ruined through underselling by the East India Company. Tea cargo unloaded in Boston was threatened with a custom’s tax, and the colonists believed the British officials would sell this confiscated Tea under the counter as tax revenue. The patriots boarded the British ships on December 16, 1773, and threw the tea into the Bay as the Boston Tea Party. Undeterred by this criminal act, the Crown chose to punish the entire port of Boston until such time as the tax was paid; never, despite all the evidence of the past, did the Crown or Parliament ever think its will should give way to reason. This classic example of war and its casualties plus ignorance of its causes in the face of opposition seems a march of folly.

Early in his administration, Bush displayed all the contemptuousness he felt for anyone defending the environment. Some 160 countries had signed on the to the Kyoto Protocol by the time he was elected. Still he managed to anger well over 500 million people around the world with his contemptuous dismissal of the protocol that the world saw as the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change. Ratification of this protocol meant only that the 160 countries were concerned with the change in the earth’s climate. Bush angered the world community with this move, since the United States was responsible for releasing some 25 percent of all so-called green house gases into the atmosphere.

Bush has now taken the lead on preemptive action, including the use of nuclear weapons, a dismaying departure from the policy of the last twenty years. He has also withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). The neoconservatives surrounding Bush have now made it possible for this country to lose a nuclear conflict. The ABM Treaty allowed Russia and the United States to construct anti ballistic missiles in one area of each country. So far the technology developed by the United States has failed miserably despite the fact that in some tests the results have been rigged to succeed and have proved little.

George Bush is only the first person to march in this century and establish the meaning and consequences of folly. He was elected in November of the year 2000 and took the oath office on January 20, 2001. Barely over two years in office, Bush has managed to wipe out the huge surplus that President Clinton established during eight years in office. Bush is on his way to setting a new record for deficit spending. He has done so eagerly and is now headed for a record budget for FY 2004. He has also reduced taxes on the wealthy who are unlikely to spend it any time soon or at all. Class warfare began with this tax and poor folks will be left out. All of the fifty states are in trouble, but Bush has said they can expect no financial help from his administration. The education measure known as No Child Left Behind has not yet been funded, and the nations schools are under funded. Yet another casualty on Bush’s march of folly.

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