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To: H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU Reply-to: vze2t297@verizon.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en]C-CCK-MCD BA45DSL (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en Delivered-to: H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU Original-recipient: rfc822;john.saillant@vmh.cc.wmich.edu From Don Williams, small.corgi@verizon.net Re Mr Bernstein's post of 13 May, some comments: 1)In his post of 13 May, Mr. Bernstein misquotes me as saying that history is "the only means we have for determining the consequences of government policies and structures." What I actually said in my post (10 May) was that “history is the only means we have for determining the LONG TERM consequences of government policies and structures.” Unlike Mr. Bernstein, I cannot be lighthearted about bad constitutional decisions by the Supreme Court -- the consequences may be slight in the near term but severely adverse 30 years down the road. In 130 AD, Polybius reviewed the strength of the Roman Republic’s mixed constitution (on which ours is based) and felt that the Republic would survive for hundreds of years more. Instead, the Republic collapsed into dictatorship in the following decades and it’s like was not seen again for almost 1800 years. Everyone has their THEORIES re the best economic system , the best form of government, the best constitution, the best policy re guns,etc. We cannot empirically test those theories by collecting large groups of people , setting up social systems based on the theories, and checking back in a hundred years to see who is right. Instead, as Jared Diamond explained (Gun,Germs, and Steel), we look to history to see what experiments have already been performed. 2) Mr Bernstein implicitly criticizes my references to the Roman Republic and it’s influences on the American Revolution. His dismissal of “historical analogies” is misplaced all history is an analogy. Moreover, the American Revolution did not survive just because elites like Alexander Hamilton read Tacitus. It survived because the American population as a whole acquired and committed to republican precepts and ideals. The below article explains how study of the Roman and Greek classics was wildly popular in the Revolutionary Period and how Americans applied that study to their situation. (http://comp.uark.edu/~jllittl/woodrepublicanism.html ) 3) Mr. Bernstein argues that history must be left to the historians, noting that “A special case is when lawyers and judges fumble with primary sources like five-year-olds who get behind the wheel of their parents' car with the keys left in the ignition. They often lack the detailed contextual knowledge needed to assess historical evidence in historical terms. “. By “primary sources”, I assume Mr. Bernstein is referring to the US Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Federalist Papers? In a few days, I will explain why Mr. Bernstein’s assertion, if made in defence of the Yassky Amicus Curiae for US vs Emerson, might cause several Justices to break into grins. In the meantime, I suggest that Arming America -- and to some extent Bernstein’s post-- indicate that some historians are having trouble with putting historical data into context because they have lost familiarity with associated fields: economics, government, foreign affairs, military operations, political science, and history outside their field of study. Possibly due to excessive specialization, possibly due to excessive regimentation. Specifics follow. 4) Mr. Bernstein’s invocation of the great national icon, George Washington, as “one of the best available witnesses” of poor militia performance is a case in point. If Washington felt so badly toward the militia, why did he recommend to Congress that the militia be the bulwark of US defense after the Revolution? Washington's wartime statements re militias have to be viewed in the "context" of his situation. He was more of a politician than a general in 1776-1777. His military leadership in the loss of New York City in late 1776 and of Philadelphia in 1777 was certainly criticized (Conway Cabal). His focus in succeeding years was to keep his army from being destroyed and to convince the state legislations to divert scarce resources to his Continental Army at the expense of the states’ regular troops (state lines) and militia. The US Army's American History Reference rightly praises Washington's leadership but notes that "in many of the events that led to victory—Bennington, Saratoga, King's Mountain, and Cowpens, to name but a few—his personal influence was remote." 5) Those latter battles were militia victories --in the case of Saratoga,militia-assisted-- and those militia victories gained and kept the support of the French king. Washington won a major victory at Yorktown --but Cornwallis' army had been worn down by the militias in the Carolinas, Washington's 9000 troops included 3000 militia, and he was supported by 6000 French troops. French troops and Navy were at Yorktown because the French king recognized what the British Parliament came to see: Britain might trap and defeat Washington's 10,000 half-starved Continentals -- but Britain could would bankrupt herself if she tried to subdue 500,000 partisans scattered throughout thousands of miles of near-wilderness -- especially when the partisans had no vital center that could be attacked. No commercial profits could be gained in a land racked by guerrilla war -- the costs far outweighed any possible benefit. Washington's Continentals required costly support --even if they sat in camps for months. By contrast, the militiamen worked, sustained the economy, and fought when the British were near -- which was a more efficient method for an insurgency on a tight budget (collapse of the Continental currency). What military operations did Washington conduct in 1780? 6) Washington's push for a regular army was not a military necessity -- Charles Lee, the most experienced military leader in America at the start of the war, had advocated greater use of militias back in 1776. The US Army’s Combat Studies Institute (Ft Leavenworth) has a monograph which criticizes Washington’s failure to exploit the synergy of regular forces working with militia. (See “Washington as Strategist” at http://www-cgsc.army.mil/csi/research/comwarcontents.htm .) A look at how the US government uses militias today shows that the Army’s interest in “compound warfare” is not mere theory and explains why we won the Revolutionary War. In the past decade, one of the main goals of US oil companies and the US government has been to gain access to the huge Caspian Sea oil fields north of Afghanistan. The profits from sale of the oil to developing China (and the control over China’s actions) are immense. In the current war, the US is using US regular forces in cooperation with the Northern Alliance to create a secure zone for an Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline. Protection of the pipeline investment will be cheaply provided by the Alliance. Is the Alliance a regular army or is it militia? The Russians have a rival pipeline, from Baku through Chechnya to the Black Sea terminal. The Russians had to fight an expensive war in Chechnya to protect their pipeline were the Chechnya rebels a regular army or were they militia? After the oil is loaded on Russian tankers at the Black Sea, it has to pass throught the Bosphorus chokepoint which the Turks have been constraining because of fears of a tanker wreck and also because they want their own pipeline. In 1995, the US government funded a feasibility study of a pipeline which will bypass the Bosphorus by running from the Mediterrean across Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria to an oil terminal on the Black Sea. Study was done by the Brown and Root subsidiary of Halliburton. US regular forces then fought a war in alliance with Kosovar forces in the following years are the Kosovars a regular army or are they militia? Now that Kosovo is free of Milosovic, the pipeline project south of Kosovo is proceeding. Note the cheapness of having US foreign investments protected by native militia backed up by US regulars. Now consider the possible threats from native militias (e.g., the $100 million? that Occidental Oil has lost in Columbia due to rebel sabotage of the pipeline and electric grid.) America won the Revolutionary War because the British government fell after Yorktown. The government fell because British taxpayers asked the government “why have we paid huge taxes to fight a bloody war in North America?” and the government’s only answer was “because some of our aristocrats have investments there.” 7) The US Army's history views the early militia much more favorably --and with a more sophisticated view--than does Professor Bellesiles. I give weight to the Army's assessment because, to the best of my knowledge, Bellesiles has not fought on an active battlefield, has not led guerrillas, and has not conducted an insurgency against an established government. I notice that in his long post, Bernstein does not challenge the Army's assessment of the early militia nor does he challenge it's description of Cowpens.
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