Pakistan: Alexander Wedderburn's Heirs

While the nation fusses over whether or not the president should have worn a bathing suit while vacationing in Hawaii—and did “The Washingtonian” bronze up his color a bit—and, oh, should his wife have worn that sleeveless gown she looked so smashing in (I’ll bet the last was jealousy—Michelle looked stunning in a color white reviewers cannot wear well), we’re missing a real story.
I keep thinking of the band of top level US officials who recently flew to Pakistan and publicly humiliated one of the few governments in that area that is not, out and out, our active enemy. Our beef was that they had taken our $11 billion in anti-terrorist cash and hadn’t then gone out and committed political suicide by declaring open war on Muslim fundamentalists in a region no one has ever controlled.
An appalled Pakistani official described the visit as a total “disaster”. He strongly implied that no previous American delegation had ever treated his government with such contempt.
That’s not really a good way to maintain even a tenuous friendship—with an ally that finds itself caught between a rock and a very hard place. It’s not as if we are in a position to help them—or secure their survival as a secular government with ties to the West.
Contempt and arrogance, such a good basis on which to formulate a policy. I’m sure that the Americans in question don’t see themselves as arrogant—any more than the British did in their dealings with the colonies in the 1770s. Both could only see that they were being gypped.
Both went after the nickel without keeping the dollar in view. The British cost themselves an entire empire; who knows what the Americans may ultimately cost themselves in the Mideast if they keep up the hectoring. Yes, the British had spent huge amounts protecting Americans who, London felt, weren’t doing their fair share to pay for that protection.
Yes, the Pakistani’s have received billions in aid to fight terrorism. They have cooperated—as much as circumstances will allow them, or as much as they dare. But we insist they do MORE and risk everything, including the life of their nation and their persons.
But if they haven’t WON the war against terrorism for us, neither have we. Think how much more we have spent to keep troops in Afghanistan and Iraq—and how little the $11 billion we’ve spent to keep Pakistan on our side looks in comparison.
Never mind! We are going to force the hapless Pakistani’s to “do the right thing”! Whether it is possible is immaterial. This was precisely the attitude in London that sent the colonies rushing into the arms of France to wage war for independence.
Imagine if our arrogance in Pakistan led to a similar response. It will, for one thing, make it much harder to supply and/or extricate our forces in Afghanistan if the whole Pakistani border turns hostile, from top officials in Karachi to the lowliest Taliban runner.
We’ve already talked about the speculation that if the London government had just showed Mr. Washington an ounce more respect, he might not have been available to keep the Continental Army in the field. He did this single handedly, by the force of his own character and the liberal use of his own money. Without him, there’d be no United States as we know it today.
We owe his presence to British contempt and arrogance. We owe the presence of at least another American without whom we absolutely would not exist today to British arrogance.
He was a proud man. He started with literally nothing and made himself a rich “gentlemen” by the time he was forty-two. (Only men who were so wealthy they didn’t need to work merited the title, Gentleman.) He was the only American in the Eighteenth Century to be world famous.
While he may not stand quite in the first tier of great scientists, he certainly is at the fore of the second tier—with memberships in the Royal Academies of both France and England, and honorary doctorates from all over America and Great Britain—despite having only two years of formal schooling.
He adored the British Empire. A man of little religion himself, his “kingdom of heaven” was the world wide empire ruled by Parliament from London. He moved to London in the 1760s with the very real intention of spending the rest of his life there. He held a Royal position in the colonies and, for a time, there was talk or at least rumor of bringing him into the British cabinet.
During the Stamp Act Crisis and the Townsend Acts, he worked mightily, using all of his contacts and his fame to bring about peace between the colonies and Great Britain. He made himself deeply distrusted back home in the colonies as a result of his efforts. Many patriots were absolutely sure he was a complete Tory, with only British interests at heart.
He became a fashion plate in London, almost out Britishing the British. He even betrayed an old friend in a misguided attempt to create mutual understanding between mother and colonies. It was this very act of betrayal that made the British decide he was too treacherous to be trusted.
On January 29, 1774, they summoned Doctor Benjamin Franklin—the best American friend they had—to a hearing before the King’s Council and the judges. Alexander Wedderburn, Solicitor General for the Realm, spent an hour indicting Franklin, pouring out all the frustration with America on him.
Wedderburn had the foulest tongue in an age of vituperative prosecutors. As Franklin stood mute in his finest, newest and most fashionable suit and wig, Wedderburn slashed at him with language so hurtful and vile that the London papers refused to print what he said.
Franklin did not say a word. Why not? He was asked by friends. “If I had said so much as a word, they would have hanged me.” London fired Franklin from his government post. He tried to mediate for another year but when the last attempt to mediate was shouted down with contempt in the House of Lords, Franklin, almost crushed with disillusionment, set sail for America two months before Lexington and Concord.
Whatever the Continental Congress may have thought of Franklin’s efforts in London, they knew he was the only man with the stature to go to France and keep the munitions coming. On the day when a treaty was finally signed between France and the United Colonies—promising to send French troops, cannon and ships to America to serve under Washington—a British spy reported back to London.
As he signed the treaty, it was noted that Franklin (who had made a fetish in Paris of pretending to be a plain spun, wigless frontiersman—to great French delight) had on that one day worn the same elegant English suit he had worn on the day he had stood silent before Wedderburn’s assault.
As Mario Puzo’s character, Michael Corleone finally snarled—giving the lie to the family mantra—“The Hell it’s not personal!”
If the perhaps the most fervent Anglophile in America could be turned into one of its two most effective and vituperative patriots by a taste of contempt and arrogance, think how far a little of this might go in an insecure nation like Pakistan.
That’s a lot more worrisome than whether the First Lady wore sleeves.