“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it . . . .”

- George Washington

Britain vs. France

Now that Mubarak stepped down, many question the effects of the revolution on America’s standing in the region. The United States lost a staunch ally, and our past support for Mubarak may have ruined our reputation with the Egyptian people. Referring to the wisdom of our founding fathers may have helped us to avoid this foreign policy dilemma.

Washington would have opposed the United States’s alliance with Mubarak. But not necessarily for the reasons you would think.

Our first inclination would be to think Washington, the great soldier of liberty, would have been outraged that we were aligned with an authoritarian ruler who purportedly trampled the liberties of his people. And it is very true that he would have hoped the United States be a guiding light of freedom, he was more than a starry-eyed idealist. He was pragmatic.

Washington won the war with the help of the French Monarchy. The Americans needed France’s help against the British onslaught and so Benjamin Franklin lobbied for aggressively for their aid. True, many Americans hated the idea of aligning themselves with an authoritarian regime. In fact, one of Benedict Arnold’s reasons for betraying the Revolutionary Cause was because he saw the alliance as a sure sign that the American cause had lost its way. But Washington knew he needed the kingdom’s supplies, troops, and navy to defeat the British. And he took them.

Washington likely would not have condemned working with Mubarak towards specific goals. Certainly American interests are at stake in the region, but not the fate of the country. But Washington would be frowned upon the depth of the relationship over the past decades. Washington saw alliances with regimes as a last resort to save the country rather than the “go to” method for pursuing all American interests. Further, he would likely opposed such interference with a foreign nation’s internal affairs.  Washington likely would have avoided such intimacy with Mubarak, just like he did with the French after the American Revolution.

When the French declared war on the British again in 1789, President Washington remained neutral. He knew it was not in the United States’s interests to re-engage Britain in a bitter struggle. So even though his former allies were enraged, Washington refused to help. He declared America neutral and did everything in his power to avoid any “permanent alliances.”

I believe Washington’s inclination would be to focus more inwardly. Rather than entangling the nation with the regimes of the Middle East, Washington would likely adopt a much more “hands off” approach in which we would pursue American interests without taking sides, sending arms, deploying troops, or propping up governments. Acknowledging the need for temporary alliances, Washington would engage Egypt for specific tasks but would avoid the decades of entanglement that now threaten to ruin our relationship with the Egyptian people.

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none”

- Thomas Jefferson

“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”

- George Washington

Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak stepped down today after nearly three decades of authoritarian rule. He was a staunch U.S. ally, who helped promote Middle East peace but also purportedly stole billions from the country, brutally suppressed dissent, and tortured his enemies.

The Great Seal of the United States

During my visit to Egypt in December, the simmering tension among the populace was palpable. The Egyptians were holding elections and protests erupted. The voters felt that the elections were pre-ordained and their choices did not matter. Multiple Egyptians explained that they did not hate Mubarak but felt he had lost touch with them. Egypt wanted change. And their words were falling upon deaf authoritarian ears.

So accustomed to American liberty, I could not truly appreciate their frustration. And so accustomed to American political stability, I did not foresee that this anger would lead to a revolution.

I suspect a great deal of the Egyptians’ outrage stemmed from the nation’s poor economic conditions. The worldwide recession hit Egypt hard, especially as American and European tourist dollars dried up. People wandered the streets hoping to carry a tourist’s bag for him, taxi a foreign businessman in a makeshift cab, or just take a picture of a vacationing couple – just so they could get a couple dollars tip. Small children knew only a few words in English – and they were “Hi, give me money!” If no one gave them any, they would let lose some of their favorite English expletives or even throw trash.

The Egyptians are a very proud people and deeply resented their desperate need. They resented having to sell trinkets on the street rather than use their – often vast – education and skills to their fullest.

And to them, Mubarak had not done enough. I saw signs touting his construction projects, including new highways lined with beautiful flowers and historical restoration efforts. In fact, the government was the major employer for the country. But Mubarak’s small paychecks and smiling face on billboards was not enough. The Egyptians wanted change and now they have obtained it.

The Founding Fathers would have applauded the Egyptians’ quest for greater liberty. As you would suspect, Washington applauded freedom and derided despotism. He saw the Revolution as a shining light that would illuminate to the world the virtues of liberty. As such, Washington likely would have applauded the Egyptians – especially for their relatively peaceful protests. As the United States’ protests against Britain were inching towards war, Washington grappled with issue of rebellion:

“At a time, when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty, which we have derived from our ancestors. But the manner of doing it, to answer the purpose effectually, is the point in question. That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment, to use arms in defence of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion. Yet arms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last resource, the dernier resort.”

The Egyptians did just that.

But let us just hope that John Adams’s foreboding words do not come to pass in Egypt: “Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” For while the Founding Fathers were staunch advocates of liberty, they also feared the effects of pure mob rule.

Washington would hope that the Egyptian revolution results in a stable republic that protects the fundamental rights of all Egyptians. While he advocated freedom and liberty, he also thought a government without adequate safeguards to protect the minority against the majority was also dangerous: “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”

Foreign Policy reported that the House failed to extend some of the more controversial provisions of the Patriot Act. This Act was enacted after 9/11 in order to empower the government to better hunt terrorists. One of the provisions enabled the FBI to seize “any tangible items” that were relevant to their investigations.

George Washington likely would have voted against it too. He certainly did not have to deal with wiretaps or electronic surveillance, but he knew a thing or about dealing with home-grown insurgents. And he was surprisingly protective of their property.

The Loyalist Americans caused Washington and the other Revolutionaries quite a headache. They not only joined the British army, but also supplied and spied for the enemy. Many Americans hated their betrayers so passionately that they abused them and even killed them on many occasions. And with the Revolutionary forces so poorly supplied, the Loyalists’ property became an easy target. But Washington railed against such plundering. In his General Orders of September 6, 1776, he stated:

“The General is resolved to put a stop to plundering, and converting either public, or private property, to their own use . . . . For let it ever be remembered, that no plundering Army was ever a successful one.”

As Congress began to take Loyalists’ property, Washington opposed their actions. For example, when Congress ordered Loyalists out of their homes in Philadelphia in 1778, Washington sent a letter of protest, contending that “[a] proscribing system of Laws having the same effect, when carried to a great extent, ever appeared to [him] to be impolitic; and . . . to exile many of its Inhabitants cannot be the interest of any State.”

Washington certainly confiscated property throughout the war. But he did so reluctantly and sought to ensure eventual restitution. He opposed the concept of seizing property from Americans.

Donald Rumsfeld stated on Nightline that “for all the criticism of President Bush . . . for the things he put in place, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay[,] the fact is they are still there. Why are they still there? They’re there because they make sense in the 21st Century. They’re needed and the new Administration has not been able to figure out a better way to do it.” The 18th Century may have some lessons for these lingering “21st Century” dilemmas.

George Washington was morally opposed to torture. He hoped for his new nation to rise above the cruel practices of the past and instead treat his British captives with humanity. That hope soon fizzled.

Washington was appalled by the way the British were treating their American prisoners. He angrily declared that he would likewise mistreat the redcoats in his custody in retaliation. With reports circulating that British employed “torture by searing irons and secret scourges,” Washington’s arguments for treatment “in kind” concerned gruesome practices. Washington expressed his judgment that torture was not only potentially justified but required in order to save American lives. It was a necessary evil.

This week, two activist groups issued an “indictment” of former President Bush, vowing to prosecute the leader for allegedly torturing prisoners. Although General Washington was not waterboarding for information, he nevertheless understood the the potential need to mistreat prisoners for the good of the nation.

In the editorial, “Opposing View on Terror Trials: Trust U.S. Criminal Courts,” the ACLU’s Hina Shami conveys a rousing and eloquent denunciation of Guantanamo Bay. She calls for the President to try the suspected terrorists in civilian criminal courts. Unlike military commissions, these courts would provide the detainees with all the protections and safe guards of American civilians. She concludes by stating “That is the American way.”

General George Washington

Except it is not. At least not historically. Our first Commander in Chief, George Washington, used special commissions to try foreign enemy combatants (the bloody British!) on multiple occasions. General Washington and the other Founding Fathers assumed that foreign soldiers were certainly not entitled to the legal protections enjoyed by civilians and Americans. To them, it would be absurd to argue otherwise.

Take the case of the so-called “Andre Affair.” The young British soldier, John Andre, and his American Loyalist aid, Joshua Hett Smith, were caught helping Benedict Arnold betray West Point. When he caught Andre and Smith, Washington was seething. But he nevertheless afforded Smith the privileges of an American and referred him to a court of inquiry. The American Smith received a relatively thorough investigation and was eventually acquitted.

Andre, however, received no such protections. As much Washington sympathized with the young Brit’s plight, he tried him be a military commission. This gave Andre little chance to defend himself and he was swiftly hanged. Washington pitied Smith but saw this swift military justice as necessary to win the war.

Most would agree that Washington, the “Father of Our Country,” was a highly moral, principled man. Prior to the Constitution, it was this great man who served as the only Commander in Chief the young United States ever had. And when the Framers finally drafted the Constitution after the war, they empowered the new Presidency with the so-called “commander-in-chief powers” – and Washington was the living embodiment of what that meant. That supreme law of the land, defined so many years ago by that great general, still governs us today.

George Washington set many precedents. One of which is the option of the Commander in Chief to utilize ad hoc military commissions.  To Washington, the protection of America sometimes required them.