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Great Britain and U.S. share common bond
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by Louis Karraker for the Journal Times
Our most recent confrontation with Saddam Hussein and Iraq clearly reveals the identity of our friends and enemies. Just as in the days of the Cold War, Russia condemned the attacks on Iraq and withdrew the Russian ambassador from the U.S. Just as in the days of the Korean War and the Vietnam War, China denounced the U.S. action. France joined in the condemnation despite the repeated sacrifices of American blood and dollars to save that nation from the heel of the oppressor and from starvation during and after the World Wars.
Canada, Australia and New Zealand supported the U.S. action. However, only Great Britain stood shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. by participating in the military action. Great Britain was our staunchest ally in Desert Storm and in the Cold War. When other nations faltered, Great Britain could always be counted on.
Through the years, the relationship between these two English-speaking nations has had its ups and downs. With minor exceptions, our 13 colonies were founded and, in the beginning, largely settled by Englishmen. The relationship between mother country and colonies was severed by the Revolutionary War because Americans felt that their rights as Englishmen were being violated.
In 1817, the two nations agreed to complete mutual disarmament on the Great Lakes. The next year, they agreed to the temporary joint occupation of the Oregon country.
In the 1820s, Russia threatened to expand down the coast of the Northwest from Russian America (Alaska). About the same time, France and Spain considered the re-conquest of the newly-independent nations of Central and South America.
In the 1840s, the disputed northern boundary of Maine and the Oregon controversy were settled permanently and peacefully.
During the Spanish-American War (1898), only Great Britain was sympathetic to the U.S. British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain declared, ``I even go so far as to say that, terrible as war may be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased if in a great and noble cause the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack should wave together."
In 1901, Great Britain agreed that the U.S. should have a free hand to build, control and fortify a canal across Central America linking the Atlantic and Pacific.
During World War I, prior to the U.S. entry into the war, American public opinion moved inexorably toward sympathy with the Allies, especially the British.
Prior to Pearl Harbor, when Great Britain stood alone against Hitler, the U.S. transferred 50 over-age destroyers to the British navy for use in defense against German submarines. A few months later, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act to provide the British with much-needed military equipment.
By 1945, at the end of World War II, six out of 10 Americans favored a permanent military alliance with Great Britain. More recently, Margaret Thatcher, the greatest British prime minister since Winston Churchill, advocated an Anglo-American alliance as a bulwark for freedom during the Cold War.
The ties that bind the U.S. and Great Britain come from a common heritage of law and individual freedom. Both rest on the foundation of English common law.
For the English and American people, this heritage has ancient roots. The Magna Carta in the year 1215 was really an agreement under which King John agreed to respect certain feudal rights asserted by his barons. Later generations, however, haveread into it the principle of no taxation without representation and such later common law principles as the right to a jury trial, immunity from cruel and unusual punishments and excessive fines, equal justice under the law and the right of every person not to be denied life, liberty or property without due process of law.
The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 established new safeguards against arbitrary arrest. The English philosopher John Locke in his ``Two Treatises of Government" (1690) presented a defense of ``natural rights" and a justification for constitutional law, the liberty of the individual and the rule of the majority.
The unique common heritage of the rule of law and individual freedom have produced bonds between Great Britain and the United States that have grown stronger as they have struggled together against the forces of tyranny in the 20th century.
Waterford resident Louis R. Karraker is a retired businessman and former college professor
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