Lawrence of Arabia

“The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor.” — T. E. Lawrence

On this day in 1935 T.E. Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia, died as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name. The legendary war hero, author, and archaeological scholar succumbed to injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident six days before.

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in Tremadoc, Wales, in 1888. In 1896, his family moved to Oxford. Lawrence studied architecture and archaeology, for which he made a trip to Ottoman (Turkish)-controlled Syria and Palestine in 1909. In 1911, he won a fellowship to join an expedition excavating an ancient Hittite settlement on the Euphrates River. He worked there for three years and in his free time traveled and learned Arabic. In 1914, he explored the Sinai, near the frontier of Ottoman-controlled Arabia and British-controlled Egypt. The maps Lawrence and his associates made had immediate strategic value upon the outbreak of war between Britain and the Ottoman Empire in October 1914.

Lawrence enlisted in the war and because of his expertise in Arab affairs was assigned to Cairo as an intelligence officer. He spent more than a year in Egypt, processing intelligence information and in 1916 accompanied a British diplomat to Arabia, where Hussein ibn Ali, the emir of Mecca, had proclaimed a revolt against Turkish rule. Lawrence convinced his superiors to aid Hussein's rebellion, and he was sent to join the Arabian army of Hussein's son Faisal as a liaison officer.

Under Lawrence's guidance, the Arabians launched an effective guerrilla war against the Turkish lines. He proved a gifted military strategist and was greatly admired by the Bedouin people of Arabia. In July 1917, Arabian forces captured Aqaba near the Sinai and joined the British march on Jerusalem. Lawrence was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In November, he was captured by the Turks while reconnoitering behind enemy lines in Arab dress and was tortured and sexually abused before escaping. He rejoined his army, which slowly worked its way north to Damascus, which fell in October 1918.

Arabia was liberated, but Lawrence's hope that the peninsula would be united as a single nation was dashed when Arabian factionalism came to the fore after Damascus. Lawrence, exhausted and disillusioned, left for England. Feeling that Britain had exacerbated the rivalries between the Arabian groups, he appeared before King George V and politely refused the medals offered to him.

After the war, he lobbied hard for independence for Arab countries and appeared at the Paris peace conference in Arab robes. He became something of a legendary figure in his own lifetime, and in 1922 he gave up higher-paying appointments to enlist in the Royal Air Force (RAF) under an assumed name, John Hume Ross. He had just completed writing his monumental war memoir, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and he hoped to escape his fame and acquire material for a new book. Found out by the press, he was discharged, but in 1923 he managed to enlist as a private in the Royal Tanks Corps under another assumed name, T.E. Shaw, a reference to his friend, Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. In 1925, Lawrence rejoined the RAF and two years later legally changed his last name to Shaw.

In 1927, an abridged version of his memoir was published and generated tremendous publicity, but the press was unable to locate Lawrence (he was posted to a base in India). In 1929, he returned to England and spent the next six years writing and working as an RAF mechanic. In 1932, his English translation of Homer's Odyssey was published under the name of T.E. Shaw. The Mint, a fictionalized account of Royal Air Force recruit training, was not published until 1955 because of its explicitness.

In February 1935, Lawrence was discharged from the RAF and returned to his simple cottage at Clouds Hill, Dorset. On May 13, he was critically injured while driving his motorcycle through the Dorset countryside. He had swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles. On May 19, he died at the hospital of his former RAF camp. All of Britain mourned his passing.

On this day in 1935 T.E. Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia, died as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name. The legendary war hero, author, and archaeological scholar succumbed to injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident six days before.

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in Tremadoc, Wales, in 1888. In 1896, his family moved to Oxford. Lawrence studied architecture and archaeology, for which he made a trip to Ottoman (Turkish)-controlled Syria and Palestine in 1909. In 1911, he won a fellowship to join an expedition excavating an ancient Hittite settlement on the Euphrates River. He worked there for three years and in his free time traveled and learned Arabic. In 1914, he explored the Sinai, near the frontier of Ottoman-controlled Arabia and British-controlled Egypt. The maps Lawrence and his associates made had immediate strategic value upon the outbreak of war between Britain and the Ottoman Empire in October 1914.

Lawrence enlisted in the war and because of his expertise in Arab affairs was assigned to Cairo as an intelligence officer. He spent more than a year in Egypt, processing intelligence information and in 1916 accompanied a British diplomat to Arabia, where Hussein ibn Ali, the emir of Mecca, had proclaimed a revolt against Turkish rule. Lawrence convinced his superiors to aid Hussein's rebellion, and he was sent to join the Arabian army of Hussein's son Faisal as a liaison officer. Faisal would later become Faisal I of Iraq.

Under Lawrence's guidance, the Arabians launched an effective guerrilla war against the Turkish lines. He proved a gifted military strategist and was greatly admired by the Bedouin people of Arabia. In July 1917, Arabian forces captured Aqaba near the Sinai and joined the British march on Jerusalem. Lawrence was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In November, he was captured by the Turks while reconnoitering behind enemy lines in Arab dress and was tortured and sexually abused before escaping. He rejoined his army, which slowly worked its way north to Damascus, which fell in October 1918.

Arabia was liberated, but Lawrence's hope that the peninsula would be united as a single nation was dashed when Arabian factionalism came to the fore after Damascus. Lawrence, exhausted and disillusioned, left for England. Feeling that Britain had exacerbated the rivalries between the Arabian groups, he appeared before King George V and politely refused the medals offered to him.

After the war, he lobbied hard for independence for Arab countries and appeared at the Paris peace conference in Arab robes. He became something of a legendary figure in his own lifetime, and in 1922 he gave up higher-paying appointments to enlist in the Royal Air Force (RAF) under an assumed name, John Hume Ross. He had just completed writing his monumental war memoir, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and he hoped to escape his fame and acquire material for a new book. Found out by the press, he was discharged, but in 1923 he managed to enlist as a private in the Royal Tanks Corps under another assumed name, T.E. Shaw, a reference to his friend, Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. In 1925, Lawrence rejoined the RAF and two years later legally changed his last name to Shaw.

In 1927, an abridged version of his memoir was published and generated tremendous publicity, but the press was unable to locate Lawrence (he was posted to a base in India). In 1929, he returned to England and spent the next six years writing and working as an RAF mechanic. In 1932, his English translation of Homer's Odyssey was published under the name of T.E. Shaw. The Mint, a fictionalized account of Royal Air Force recruit training, was not published until 1955 because of its explicitness.

In February 1935, Lawrence was discharged from the RAF and returned to his simple cottage at Clouds Hill, Dorset. On May 13, he was critically injured while driving his motorcycle through the Dorset countryside. He had swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles. On May 19, he died at the hospital of his former RAF camp. All of Britain mourned his passing.

In 1962 the film Lawrence of Arabia was released. This Oscar winning film starring Peter O’Toole (as T.E Lawrence), Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, and Omar Sharif tells the story of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Directed by David McLean, who received the Oscar for best director, the film is noted for its award winning sound track and magnificent cinematography.

I have always said that the final scene of the film portrays all of today’s problems in the Middle East and it seems as Lawrence was a prophet when he authored the Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

In the final scene Lawrence’s men take Damascus ahead of Allenby's forces. The Arabs set up a council to administer the city, but they are desert tribesmen, ill-suited for such a task. The various tribes argue among themselves and in spite of Lawrence's insistence, cannot unite against the English, who in the end take the city back under their bureaucracy. Unable to maintain the utilities and bickering constantly with each other, they soon abandon most of the city to the British. Promoted to colonel and immediately ordered home, his usefulness at an end to both Faisal and the British diplomats, a dejected Lawrence is driven away in a staff car.

Watching this scene in the film will give you a basic understanding of the problems facing us in the Middle East today. Most of the countries are tribal in nature. In Iraq it’s Sunni, Shi'ites, and Kurdish Muslims. As U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq the violence is increasing. Sunnis are being supported by al-Qaeda as they attack Shi'ite and Kurdish mosques and gatherings.

In Syria there is a civil war where the Ba'athist Party of Bashar al-Assad is accused of killing for 50,000 to 100,000 al-Qaeda supported rebels. Assad has emphatically stated he will not step down and the war continues to escalate. There are over 100,000 Syrian refuges gathered on the 540 mile border with Turkey as Prime Minister

Patrick Buchanan writes in Townhall.com:

“Consider Syria, where the neocons and liberal interventionists are clamoring for U.S. military action, but "no boots on the ground."

Is there really any vital U.S. interest at risk in whether the 40-year-old Assad dictatorship stands or falls?

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been calling for Assad's ouster for two years and transships weapons to the rebels, has now seen his country stung by a terrorist attack.

But though he has a 400,000-man NATO-equipped army, three times Syria's population, and a 550-mile border to attack across, Erdogan wants us, the "international community," to bring Assad down.

But why is Assad our problem -- and not Erdogan's problem?”

Libya where the United States led the coalition to oust strong man Muammar Muhammad Gaddafi and recently our Ambassador was murdered in a planned attack by the Al-Qaida franchise, Ansar al-Sharia. Once again Libya has always been a tribal country with competing tribes between Benghazi and Tripoli. Gaddafi, like Tito in Yugoslavia, was able to contain these tribal factions by brute force.

Egypt, once controlled by Hosni Mubarak, another strong-man dictator and Anwar Sadat before him, is another example of these tribal factions. The so-called “Arab Spring” was hailed by the western press as a great step forward to a self-governing democratic state. It did not turn out this way as I predicted. Today Egypt if ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia Law under the leadership of Mohamed Morsi who was educated as an electrical engineer at the University of Southern California.

Would we be willing to send another army of 170,000 to stop a Sunni-Shia war that might tear Iraq apart? Would the American people support sending 100,000 troops, again, to fight to keep Afghanistan from the clutches of the Taliban?

When most of the Middle East was under the domination of the Ottoman Empire there was a semblance of a rule of law. Tribal factions were contained by force if necessary. Mercantile interests were protected and contract honored. There was profitable trade with the west and the Orient. In essence there was stability, not factional terrorism.

With the collapse of the Turkish dominated Ottoman Empire after World War I and the factional breakup of the region into tribal dominated states the Middle East became a hot bed of tribal wars and competitions. The British attempted to rule the region and failed. The Soviet Union tried to rule Afghanistan and failed. The French attempted to rule Syria and failed. And the United States tried to bring western style democracy to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya and is falling. These tribal dominated states are incapable of democratic self–government. They have no relationship to the philosophies and teachings Plato, Locke, Montesquieu, Smith, or Bastiat no matter how many of their leaders were or are educated at Harvard, Columbia, Oxford, Cambridge, or the London School of Economics. Their philosophical and ideological roots lay in Islam and only Islam.

I close with a quote from T.E. Lawrence when talking about the Middle East and its tribal nature:

“Men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever chose; but in fact each hill and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan to it, against aggression.”