The world’s worst actors seem to think not.
“The Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romanus sum; so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England, will protect him against injustice and wrong.”
— Lord Palmerston to the House of Commons, June 1850
On the July 4, 1976, Israeli commandos descended on Uganda’s Entebbe Airport in the dead of night. One week earlier, Palestinian terrorists had hijacked Air France Flight 139, a Paris-bound flight originating out of Tel Aviv, and redirected the plane toward Africa. After arriving in Uganda, the terrorists released the non-Israeli passengers, but held back some 106 travelers as hostages, including 84 Israelis. On 28 June, the hijackers released their demands: Israel must set free 53 imprisoned Palestinian fighters and pay $5 million in ransom. If their demands were not met by the Israeli government, the hijackers declared they would begin shooting the hostages.
Israel coolly responded with one of the greatest military feats of the 20th century. Over 100 commandos, in several military transport planes flew 2,500 miles into sub-Saharan Africa, stormed the airport on the shores of Lake Victoria, killed the terrorists, engaged in a fierce firefight with Ugandan troops, and rescued 102 of the 106 hostages. Sadly, three hostages and one commando, Lt. Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, the older brother of current Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were killed in Operation Thunderbolt.
The world was — and remains — a dangerous, violent place. But on that single humid night, malefactors the world over were once again put on notice: If you mess with Israeli citizens, the Israeli people will make you pay.
This conception of the bonds of citizenship is not new, though we Americans seem to have forgotten it. To the Romans, the free citizen carried with him all the duties and obligations owed to his city — up to and including giving his life in her defense. In exchange, Rome offered her citizens freedom, suffrage, and security. Cicero tells us that the Romans believed that the simple words civis Romanus sum — “I am a Roman citizen” — “could ward off all blows” and guarantee safe passage in foreign lands: The overpowering fear of Rome protected her children wherever they might venture.
One rather famous Roman citizen, Saint Paul, used a declaration of his citizenship to particular effect. Chapter 22 of the Acts of the Apostles tells us that, after arresting Paul on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the captain of the guard commanded him “to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging.”
As they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?” When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, “Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman.” Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, “Tell me, art thou a Roman?” He said, “Yea.” And the chief captain answered, “With a great sum obtained I this freedom.” And Paul said, “But I was free born.” Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him.
But I was free born. Civis Romanus sum. For centuries those words — two short phrases — were enough to send grizzled soldiers scurrying for cover.
Later, in the 19th century, our British cousins made it known that Britons would be safe and free on all oceans and continents. The Royal Navy’s ships — and a policy of no-nonsense gunboat diplomacy — left a traveling Briton “confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England,” in Palmerston’s words, “will protect him against injustice and wrong.”
By today’s standards, the British could be judged to have been heavy-handed at times in their application of power — but there is no question they achieved their desired results. In his acclaimed biography of Winston Churchill, the late William Manchester relayed the story of one Captain William Packenham, who, while “dressed to the nines, buttons glittering and collar starched,” demonstrated antique British values by going “ashore to deal with a gang of cutthroats who were massacring Armenians” in the heyday of the Empire. “The leaders of the pogrom gathered around him, glowering and fingering the edges of their bloody knives,” Manchester wrote. “Packenham stroked his beard and told the interpreter: ‘Let us begin. Tell these ugly bastards that I am not going to tolerate any more of their bestial habits.’” No one laid a finger on Packenham.
Civis Britannicus sum. Those words meant something then, too.
Unfortunately, U.S. citizenship, rather than shielding Americans abroad, has placed a target on their backs in recent decades. The capture, torture, and murder of U.S. citizens has become something of a favorite sport to the world’s worst actors. Between the 1979–80 Iran hostage crisis, cartel-fueled violence and kidnappings in Latin America, piracy off the Horn of Africa, and jihadist terrorism on six continents, the condition of Americans abroad is increasingly hazardous. Moreover, the misguided policies of our government are actively contributing to the deteriorating cachet of being an American.
Do our enemies fear the “watchful eye and strong arm” of the United States? That seems increasingly unlikely, especially after the Obama administration shamefully agreed to pay a $400 million ransom in January for four Americans imprisoned by Iran. Of course, the Iranians took the lesson to heart, waiting only weeks to begin rebuilding their collection of kidnapped Americans. It’s clear that a renewed respect for American power will have to await the advent of a new presidential administration: While President Obama, to his credit, ordered the 2009 rescue of the Maersk Alabama’s Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates, the repeated red-line fudging in Syria, the limp-wristed response to the capture of two U.S. Navy patrol boats in Persian Gulf in January, and the non-response to ISIS’s murder of American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley has further shredded American credibility.
The United States must make clear, as did the British and Romans before us, that the violation of U.S. citizens overseas will result in swift retribution. If pronounced soberly, and executed competently, this policy need not be the stuff of jingoism, imperialism, or nation-building adventurism; it’s plain good sense. History teaches that weakness, or the appearance thereof, breeds contempt, and then aggression. Many of our enemies have proven themselves adept at exploiting our reluctance to deploy overwhelming force. How many times will we allow the perfidious Iranian mullahs to shake us down by obtaining concessions and signing a piece of paper, only to promptly renege on the just-agreed-to terms? “The pirate,” as Cicero said of the brigands who preyed on Roman shipping in the first century B.C., “is not bound by the rules of war. . . . There can be no trusting him, no attempt to bind him with mutually agreed treaties.”
#related#How did the Romans respond to the pirate threat? How did they enforce the prohibition against violence toward any man who declared, Civis Romanus sum? According to historian Tom Holland’s history of the last years of the republic, Rubicon, the Romans raised a fleet, appointed Pompey — their best general — to command, and swept the pirates from the sea in three months, turning the Mediterranean into a Roman lake. Yes, “honor, naturally, demanded a response” to the pirates’ terrorism, Holland writes, but so did Roman self-interest.
So it is with us. If Americans want to “Make America Great Again”; if we actually believe that we’re “Stronger Together,” then Americans should demand that their government commit to speaking firmly and, if necessary, wielding a big stick. Americans need to demand that Civis Americanus sum means what it should.