Wednesday, April 14, 2004

 

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF PLUS CA CHANGE, PLUS C'EST LA M ME CHOSE:

"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster."

-- T.E. Lawrence, aka "Lawrence of Arabia" writing on the British occupation of Iraq in 1920

posted by Michael 11:52 PM