On Jul 6, 1:12=A0pm, "elea.namatjira" <elea.namatj...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Jul 7, 7:52 am, "Bill Bonde { ''Soylent Diesel is People'')"
>
>
>
> <tributyltinpa...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > "malcom.khan" wrote:
>
> > > On Jul 7, 7:17 am, "PJ O'Donovan" <Xent...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > > > Monday, July 07, 2008
>
> > > > The Times" of London on victory in Iraq:
>
> > > > Excerpt:
>
> > > > "American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its
> > > > last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one
=
of
> > > > the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. After being
> > > > forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the
p=
ast
> > > > two years, Al-Qaeda's dwindling band of fighters has made a
defiant
> > > > "last stand" in the northern city of Mosul...".
>
> .
> > > WW1 has not yet finished mate , its still going on in the middle
east
>
> .
> .
>
> > > since the west invaded in 1914 and wont end until the west is pushed
> > > out
>
> > Kook Alert.
>
> A Re****t on Mesopotamia by T.E. Lawrence
> From World War I Do***ent Archive
> Jump to: navigation, search
>
> 22 August, 1920
>
> Ex.-Lieut.-Col. T.E. Lawrence,
> The Sunday Times, 22 August 1920
>
> [Mr. Lawrence, whose organization and direction of the Hedjaz against
> the Turks was one of the outstanding romances of the war, has written
> this article at our request in order that the public may be fully
> informed of our Mesopotamian commitments.]
>
> 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.
>
> The sins of commission are those of the British civil authorities in
> Mesopotamia (especially of three 'colonels') who were given a free
> hand by London. They are controlled from no Department of State, but
> from the empty space which divides the Foreign Office from te India
> Office. They availed themselves of the necessary discretion of war-
> time to carry over their dangerous independence into times of peace.
> They contest every suggestion of real self- government sent them from
> home. A recent proclamation about autonomy circulated with unction
> from Baghdad was drafted and published out there in a hurry, to
> forestall a more liberal statement in preparation in London, 'Self-
> determination papers' favourable to England were extorted in
> Mesopotamia in 1919 by official pressure, by aeroplane demonstrations,
> by de****tations to India.
>
> The Cabinet cannot disclaim all responsibility. They receive little
> more news than the public: they should have insisted on more, and
> better. they have sent draft after draft of reinforcements, without
> enquiry. When conditions became too bad to endure longer, they decided
> to send out as High commissioner the original author of the present
> system, with a conciliatory message to the Arabs that his heart and
> policy have completely changed.*
>
> Yet our published policy has not changed, and does not need changing.
> It is that there has been a deplorable contrast between our profession
> and our practice. We said we went to Mesopotamia to defeat Turkey. We
> said we stayed to deliver the Arabs from the oppression of the Turkish
> Government, and to make available for the world its resources of corn
> and oil. We spent nearly a million men and nearly a thousand million
> of money to these ends. This year we are spending ninety-two thousand
> men and fifty millions of money on the same objects.
>
> Our government is worse than the old Turkish system. They kept
> fourteen thousand local conscripts embodied, and killed a yearly
> average of two hundred Arabs in maintaining peace. We keep ninety
> thousand men, with aeroplanes, armoured cars, gunboats, and armoured
> trains. We have killed about ten thousand Arabs in this rising this
> summer. We cannot hope to maintain such an average: it is a poor
> country, sparsely peopled; but Abd el Hamid would applaud his masters,
> if he saw us working. We are told the object of the rising was
> political, we are not told what the local people want. It may be what
> the Cabinet has promised them. A Minister in the House of Lords said
> that we must have so many troops because the local people will not
> enlist. On Friday the Government announce the death of some local
> levies defending their British officers, and say that the services of
> these men have not yet been sufficiently recognized because they are
> too few (adding the characteristic Baghdad touch that they are men of
> bad character). There are seven thousand of them, just half the old
> Turkish force of occupation. Properly officered and distributed, they
> would relieve half our army there. Cromer controlled Egypt's six
> million people with five thousand British troops; Colonel Wilson fails
> to control Mesopotamia's three million people with ninety thousand
> troops.
>
> We have not reached the limit of our military commitments. Four weeks
> ago the staff in Mesopotamia drew up a memorandum asking for four more
> divisions. I believe it was forwarded to the War Office, which has now
> sent three brigades from India. If the North-West Frontier cannot be
> further de****d, where is the balance to come from? Meanwhile, our
> unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of
> climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every
> day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration
> in Baghdad. General Dyer was relieved of his command in India for a
> much smaller error, but the responsibility in this case is not on the
> Army, which has acted only at the request of the civil authorities.
> The War Office has made every effort to reduce our forces, but the
> decisions of the Cabinet have been against them.
>
> The Government in Baghdad have been hanging Arabs in that town for
> political offences, which they call rebellion. The Arabs are not at
> war with us. Are these illegal executions to provoke the Arabs to
> reprisals on the three hundred British prisoners they hold? And, if
> so, is it that their punishment may be more severe, or is it to
> persuade our other troops to fight to the last?
>
> We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the
> world. all experts say that the labour supply is the ruling factor in
> its development. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers
> and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton,
> and oil? How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of
> Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on
> behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its
> administrators?
>
> *Sir Percy Cox was to return as High Commissioner in October, 1920 to
> form a provisional Government.
> Return to Post - 1918 Do***ents- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Great article. Amazing that the British don't seem to have learned
much from their previous experience. They're still with us in a repeat
of their mistake.
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