Boris Johnson Quotes
It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.
Johnson, Boris. "If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there." The Daily Telegraph, 10 Jan. 2002.
This quotation illustrated the extreme right wing viewpoint of some military leaders, even when the policy was only to enforce a “no fly zone” that had been agreed to by Iraq and the coalition forces. While Looney’s wing would use military force to take Middle East oil, that policy was completely contrary to the Clinton Democratic administration’s position at the time and the Bush Republican administration’s position that followed.
Bismarck articulated this throughout the German government and provided cogent reasoning as to why colonialism was a counter-productive policy. History shows him to be prescient about the difficulties of Empire. Nonetheless, in the mad scramble of the European powers for Africa, and the public opinion weighing in cavor of Empire, Germany got sucked in just like the others and Bismarck reluctantly changed his policies. He was right the first time.
In 1832 the President sent Edmund Roberts, a New Hampshire sea captain, to arrange commercial treaties with Asian countries such as Burma, Indo-China, Siam and Japan:
The American concepts of democracy and human rights have been resented when U. S. policy advocated other nation’s adhering to them.
Stanley was angered because Leopold had revoked what he thought had been a promise.
Often called Blackshirts
This is a fascinating historical quotation. The English Foreign Minister and sent a draft of his proposed policy of English involvement to make Spain more democratic to counteract the influence of France which was then England’s arch enemy. The French had a military-oriented right wing government. The Queen, although only 27 years old at the time, had a brilliant grasp of foreign policy and the sagacity of an elder statesman. (And women in the United Kingdom could not even vote.) She realized that once England was involved in nation building and backing one party in Spain, England would be responsible for whatever that party ended up doing, and yet England really could not control the situation. Corruption, violations of civil rights, impoverishment all might occur, and England would have to defend those things lest the French who would then support the opposition would gain an upper hand in a proxy war. The situation was very similar to the United States getting involved in Vietnam and supporting the South Vietnam government which, despite U. S. efforts to the contrary, was totally corrupt, inept, religiously discriminatory, and totally inept in providing good government to the people. A similar situation occurred with the American intervention in Afghanistan where the President operated a totally corrupt and inept government and we were forced to support him. On other occasions she goes even further and actually writes new copy of policies personally. Note that the formality of the time required that the Queen refer to herself in the third person and not the first.
The Russians had invaded Afghanistan and, like the earlier invaders who had also failed, they did not understand the people or their culture. (See {634659}). They tried to impose a centralized Communist government, not realizing that the Afghanistan people were not experienced with any kind of central government. There was some tribal structure but that was mostly a traditional consensus process. Most Afghan men were the “kings” of their own families and did not respond to any other governance though they can be nfluenced by tribal leaders, warlords, and imams.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British politician and writer serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party since July 2019. He was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. Johnson has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015 and was previously MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008. He has been described as adhering to the ideology of one-nation and national conservatism.
