What They Said

COLLATERAL DAMAGE FROM AN ILLEGAL WAR

Le Monde diplomatique
April 2003

"Our military operations have as their object the defeat of the enemy .
. . To complete this task, I am charged with absolute and supreme
control of all regions in which British troops operate; but our armies
do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as
liberators. . . It is the wish not only of my King and his peoples, but
it is also the wish of the great nations with whom he is in alliance,
that you should prosper even as in the past, when your lands were
fertile, when your ancestors gave to the world literature, science, and
art, and when Baghdad city was one of the wonders of the world.

"Between your people and the dominions of my King, there has been a
close bond of interest. .. The Germans and Turks, who have despoiled you
and yours, have for 20 years made Baghdad a centre of power from which
to assail the power of the British and their allies in Persia and
Arabia. Therefore the British government cannot remain indifferent as to
what takes place in your country now or in the future, for in duty to
the interests of the British people and their Allies, [it] cannot risk
that being done in Baghdad again which has been done by the Turks and
Germans during the war . . . It is the hope and desire of the British
people and the nations in alliance with them that the Arab race may rise
once more to greatness and renown among the peoples of the Earth, and
that it shall bind itself together to this end in unity and concord."

Extracts from the proclamation of Baghdad, 19 March 1917, by
Lieutenant-General Frederick Stanley Maude

***

Synopsis, Eastern Committee meeting, British Privy Council, 5 December
1918

Lord Curzon, Conservative party statesman and Britain's former viceroy
of India, wondered if the self-determination card should be played. He
was concerned by the question and attached great importance to it
because he believed that most people would end up supporting Britain. He
made the following argument: given that self-determination had been
established as the guiding principle, if Britain could not resolve its
difficulties in any other way, then it should play the self-
determination card for all its worth. This applied to all places in
which Britain had difficulty with the French, Arabs or anyone else. He
advised letting the issues resolve themselves by means of this
fundamental argument (the right to self-determination). He believed that
Britain knew in its heart that it stood to profit from this policy more
than any other countries would.

Colonel T. E. Lawrence stated that there had been much talk of
self-determination, although he believed that in many ways it was a
foolish idea. He went on to say that Britain might well grant people who
had fought alongside British forces the right to self-determination. But
he believed that people such as the Mesopotamian Arabs, who had fought
against Britain, did not deserve the right to self-determination. He
concluded that the situation would be in a state of perpetual flux.

Arthur James Balfour, Britain's foreign secretary, said granting the
right to self-determination was the prerogative of the victors