Perfidious Albion will always remain Perfidious Albion. It is an evil nation, it was certainly the great Evil Empire of the 19th century bringing oppression, poverty, racism and discrimination in its wake. They are responsible for the invention of the planned famine, the concentration camp and germ warfare, and their policy of 'divide and conquer' troubles the world in places from the North of Ireland to South Africa and the Indian Subcontinent to this very day.

That they should endorse a policy that keeps the people most likely to be their stooges, the dictatorial, brutal and vicious Sunni Arabs of Baghdad, is no surprise. The only workable policy is and has always been to redivide the Britain's phony creation of Iraq into its three constituent parts, which never had any historical connection except being ruled by the same multinational empire. The place has less internal consistency than Yugoslavia. Also, dividing the country into three pieces takes the oil away from the Sunni Arabs, by far the group most likely to cause trouble in the region either through direct militarization or through support of international terror.

The Downing Street memos show only that Britain is far more trouble than that damp, decrepit, septic tank of an island is worth. Ignoring Britain would have been infinitely wiser than cooking up dubious justifications for an already more than justified war in order to placate effete girlymen like Blair and Straw.

Yeah, if it wasn't for that bringing civilization to the world thing, they'd almost be France.

If they'd had sense enough to trust the natives they'd be us.

David,

Other than the colonies that are 100% European in origin, where the natives either did not exist or got wiped out, or where the natives had a stable social structure(India), the French colonies on balance are far better off than the English.

bart:

There is no French colony faring as well as the average English one except Quebec, which was fortunate enough to be incoporated into Anglo-America. Indeed, a French past is a leading indicator of current stagnation.

Forget the English. France didn't even do as well as Spain by its colonies.

Or Russia, which can at least claim Alaska.

The Sunnis will have their own state. It is called Syria.

come on bart, you have a qualifier for every successful british colony :) either post a side-by-side comparison of all colonies on both sides, or just say "i don't like the english" and leave it at that.

David and OJ,

Compare Gabon, Cameroon, and Senegal with any former British colony in subSaharan Africa, except South Africa(which is 15% White and 5% Asian) and try that again.

As for Spain, Equatorial Guinea, the former Spanish colony in Africa, today uses the CFA(Communaute' Africane Francaise) franc and French is the language of commerce and when dealing with the local authorities.

Bart:

On the other hand, Haiti is a disaster, and it's hard to blame circumstances with the relatively successful Dominican Republic on the other half of the island.

The French presence in Haiti ended over two centuries ago, it is hardly relevant to the discussion. The best comparison with Haiti is Liberia, and that does not look good either for Frenchmen or Americans.

Have you ever been to the Dominican? There are a lot of hot babes, but there is a reason why it was where Francis Ford Coppola shot his 'Cuba' scenes in Godfather II over there. The poverty, while not as grinding as that of Haiti, is pretty severe.

"that damp, decrepit, septic tank of an island...."

Now come on, Bart, don't mince your words. What do you really think of old Blighty?

Do you, for example, fart in our general direction?

Good to see that the Colonial Office is not dead.

It's that I just can't stand the Anglophilia of so many Americans, particularly those in and around government, and our Eurocentrism in general.

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe hasn't mattered. It is certainly less important to our economy than either Canada or Mexico, and is less important than South Asia and East Asia. This essentially racist focus on Europe has no rational justification. The real scientific and economic growth in the world is coming from East Asia and South Asia, we'd better be focused on creating long-term partnerships with them. And our population is becoming more Latin American, so we ought to be concerned about folks down there. Latin America constantly gets short shrift from American policymakers and you can drive here from there. It makes no sense. It should be an American protectorate for all intents and purposes, a congenial trading zone without warfare and strife. But we have failed to address its problems in any substantive way while continuing to care about has-been countries like those of Western Europe.

England, though, has special reasons for my enmity. They have constantly interfered in American politics, whether it was its support of insurrectionists during our Civil War or whether it was using its agents provocateurs to persuade us to enter WWI, a war where if anything, America would have been better served by a German victory. British double dealing with respect to the Jewish homeland and its stonewalling Jewish emigration from Europe during the Hitler period does little to endear me to it. Finally, the behavior of so many British pols of right and left, lecturing America incessantly about our alleged wrongdoing in the world,(just do a Hansard search on Guantanamo), makes my blood just boil, especially when one considers British behavior in its heyday.

On a slightly more serious note, you have a pretty hackneyed, wimpy liberal view of the Empire and its consequences, Bart. We’ve largely got over it (apart from Liberal Democrats and students, obviously).

There's only so long you can blame corruption in African regimes on the evil white man. Five decades is too long.

Britain gave the world the free movement of goods, capital, and labour, and a common rule of law and governance. As well as every game worth playing and the f-word.

As Niall Ferguson put it in his book Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World:

"The question is not whether British imperialism was without blemish. It was not. The question is whether there could have been a less bloody path to modernity."

Weather's lovely today, too.

Actually, Brit, I'm long past my student days, and I never was a Liberal Democrat, even when I was a party member I was more of a DLC type.

I know plenty of people born in Ireland, China and India who have a pretty different view of the British Empire from either yours or Mr. Ferguson's and none of them are today either liberal Democrats or students.

I don't blame African corruption on Britain, but I think it is fair to blame African tribal politics at its bloody manifestations in places like Nigeria, Rhodesia and Sierra Leone on them.

While Britain did produce rugby, the French, like Philidor, were the first great international chess players.

Free movement of goods, labor and capital, etc were Dutch ideas a half century before the British Empire was a serious presence.

Talk about making the same mistake over and over again, let me guess their prime candidate, was
the Naquib of Baghdad, whose son would ally with
our enemy twenty years later; (I speak of the
Al Ghailani; Al Kailani clan.

Haiti is totally relevant--it's built on the French model

I'm sorry bart, but for all their follies and foibles, the Brits are in many ways - lingustically, spiritually, and culturally - our kin.

Half the world mocks Britain, yet half the world is only civilized because the British have made it so.

Bart:

China? The British were far from the worst "oppressors" there.

Ireland - they've been fighting for probably 1000 years (or more). The Brits were more numerous and more expansive; otherwise, it's a draw on who is 'worse'. The Irish have always been quite savage (and tried to be poetic about it, as if it exonerates them).

And India? Well, if the issue is corruption from the evil white man, what can we say? But if it is just the numbers of deaths that occurred at the hand of England (as opposed to those if India had remained "pristine"), I can't accept your point.

I understand your rage at British hypocrisy on the treatment of prisoners - but the British are certainly less offensive than the Scandanavians or the French or the Germans when it comes to slandering America.

Regarding Israel, sure the Brits struggle with anti-Semitism, but remember who issued the Balfour declaration (no matter the conspiratorial reasons behind its purpose). The French are much worse. Had the lines been drawn differently in 1917-1922, would you have preferred French control over what became Israel?

Bart-- I note you left out slavery in your list of 19th century horrors inflicted by the British. Perhaps that is because the Royal Navy did so much to diminish the practice, and end the slave trade.

Robert,

My family comes from Alsace and Belarus, not Britain. I ain't got no kin from there.

Jim,

That whole Opium War deal just blows by you, eh?
In Ireland, it is Britain's current illegal occupation which remains the largest problem. As for India, I will note that Indians believe that the British played its various and sundry religious and ethnic groups against each other in order to maintain control. In the immediate aftermath of independence, it resulted in the deaths of millions of people.

The Brits are no different from the French, Germans and Scandinavians when it comes to slandering Americans, yet they get a free pass.

The Balfour Declaration was immediately followed by the White Paper which gave the same land to the Arabs, creating the intellectual justification for the current conflict. Also, the British did keep Jews out of the area, in the 1933-1945 period when it could have saved millions. The French would have simply denied the right to a Jewish homeland in the first place and that would have ended the issue. It would at least have been honest, rather than, shall I say it, perfidious. And any Jew who has lived in both countries knows how much better it is to be a Jew in France than in Britain. FYI, France has had 4 Jewish Prime Ministers, and France has over twice as many Jews as Britain.

John Thacker,

The notion that Britain ended slavery is a lie. India, Burma, East Africa and its Arab colonies maintained slavery until the end of the British rule. Some parts of British East Africa, like Sudan, and much of the Arabian peninsula still have slavery, as do Bangla Desh and Pakistan.

We've improved on them but England was the source of our traditions. If we are drifting apart now, it is only because they have bought into the European model. Pity.

As for British interference in the US, of course they did. They were the leading power. We "interfere" in many countries.

"the one big mistake we made in Iraq was undertaking the occupation and not handing over sovereignty to Iraqis immediately."

We did. Its just that you like everybody in the MSM has a sesame street span of attention. We did the turnover as fast and as well as we could. The insurgency has a while to run its course, and we may have to bomb Syria first, but it will be over in a couple of years. And that will be very fast also.

Bart:

I humbly invite you to peruse my thoughts on Anglophobia. You'd be an excellent candidate to contribute "Why the Americans hate the English", and would have ample opportunity to let rip in your wonderfully full-blooded but eloquent style.

Click my monicker below.

i would say that on the whole americans are very fond of england. the bad feelings mostly run the other direction.

Great line, Brit :

We greet sneers with patronising smiles. We infuriate the Scots by cheering on their plucky little sports teams.

Plus any post that includes "the English Song" is a good one in my book.

Thanks Joe

On sporting occasions when the Home nations are split up, the Scottish, Welsh and Irish each have their own anthems, but we English continue to sing the British anthem, 'God save the Queen'.

There is some debate about whether we ought to have a sassenach-only song.

Sadly, my campaign for the Flanders and Swann number has so far garnered little support in officialdom.