Quotes

'How can they have the arrogance to dictate to us where we should go or which countries should be our friends? Gadhafi is my friend. He supported us when we were alone and when those who tried to prevent my visit here today were our enemies. They have no morals. We cannot accept that a state assumes the role of the world's policeman.'

Nelson Mandela, quoted in Washington Post, November 4, 1997

'The situation in Kuwait is becoming more and more embarrassing, and the time has come for looking it in the face...We have saddled ourselves with an impossible client in the person of the sheikh. He is apparently an untrustworthy savage...'

Lord Lansdowne, British Foreign Secretary 1902

'British interests in the Middle East have changed little in the past 200 years and are as valid today as they were in the time of Napoleon. Today they are also, to a very large extent, the interests of the whole western world...Oil has given the Middle East a new and dangerous value....'

Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Secretary, 19 January 1949

'I will never apologise for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are.'

George Bush

'Being the world's only superpower means never having to say you're sorry.'

William Blum, author of Rogue State.

'We shall be wise to eschew any experiments tending to rush them (the tribes of Iraq) into highly specialized institutions—a policy which could commend itself only to those who are never wearied by words that signify nothing.'

Gertrude Bell, The Arab War, 1917