"India, Pakistan - we made some quite serious mistakes...We were complacent with what happened in Kashmir, the boundaries weren't published until two days after independence. Bad story for us, the consequences are still there... [In Afghanistan] we played less than a glorious role over a century and a half... The odd lines for Iraq's borders were drawn by Brits... The Balfour declaration and the contradictory assurances which were being given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being given to the Israelis - again an interesting story for us but not an entirely honourable one."
[Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary]
We made some quite serious mistakes
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And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten -- indeed the word "terrorized" is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.
