Whoa, Chris, what's that you say? The Nato bombing precipitated Operation Horseshoe? I don't remember you admitting so much at the time.
this though, need some unpacking:
>Carrington has the languid civilised voice of the British Foreign Office
...
> It does not
>believe in the universal rights of man.
What, like Tony Blair does? Human Rights in Blair's mouth have become something else, something that does not arise from the will of individuals but must be imposed upon them from outside. The extension of the Code Napoleon liberated the European middle classes and established civil freedom from Paris to Eastern Europe. By contrast, Blair's military occupation is medieval, imposing ethnic administrations and High Representatives.
I think I prefer the cynical honesty of Carrington to the heavily ideological apologetics of Blair's 'human rights' which seem more crudely imperialistic than Jimmy Carter's.
But you are wrong about the Foreign Office which has long since junked all that old fashioned stuff in favour of what you champion: conflict resolution and so on.
> It knows nothing of modern concepts
>of conflict resolution.
And as for this
>It assumes that Britain should naturally lead, by
>virtue of the natural qualities of its upper class.
Blair assumes that Britain should naturally lead by virtue of the moral qualities of its educated classes. The metaphysics is slightly different, but the essential structure and function of the ideology is identical. As one Washington Wag had it, Blair was determined to fight to the last American GI. -- Jim heartfield