Britain’s Prince Andrew “verged on the rude” and was “astonishingly candid” at a gathering in the Kyrgyz Republic, according to a diplomatic cable filed by the U.S. Embassy there. Among the targets of his boorish ranting were corruption investigators and journalists ‘poking their noses’ into Britain’s sleazy international arms deals.
The two-hour brunch involved Andrew and various guests, who discussed the investment climate for Western firms, corruption, influence and such forth. The report, peppered with incongruous wisecracks, is essential reading. It’s as if the author was compelled to indulge his or her intelligence as an antidote to the excruciating event, to the otherwise inexpressible horror of discovering a massive multi-century breeding program whose objective was to place not a brilliant son of Atreus amid the dunes of central Asia, but Andrew Albert Christian Edward Mountbatten-Windsor:
Prince Andrew reacted with almost neuralgic patriotism whenever any comparison between the United States and United Kingdom came up. For example, one British businessman noted that despite the “overwhelming might of the American economy compared to ours” the amount of American and British investment in Kyrgyzstan was similar. Snapped the Duke: “No surprise there. The Americans don’t understand geography. Never have. In the U.K., we have the best geography teachers in the world!”
Everyone who has spent time in England will have encountered this boomer-generation defensiveness over the U.S.’s inheritance of the Anglo-American power tools. I bet you can guess what he thinks of the French! Also reviled are the hacks:
He railed at British anti-corruption investigators, who had had the “idiocy” of almost scuttling the Al-Yamama deal with Saudi Arabia. (The Duke was referencing an investigation, subsequently closed, into alleged kickbacks a senior Saudi royal had received in exchange for the multi-year, lucrative BAE Systems contract to provide equipment and training to Saudi security forces.) … He then went on to “these (expletive) journalists, especially from the National Guardian, who poke their noses everywhere” and (presumably) make it harder for British businessmen to do business.
CANDID DISCUSSION WITH PRINCE ANDREW ON THE KYRGYZ
ECONOMY AND THE “GREAT GAME” [Wikileaks]