In ‘Unpeople’ Curtis notes that Yemen and the other case studies he examined in declassified government files illustrate the three basic principles that guide British foreign policy.
The first is the systematic deception of the public by British ministers, which is ‘deeply embedded in British policy-making.’ (Curtis, ‘Unpeople’, p. 3). Blair’s lies about Iraq fit comfortably as part of this trend.
The second principle is that policy-makers are typically open and frank about their real goals in secret documents. The glaring gap between state realpolitik and government claims of benevolence is rooted in a fundamental contempt for the general population. As Curtis says:
‘The foreign-policy decision-making system is so secretive, elitist and unaccountable that policy-makers know they can get away with almost anything, and they will deploy whatever arguments are needed to do this.’ (Ibid., p .3)
The third basic principle is that humanitarian concerns do not feature in the rationale for foreign policy. Curtis observes bluntly:
‘In the thousands of government files I have looked through for this and other books, I have barely seen any reference to human rights at all. Where such concerns are evoked, they are only for public-relations purposes.’ (Ibid., p .3)