Bloodmoney

Revenge, at first though sweet,

Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.

- JOHN MILTON, PARADISE LOST

First, you push on your territories, where you have no business to be, and where you had promised not to go; secondly, your intrusion provokes resentment, and resentment means resistance. Thirdly, you instantly cry out that the people are rebellious and their act is rebellion… Fourthly, you send out a force to stamp out rebellion; and fifthly, having spread bloodshed, confusion and anarchy, you declare with your hands uplifted to the heavens that moral reasons forced you to stay: for if you were to leave, this territory would be left in a condition which no civilized power could contemplate with equanimity or with composure.

- VISCOUNT JOHN MORLEY, STATE SECRETARY FOR INDIA, 1905-1910, summarizing the anger of Pashtun tribesmen; quoted in C. F. Andrews, The Challenge of the North West Frontier, 1937