Ecuador Uses Assange To Bludgeon Britain

The UK is now painted as a bully in the standoff over the WikiLeaks founder

Judging by the Stonhenge-to-Sgt. Pepper spectacle of the London Olympics' opening ceremonies, Brits take jolly good pride in knowing their history. But here's an early 20th-century episode Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service apparently forgot: the Venezuela Crisis of 1902, when British and other European warships blockaded and bombarded the South American country's ports to force it to pay foreign debts. It was a classic instance of "gunboat diplomacy," and it's the sort of thing that Latin Americans, given the centuries of often ugly foreign intervention they've experienced, certainly tend to remember.