cancel2 2022
Canceled
I have a lot of time for the Obama administration but it is not making many friends in the UK with their lacklustre support for its main ally.
NO SURPRISE WHEN USA LETS BRITAIN DOWN AGAIN
The USA has decided to take a strictly “neutral” stance over Britain’s spat with Argentina (Source)
Wednesday March 10,2010
By Rod LiddleSource
SO President Obama is not turning out to be the friend that Britain imagined he would be.
The remarkable thing, in a way, is that British people are surprised and feel affronted. Because it was ever thus. And this is how it will always be. When will we learn? There is no such thing as a special relationship between Britain and the USA, except insofar as it exists in our minds and in the opportunistic soundbites from American politicians when they think nobody else in the world is listening.
Every time our interests are threatened we look with puppy dog eyes across the Atlantic, imploring our friends to whom we have given so much support to help us out. And every time without fail the message comes back: yo, Britain: swivel. We couldn’t give a damn.
The USA has decided to take a strictly “neutral” stance over Britain’s spat with Argentina regarding oil exploration around the Falkland Islands, instead of sailing to our side, as some deludedly expected. After all, the hurt Brits argue, how many Argentinian soldiers have died in Helmand province, or in Basra, having taken up the opportunity to stand four square behind America, despite the opprobrium of the rest of the world? How many billions have been
spent by the Argentinian taxpayer to support these fraternal military adventures and endured terrorist activity at
home as a consequence? None at all.
Please do not for a moment suppose that our loyalty matters to the Americans, that we are allies who look out for each other, bonded together by language, history and a love of liberal democracy. You must be joking. There is a sort of special relationship between the USA and Britain but it goes in only one direction: it always has. The Americans were a long way short of fully supporting Britain when the Argentinian fascist junta invaded the Falklands
in 1982. Back then the Argies were a part of the USA’s devious machinations in South America and the White House felt disinclined to disrupt their operations to give Britain, a liberal democracy whose territory had been violated, anything like full support.
So they stalled and tried to push us towards a negotiated settlement, which would almost certainly have meant losing the Falklands for good. The truth, then, is that the French were of more use to Britain, plying us with information about the capabilities of the Argentinian airforce (which, for sure, they had equipped).
A little later the USA actually invaded British sovereign territory in Grenada and overthrew the government, without having even so much as tipped us off in advance. This was at a time when this much-vaunted special relationship could not have been closer or cosier: Thatcher and Reagan, ideological bedfellows too.
But it mattered not one jot. When push came to shove the USA looked after its own interests and the troops invaded British territory. It is said the Queen was outraged but who in Washington cares about the Queen? Then there is the IRA. The USA was the hub of fundraising activity for the republican terrorists, through Noraid, and also a hugely convenient bolt-hole when some act of psychopathic violence was perpetrated by the IRA and the maniacs wished for somewhere to hide. In 30 years not a single alleged IRA terrorist was extradited back to Britain, America
always took the view that the murderers would not have received a fair trial from the British courts.
This was true even after 9/11 when the USA, suddenly a bit picky about what terrorists it had living within its borders, started to worry about the lunatics it was harbouring. The IRA was not initially within its list of proscribed organisations. Fundraising for terrorism continued on the streets of Boston and New York. Even though the USA belatedly signed a reciprocal extradition act there has been no IRA terrorist extradited to this country to face justice.
We followed the USA into war in Korea, probably rightly, and lost a lot of men as a consequence. Later the USA was the single biggest factor in our humiliating defeat over the Suez Canal in Egypt, they would not back us. A British Labour government gave the USA moral support over its ill-advised adventure in Vietnam and Cambodia. But nothing ever comes back, there is no quid pro quo.
Fair enough, you might argue. The foreign policy of the USA should be pragmatic and designed to achieve the best possible outcome for the country, never mind any sentimental attachment or feelings of loyalty or reciprocity to its old colonial master.
But that is not how we think the USA behaves. We think this special relationship exists. And every time we are let down. How much was this chimera present in Tony Blair’s mind when he decided to go to war against Iraq in the spring of 2003? Nothing more than a delusion, as it turns out.
The way it will always be.
NO SURPRISE WHEN USA LETS BRITAIN DOWN AGAIN
The USA has decided to take a strictly “neutral” stance over Britain’s spat with Argentina (Source)
Wednesday March 10,2010
By Rod LiddleSource
SO President Obama is not turning out to be the friend that Britain imagined he would be.
The remarkable thing, in a way, is that British people are surprised and feel affronted. Because it was ever thus. And this is how it will always be. When will we learn? There is no such thing as a special relationship between Britain and the USA, except insofar as it exists in our minds and in the opportunistic soundbites from American politicians when they think nobody else in the world is listening.
Every time our interests are threatened we look with puppy dog eyes across the Atlantic, imploring our friends to whom we have given so much support to help us out. And every time without fail the message comes back: yo, Britain: swivel. We couldn’t give a damn.
The USA has decided to take a strictly “neutral” stance over Britain’s spat with Argentina regarding oil exploration around the Falkland Islands, instead of sailing to our side, as some deludedly expected. After all, the hurt Brits argue, how many Argentinian soldiers have died in Helmand province, or in Basra, having taken up the opportunity to stand four square behind America, despite the opprobrium of the rest of the world? How many billions have been
spent by the Argentinian taxpayer to support these fraternal military adventures and endured terrorist activity at
home as a consequence? None at all.
Please do not for a moment suppose that our loyalty matters to the Americans, that we are allies who look out for each other, bonded together by language, history and a love of liberal democracy. You must be joking. There is a sort of special relationship between the USA and Britain but it goes in only one direction: it always has. The Americans were a long way short of fully supporting Britain when the Argentinian fascist junta invaded the Falklands
in 1982. Back then the Argies were a part of the USA’s devious machinations in South America and the White House felt disinclined to disrupt their operations to give Britain, a liberal democracy whose territory had been violated, anything like full support.
So they stalled and tried to push us towards a negotiated settlement, which would almost certainly have meant losing the Falklands for good. The truth, then, is that the French were of more use to Britain, plying us with information about the capabilities of the Argentinian airforce (which, for sure, they had equipped).
A little later the USA actually invaded British sovereign territory in Grenada and overthrew the government, without having even so much as tipped us off in advance. This was at a time when this much-vaunted special relationship could not have been closer or cosier: Thatcher and Reagan, ideological bedfellows too.
But it mattered not one jot. When push came to shove the USA looked after its own interests and the troops invaded British territory. It is said the Queen was outraged but who in Washington cares about the Queen? Then there is the IRA. The USA was the hub of fundraising activity for the republican terrorists, through Noraid, and also a hugely convenient bolt-hole when some act of psychopathic violence was perpetrated by the IRA and the maniacs wished for somewhere to hide. In 30 years not a single alleged IRA terrorist was extradited back to Britain, America
always took the view that the murderers would not have received a fair trial from the British courts.
This was true even after 9/11 when the USA, suddenly a bit picky about what terrorists it had living within its borders, started to worry about the lunatics it was harbouring. The IRA was not initially within its list of proscribed organisations. Fundraising for terrorism continued on the streets of Boston and New York. Even though the USA belatedly signed a reciprocal extradition act there has been no IRA terrorist extradited to this country to face justice.
We followed the USA into war in Korea, probably rightly, and lost a lot of men as a consequence. Later the USA was the single biggest factor in our humiliating defeat over the Suez Canal in Egypt, they would not back us. A British Labour government gave the USA moral support over its ill-advised adventure in Vietnam and Cambodia. But nothing ever comes back, there is no quid pro quo.
Fair enough, you might argue. The foreign policy of the USA should be pragmatic and designed to achieve the best possible outcome for the country, never mind any sentimental attachment or feelings of loyalty or reciprocity to its old colonial master.
But that is not how we think the USA behaves. We think this special relationship exists. And every time we are let down. How much was this chimera present in Tony Blair’s mind when he decided to go to war against Iraq in the spring of 2003? Nothing more than a delusion, as it turns out.
The way it will always be.
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