America's always tried to do down Britain

[cancel2 2022]

America's ALWAYS tried to do down Britain

By Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Last updated at 10:40 AM on 11th June 2010




Friend or foe? As the oil continues to gush in the Gulf of Mexico, angry rhetoric has gushed from President Barack Obama's lips


Has the worm turned at last? As the oil continues to gush in the Gulf of Mexico, angry rhetoric has gushed from President Barack Obama's lips. His rabid denunciations of BP have damaged the interests not only of that company but of most British people, in a way that must make us wonder whether he leads a friendly country.
Vince Cable, the new Business Secretary, calls Obama's rhetoric 'extreme and unhelpful'; London mayor Boris Johnson says it's 'anti-British', adding that 'BP is paying a very, very heavy price indeed'.
Bemusingly, David Cameron says only that he understands the U.S. administration's 'frustration', although he promises to take up the matter with Obama, after the Prime Minister returns from Afghanistan - where British troops are fighting and dying on behalf of the United States, it may be recalled.
'Extreme and unhelpful' is no exaggeration. Obama has played to the gallery by saying that he would like to sack Tony Hayward, head of BP; the president talks in a cheap way about 'kicking ass'. Whether or not the American president can kick our asses, he can certainly hurt our wallets and purses.
As BP's share price has plummeted, it has lost £55billion of its market value, and the company's entire outlook is very bleak, which affects most of us. Every British insurance company, building society and pension fund has large holdings of BP shares in its portfolio.
If you have a pension, at present or in prospect, your income falls with every sour word Obama speaks. It's a fine way for a friend to behave, if indeed we should regard the president as a friend.
His rhetoric is repellently hypocritical as well as demagogic. Quite apart from the fact that Hayward and his colleagues have every interest in plugging the spill, for years past BP has filled Washington's coffers with tax revenue, and fed the American people's unquenchable thirst for cheap petrol.


More...

• MICHAEL HANLON: When disaster strikes, the U.S. will NEVER take the blame
• MARY ELLEN SYNON: Why is Cameron surprised at Obama's views on 'British Petroleum'?
• ALEX BRUMMER: This great British company faces death by a thousand cuts
• MAIL COMMENT: Time for Mr Cameron to speak up for BP
• CHRIS LEADBEATER: Don't let compassion fatigue disguise how much stands to be lost to this oil

When Obama continually refers to BP as 'British Petroleum', which is no longer its formal name, he is saying something revealing about himself, and his Anglophobic spite will come as no surprise to those who have followed his career, and read his memoir Dreams From my Father.
He seems to have made up the part about his father being tortured by the British in Kenya, but there's no question that Obama nurses a disdain for and even dislike of this country.


Safety measures: Pelicans fly over a small island off the coast of Louisiana which has been surrounded by a boom to protect it from the oil spill. The disaster has wiped billions off BP's value

Instead of reciprocating his feelings, we should maybe take the opportunity to look harder at our connection with the United States, and at that ridiculous phrase 'special relationship'. On the whole Englishmen have used the phrase much more than Americans, although one exception was the affable if inept Senator John McCain.
A few years before he was defeated for the presidency by Obama, he visited England, and was interviewed. 'The special relationship between our two countries will endure throughout the 21st century,' McCain said. 'I say that with total confidence because it's lasted for 200 years.'
It has what? The senator's '200 years' would take us back to the beginning of the 19th century, or let's say to 1812. What was special about the relationship that year was that the two countries were at war.
Shortly after he had taken us into the appalling Iraq war, by way of telling a pack of porkies with Alastair Campbell's sordid help, Tony Blair visited Washington to be greeted by President Bush - 'Thank you, friend' - and cheered to the echo by Congress for services rendered. In his smarmy speech, Blair mentioned the burning of Washington by the British in 1814 and obsequiously said: 'I know it's kinda late, but sorry.'
Had he known more history, he might have been aware that this was only one episode in a very fraught story. For most of the 19th century a large part of the British Army had to be stationed in Canada to protect it from its southern neighbour, and at one point Sir Robert Peel warned Parliament about the grave danger of a war with the United States.


Environmental disaster: President Obama and National Incident Commander Thad Allen make a statement after being briefed on the BP oil spill. Obama has been accused of handling the crisis in an 'anti-British' way


In 1895 the two countries nearly went to war again over an incomprehensible border dispute in South America, and bloodshed was avoided only by the forbearance of Lord Salisbury, the prime minister.
A certain kind of fawning Tory likes to talk about the way the Americans have generously rescued us in the past century. This is historical claptrap. When the Great War began in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson worried that he might need to intervene - on the German side.
In 1917, the United States did at last enter the war, after the British had suffered hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. Even then the Americans sustained very few casualties by European standards, as they did in the next war.
This time they waited from September 1939 until December 1941, and then they went to war only because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on the United States (not the other way round). And before that, the supposedly generous Lend-Lease agreement had stripped us of overseas assets and destroyed the British exporting economy for decades to come.
Any idea of a special relationship should have been ended in 1956 when Washington pulled the rug from under the British and French when their troops had gone to Suez. That didn't stop President Johnson from subsequently demanding British troops to serve in Vietnam. Mercifully, Harold Wilson, in his one good deed as prime minister, politely declined.
Since then we have been taken into another terrible war in which we had no reason to fight by Tony Blair, who throughout his career assiduously served the interests of another country. Our rewards from Washington have ranged from a tariff likely to destroy what's left of the British steel industry, to studied American neutrality over the Falklands, to Obama's grandstanding attacks on BP.
A year ago Gordon Brown visited Washington to be publicly humiliated by Obama (remember the exchange of gifts: thoughtful presents for the president and his children, trashy DVDs and toys for the Browns in return).
If a dark cloud of oil can now have a silver lining, then it might at least lead us to reassess our ignoble relationship with Washington. If the American president is going to ignore or even damage British interests, then let him.
But might not our own government stand up for those interests? For a start, some of the money we've all lost through the BP debacle, and presidential venom, could at least be recouped by bringing our troops home from a hopeless American war in Afghanistan.


Rescue: The Discover Enterprise sits over the leak site as it burns off crude oil in Gulf Shores, Alabama



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...#ixzz0qXz1xDz5

[PostmodernProphet]

If you have a pension, at present or in prospect, your income falls with every sour word Obama speaks. It's a fine way for a friend to behave, if indeed we should regard the president as a friend.
His rhetoric is repellently hypocritical as well as demagogic. Quite apart from the fact that Hayward and his colleagues have every interest in plugging the spill, for years past BP has filled Washington's coffers with tax revenue, and fed the American people's unquenchable thirst for cheap petrol.

so on one hand, your pensioners are living off the profits of selling oil to Americans and on the other hand we're to blame because we have a thirst for cheap gas?.....seems to me you're at risk not because we want cheap but because you want money......

[cancel2 2022]

so on one hand, your pensioners are living off the profits of selling oil to Americans and on the other hand we're to blame because we have a thirst for cheap gas?.....seems to me you're at risk not because we want cheap but because you want money......

If I knew what the fuck you were on about, I might answer you.

[Cypress]

Has the worm turned at last? As the oil continues to gush in the Gulf of Mexico, angry rhetoric has gushed from President Barack Obama's lips. His rabid denunciations of BP have damaged the interests not only of that company but of most British people, in a way that must make us wonder whether he leads a friendly country.

Is this from the Onion?

So this dude's contention is that when americans got pissed off at american oil giant Exxon for the Valdez spill, the only possible interpretation is that we hated our own country? That we became an "unfriendly" country....to ourselves?

[Damocles]

Dude. Nobody's blaming Britain, they're blaming a company who was running the rig, the attempt to point fingers at people who used to run the rig is sad. That's like blaming the past owner of a car for an accident the current owner got in...

Ironically the article talks about the US not taking any responsibility, while whining about some other people who used to run the platform and trying to make it somehow their fault...

[cancel2 2022]

Dude. Nobody's blaming Britain, they're blaming a company who was running the rig, the attempt to point fingers at people who used to run the rig is sad. That's like blaming the past owner of a car for an accident the current owner got in...

Ironically the article talks about the US not taking any responsibility, while whining about some other people who used to run the platform and trying to make it somehow their fault...

I can assure you that is not how it's seen over here, all the personnel involved in that accident were American yet somehow it's turned into a xenophobic rant against Britain. The latest piece of bullshit is someone calling for BP to compensate other oil companies whilst there is a moratorium on offshore drilling.

BP's share price has plummeted and much of that is due to the ludicrous crap being spouted by US politicians. Why can't you people grow up and just deal with the problem without all the bullshit hysteria about fishermen and tourism. If you want the oil then sometimes accidents happen especially when you are working at depths of nearly a mile below the surface. To my mind, I am just amazed it doesn't happen more often considering how difficult and treacherous the conditions are.

[Damocles]

I can assure you that is not how it's seen over here, all the personnel involved in that accident were American yet somehow it's turned into a xenophobic rant against Britain. The latest piece of bullshit is someone calling for BP to compensate other oil companies whilst there is a moratorium on offshore drilling.

BP's share price has plummeted and much of that is due to the ludicrous crap being spouted by US politicians. Why can't you people grow up and just deal with the problem without all the bullshit hysteria about fishermen and tourism. If you want the oil then sometimes accidents happen especially when you are working at depths of nearly a mile below the surface. To my mind, I am just amazed it doesn't happen more often considering how difficult and treacherous the conditions are.

BP got in a car accident and you are desperately trying to blame somebody else because the company used to have "British" in it's name?

Seriously, that's weak. People in the US can definitely understand the difference between a company and a nation. Maybe this comes from your link of sports teams to companies, it fuzzies up how you think of companies. Anyway, if BP's stock goes down because of their spill (and the stock can be purchased by people who aren't in the US as you very well know) it isn't because the politicians are talking about their accident. It's because they spilled about a billion gallons of oil into the ocean.

[Topspin]

You guys don't even have straight teeth, we are not shocked your scared. We will only skull drag British petroleum shareholder criminals.

[cancel2 2022]

BP got in a car accident and you are desperately trying to blame somebody else because the company has "British" in it's name? Seriously, that's weak.

What's weak? BP used Transocean and Halliburton to operate the rig yet they have so far managed to keep under the radar whilst BP gets all the shit shovelled on them. That you cannot see things from our perspective is not my problem.

US companies have a long track record of evading their obligations, the compensation for Bhopal has only been around $100,000,000 for the deaths of over 15,000 people and 200,000 severely affected. BP will probably end paying the shrimp fisherman considerably more than that! No one has ever been indicted and the court cases are still going on in India 25 years later. Only last year on this board there were people screaming for offshore oil to be got out as quickly as possible now they are screaming that they weren't taken enough precautions.

[cancel2 2022]

You guys don't even have straight teeth, we are not shocked your scared. We will only skull drag British petroleum shareholder criminals.

I truly think that you are schizoid, can you have a talk with your better half and agree a posting strategy?

[PostmodernProphet]

If I knew what the fuck you were on about, I might answer you.

I should have known I would have to dumb it down for you......you are simultaneously condemning us for demanding cheap oil while worrying that you won't be able to survive without the profits you earn providing it to us.....if it's been the profits you earn off us that have been keeping your pensioners alive, I guess it wasn't that cheap.....

[Topspin]

Transoceanic tried to save British petro from themselves. Guess living in that shit hole of an island makes them disregard safety and common sense

[Damocles]

What's weak? BP used Transocean and Halliburton to operate the rig yet they have so far managed to keep under the radar whilst BP gets all the shit shovelled on them. That you cannot see things from our perspective is not my problem.

US companies have a long track record of evading their obligations, the compensation for Bhopal has only been around $100,000,000 for the deaths of over 15,000 people and 200,000 severely affected. BP will probably end paying the shrimp fisherman considerably more than that! No one has ever been indicted and the court cases are still going on in India 25 years later. Only last year on this board there were people screaming for offshore oil to be got out as quickly as possible now they are screaming that they weren't taken enough precautions.

Again, they didn't stay "under the radar" the testimony is clear (operators testified that Transoceanic and BP execs argued and that BP 'put its foot down and insisted' that they not follow the safety regs), the decisions that led to the disaster were deliberately made by BP execs. Now you're trying to blame passengers when BP ran the red light...

I just find this kind of weird hypocrisy entertaining. Why are you trying to push the responsibility onto some other companies when BP was driving that rig? Then, after you try to push that buck to some other desk, why do you try to say that somebody else is passing that buck?

[USFREEDOM911]

I can assure you that is not how it's seen over here, all the personnel involved in that accident were American yet somehow it's turned into a xenophobic rant against Britain. The latest piece of bullshit is someone calling for BP to compensate other oil companies whilst there is a moratorium on offshore drilling.

BP's share price has plummeted and much of that is due to the ludicrous crap being spouted by US politicians. Why can't you people grow up and just deal with the problem without all the bullshit hysteria about fishermen and tourism. If you want the oil then sometimes accidents happen especially when you are working at depths of nearly a mile below the surface. To my mind, I am just amazed it doesn't happen more often considering how difficult and treacherous the conditions are.

Hold on to your socks; because I agree with the "accidents happen" remark.

What I do take offense at, is that you didn't seem to have this same attitude when you were comlaining about how the US has been handling the Middle East war.

Finger pointing changes nothing and tends to drive people farther away and instead of creating an atmosphere of listening, it generally creates a situation where they stop listening to all the complaining.
I also hold to the idea that since no one knows, at this time, what happened to cause the oil rig to explode; that this needs to be looked into and investigated, in order to see if shortcuts were used.
If it can be shown that decisions were made that caused this, then they need to be held accountable; but we also can't use the justification of what is FELT they SHOULD have done either.
If they followed the regualtions, then they did as required.

All this talk of what other countries REQUIRE, is BS; because it's always easy to play the armchair quarterback, at the end of the game.

[Mott the Hoople]

You guys don't even have straight teeth, we are not shocked your scared. We will only skull drag British petroleum shareholder criminals.

Hey! I'm an American and my teeth are as crooked as a Lousianna MBA Oil Mans ledger!