Our special friends

November 13th, 2007 Written by Biz

I must admit to having been somewhat nauseated by the sight of Gordon Brown attending a ‘white tie’ dinner at London’s Guildhall yesterday. Now I do not bear Mr Brown any personal ill will; it is just that the sight of a British Prime Minister once again making grovelling speeches about our special relationship with the United States and generally ‘kissing American a*se’ was pitiful to watch.
 

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not anti-American…that would be stupid as I have never met any Americans to be able to make any judgements about them. The closest that I have come, is watching American politicians on the television and my resulting impression is that their politicians are only fractionally more ineffectual, incompetent, self-serving, corrupt and unintelligent that any politicians anywhere else.
 

What really does annoy me though, is that politicians and plebeians alike, parrot this much vaunted ‘special relationship’ that we are meant to have with America, without actually appraising themselves of the historical facts of our interactions with that country. In the interests of factual revelation, let us now look at the history of our two nations.
 

Before starting though, there is a caveat to the following facts: when American troops did fight alongside us in the two World Wars, their dedication, bravery, and self-sacrifice is beyond question…likewise, their intervention unquestionably turned the tide in our favour.
 

American War of independence
 

We got thrashed and booted out…not a good start to a ‘special relationship’.
 

The First World War
 

Starting in 1914, this terrible war decimated an entire generation. It showed no signs of abating and we were literally on our knees. America in the meanwhile remained neutral, until the American liner Lusitania was sunk by a U-Boat. Only that, finally prompted America enter the fray in 1917. Had that not happened, it is likely that they would never have assisted us.
 

The Second World War
 

Starting in 1939, we were once more at war with Germany. Once again America remained neutral, even as were on our knees and about to be defeated and possibly even invaded. It was only after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour that the Americans finally assisted us in December 1941. Were it not for this lucky event, it is arguably unlikely, that they would have joined the war at all.
 

British Mandate of Palestine
 

Money and weapons poured into Palestine to support the Zionist terror attacks against our Troops, Police and Civil Administration; it is not known how much this was directly abetted by the American Government, however, the Americans did avidly support a Jewish State in our territory, they took no steps to prevent money and supplies reaching terrorists and they never condemned the deaths of our soldiers.
 

The Northern Ireland Conflict
 

Millions of dollars raised by NORAID in the States, funded the IRA terror campaign of bombings and murders for the 30 odd years of the troubles. America put a cursory amount of recourses to trying to end this and only pursued the matter in a half hearted manner for fear of alienating their Irish / American voters at home. They never publicly and unequivocally condemned the IRA murderers.
 

The Falklands War
 

We went out there and whipped arse! Not an American ally in sight though. They didn’t help us with supplies or logistics either; nor did they even condemn Argentina in the United Nations Resolutions of the time…they abstained in order not to upset their relations with South American countries.
 

The Gulf Wars
 

Stood ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with America and having the best Army in the world…we kicked arse again! Got a bit dangerous at times…our American allies not quite having got the hang of us being on their side, actually killed more of our troops with ‘friendly fire’, than the Iraqis did with unfriendly fire. Strange thing though, we seem to have got stuck with being stationed in the most dangerous and inhospitable part of the country and all the lucrative multi-million dollar reconstruction contracts seem to have gone to American companies instead of being shared out between us!
 

Now tallying up the plusses and minuses in this special relationship, it seems to me that we seem to have been specially short-changed somewhere along the line. In any case, maybe it would be safer for us to not be friends with America…at least they might stop shooting at us then!
 

 

Entry Filed under: Rants & Views