Not content with endangering the economy by pushing through $8 trillion in bailouts and welfare, Obama has now insulted the British, our only major ally in fighting the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
Obama did this by dissing both the late Winston Churchill, who led Europe’s fight against the Nazis, and the current British Prime Minister. Staffers then compounded the offense by deriding Britain as being no more important than any of the world’s 190 other countries. (That’s right. The country that invented parliamentary democracy and whose troops fought and died with ours in Korea and other bloody wars against totalitarian regimes is deemed no more important than a tiny county like Nauru, which has only 14,000 people and survives through money laundering and selling passports to non-citizens).
The only European country that has really helped the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq is Britain. France, Germany, etc., have only sent token contingents to Afghanistan (for non-combat roles) and nothing to Iraq. The less Britain is willing to do for us in the future, the more of our own troops we will have to put into Afghanistan in the future.
By the way, Obama’s election won’t get us anything from the French. The French president effusively praised Obama before his election, but then refused to send any additional troops or personnel to help the U.S. in Afghanistan after the election.
I recently visited my French relatives, who live near Nice. All of them –- ranging from my wife’s avowedly Marxist father, who called me the night of Obama’s election at 2 a.m. in the morning to congratulate me, to her centrist, more distant relatives –- say that Obama’s election doesn’t entitle the U.S. to any additional help or cooperation, whether it’s ending bans on American products, or sending more French troops to Afghanistan.
My wife’s dad takes Obama’s election as America’s confession that we were wrong all these years – a racist, imperialistic, oppressive, hegemonic power that deserves no help.
My wife’s more distant relatives, many of whom like the U.S., nevertheless say that France should look after itself and its own industries, and let the U.S., which is wealthier and more powerful, take on the exclusive role of rooting out the Taliban. And they think now is not the time for France to end its trade restrictions on U.S. products, even those that the WTO has said are invalid, since France needs all the jobs it can get.
Obama campaigned on the theme that he would get our allies to help us more, by replacing George Bush, whom he claimed had singlehandedly antagonized the world. But Obama’s election is getting us nothing from our “allies,” and only serves to embolden hostile countries like Russia, which ridiculed the Obama Administration for a recent gaffe in which the State Department incompetently translated the Russian word “reset,” with embarrassing results.
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{ 4 comments }
The UK tortured Obama’s grandpappy. With that in consideration I think his response to the UK was most restrained.
It’s not like he declared war on the UK like his predecessor did on a country who had tried to hurt his father. The UK actually DID hurt Obama’s Grandfather. Therefore there is more justification for Obama to go to war with Britain than there ever was for Bush to go to war with Iraq.
The notion of going to war with another nation on nothing more than personal, rather than political, military or economic reasons is the first step toward barbarism, according to Sun Tzu. Treating them with disrespect is basically the same thing on a much smaller scale, also according to him. I will follow the mental lead of a teacher who is reverenced as all but a demigod of strategy by literally BILLIONS of people…and call Obama a fool for his actions. Good day, all.
Obama should appreciate the fact that the British saved countless thousands of Kenyans — perhaps including his own family — from slavery.
Britain largely ended the slave trade, in a generations-long crusade against the slave trade that cost some British naval officers and troops their lives.
Arab slave traders abducted and bought hundreds of thousands of people in East Africa — including Obama's father's country of Kenya — until British seapower largely put a stop to the slave trade.
In nearby Zanzibar, off the East African coast, black people were worked to death by the thousands on the plantations. They died usually within five years of their being brought to Zanzibar, in conditions reminiscent of the Third Reich.
Let's not forget Australia supplying 1000 troops with little restrictions unlike the Europeans who merely are there to wave the flag as if the Taliban are going to be afraid of people who are not allowed to use their weapons. Talk about paper tigers. It seems only the anglo countries are active militarily in fighting the Taliban.
What Afghanistan has done is rip the mask off the Europeans and their false front. They are toothless and therefore their diplomacy has nothing to back it up. Words without force are empty meaningless gestures. This is extremely dangerous in the face of an agressive expansionist powers like Iran, DPRK and Venezuela. Only the naive believe those who support and deal in terror can be talked out of their behavior. Talking is merely a strategic delay to prepare the ground for future aggression. Hitler willingly negotiated with Neville Chamberlain because he knew England would not back up what it negotiated, thus started WWII.
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