Filed under: Freedom, Heartwarming, History, Latin America, Politics, United Kingdom | Tags: "The Special Relationship", The Falkland Islands, The Falkland War 1982
Reader Subsidy Eye posted this video in the comments, but it’s too good to miss. The great war for the Falkland Islands in 1982. A little long, but worth every minute. British pluck, daring, and wonderful British humor. Enjoy the story of the Tin Triangle.
Filed under: Foreign Policy, United Kingdom | Tags: "The Special Relationship", Diplomacy, Restoring America's Image, The Royal Wedding
The invitation list to the United Kingdom’s biggest royal wedding in thirty years is out. A bartender from Mustique got an invitation, but the Obamas did not. U.S. Presidents have always been invited until now.
The list is always fascinating, for the royal family historically puts on the grandest and most closely watched nuptials in the world. The head of PR for Audi is invited, a Texas billionaire, David and Victoria Beckham, a Romanian count, parliamentary assistants from small European states— sort of underlines the absence of America’s first family from the list.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Britain, America’s closest ally, has been subjected to an unprecedented string of insults by the Obama administration. There have been so many that The Telegraph‘s Nile Gardiner created a list “Obama’s Top Ten Insults Against Britain“.
One of Obama’s first acts as president was to send back a bust of Winston Churchill after the British loaned it to the U.S. as a warm gesture of solidarity after September 11, 2001. The British may have been shocked, but so were Americans. Obama’s treatment of Gordon Brown, Britain’s former prime minister, was ill-mannered and shabby. State gifts were exchanged, thoughtful and carefully considered on the part of Mr. Brown, embarrassing, cheap, and egotistical on the part of Mr. Obama. But there was lots more:
He downgraded America’s special relationship with Britain in favor of France this year. Last year at West Point he refused to recognize the U.K.’s role in the Afghanistan war; it contributed 10,000 troops. Then he sided with Argentina over Britain in its demand for new talks over its claims on the Falkland Islands.
“There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world,” an Obama State Department spokesman declared in 2009.
Now it’s payback time. The Brits seem to have had their fill of the Obamas and are letting it be known.
Perhaps it’s schadenfreude on my part, but the payback is well deserved. The President of the United States is expected to act as the representative of his country, rather than according to his personal prejudices, whatever they happen to be. Bad manners are unacceptable in anyone, let alone someone in an official position.
