America isn't our special friend

[-:Undertaker:-]

This is a great article worth posting for anyone interested in world history and especially World War I & II.

Often in film, documentaries and speeches the United States is portrayed as our shoulder to shoulder ally and that is something I used to believe. It's something you hear everywhere after all. Images from films are beamed into our heads with British and American soldiers dying side by side in those terrible wars. But on reading into Anglo-American relations you come to realise it isn't what it seems and is in fact the biggest rivalry in world relations in centuries: a much longer power struggle but less acute than say that between the Soviet Union and United States.

I'm not an America hater like some but I do advise a read of this article if you want to read something different from conventional wisdom.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...#ixzz46jUPWJH1

PETER HITCHENS: America isn't our special friend. It ruined our Navy, Empire and future

Now will we grasp that the United States is not our friend, but a foreign country whose interests are often different from ours?

President Obama’s blatant intervention in our internal affairs is not a sudden breach of a soppy ‘special relationship’. The USA’s only real special relationship is with Saudi Arabia, a 70-year-old hard pact of oil, money and power, welded together with such cynicism it ought to make us gasp.

Barack Obama’s open desire for us to stay inside the EU is by no means the first or worst example of White House meddling here in these islands. Bill Clinton forced us to cave in to the Provisional IRA in 1998 and his successor, George W. Bush, continued the policy by making us do Sinn Fein’s bidding afterwards.

Washington came close to scuppering our recapture of the Falklands in 1982. And with the current state of our Armed Forces, which can nowadays do nothing without American support, I often wonder how the White House and the Pentagon would behave if Argentina once again seized Port Stanley.

Hilary Clinton and Gerry Adams, leader of the political wing of the IRA

If anyone thinks Hillary Clinton is a great friend of Britain, they’re in for a big surprise.

But surely the Americans fought with us shoulder to shoulder against the Kaiser and Hitler? Not exactly. The USA (quite rightly) fought for its own interest in both great wars, not for us.

When we ran out of money after the First World War, Washington seized the chance to force us to limit our Navy, and so began to overtake us as the world’s major naval power. We had feared Germany would do this. It is one of the great ironies of history that it was the USA that ended British sea power.

In the blackest months of the Second World War, just after the fall of France, the US Congress demanded almost every penny we owned before it would authorise the famous Lend- Lease programme.

Secret convoys of Royal Navy warships carried our reserves of gold bullion (estimated to have been worth £26 billion in today’s values) across the Atlantic – mostly never to return. Billions in negotiable securities went the same way, and British assets in the USA were sold off at absurdly low prices.

I don’t blame the Americans for this. In 1934, Britain had defaulted on her giant First World War debt to the USA. This is now worth up to £225 billion in today’s money, depending on how you calculate inflation.

We still haven’t paid it off, and never will, though it’s not considered polite to discuss it and it’s one of those facts so grotesque that most people refuse to believe it when first told of it.

During the Hitler war, the USA gave us enough aid to stay in the fight, but not enough to recover our former economic strength. The eventual peace was made on American terms, and Soviet terms, with us as onlookers. And after the war, Marshall Aid came with strings – open up the British Empire to outside trade, and then begin to dismantle it.

Not wanting to get embroiled in any more European wars, the USA also put a lot of effort into creating a permanently united Europe. Documents came to light in the 1990s, probably by accident, showing detailed CIA involvement in the European Movement.

I regard America’s behaviour as perfectly reasonable. It’s the sort of thing we used to do when we were top nation, and had more sense than to squander our wealth on idealistic foreign wars.

I like America and Americans, lived there happily for two fascinating years, and wish them well. But I never forget that the USA is another country, not a friend or even a cousin. Nor should you.

Thoughts?

[The Don]

This is a great article worth posting for anyone interested in world history and especially World War I & II.

Often in film, documentaries and speeches the United States is portrayed as our shoulder to shoulder ally and that is something I used to believe. It's something you hear everywhere after all. Images from films are beamed into our heads with British and American soldiers dying side by side in those terrible wars. But on reading into Anglo-American relations you come to realise it isn't what it seems and is in fact the biggest rivalry in world relations in centuries: a much longer power struggle but less acute than say that between the Soviet Union and United States.

Lol, yes our relationship with America is a bigger rivalry than the one between the US and the Soviets during the cold war /s

Such a desperate post in response to Obama pointing out we're better off in the EU.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Lol, yes our relationship with America is a bigger rivalry than the one between the US and the Soviets during the cold war /s

Such a desperate post in response to Obama pointing out we're better off in the EU.

It's a historical post, yes related to recent comments but it's an interesting and (true) unlooked at part of history. The US has long been our main rival. You should look into it, you might change your mind. Look at the Wilson accords after WWI. The Washington Naval Treaty. The British in regards to the Confederacy and American "Manifest Destiny". It's one thing disagreeing with me, but it pisses me off when I make points based in historical fact and you just reply "lolz desperate".

For the love of God do some reading for once before laughing or dismissing something just because you don't understand it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_o...on_of_Dominion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...rate_diplomacy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_Bill_of_1866
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...ast.education1
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-alliance.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAID
http://content.time.com/time/world/a...883661,00.html

The rivalry between Britain and America stems back to the late 1700s to the modern era. The Soviet-American rivalry (Cold War) lasted only five decades.

[-:Undertaker:-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesap...Leopard_Affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embargo_Act_of_1807
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasi...ional_reaction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Scheme_No._1
https://www.marxists.org/archive/tro...n/v1/ch02k.htm

The basic world antagonism occurs along the line of the conflict of interests between the United States and Britain. Why? Because Britain is still the wealthiest and most powerful country, second only to the United States. It is America’s chief rival, the main obstacle on its path. If Britain should be squeezed, or undermined, or, all the more so, battered down, what would then remain? The United States will, of course, dispose easily of Japan. America holds all the trumps: finances and iron and oil, political advantages in relations with China, which is, after all, being “liberated” from Japan. America is always liberating somebody, that’s her profession. [Laughter, applause]

The main antagonism is between the United States and Britain. It is growing and approaching ever closer. [continued....]

I could go on and on. The Trotsky speech I just came across is very interesting though, never seen it before but simply confirms what is clear.

[abc]

Are you trying to base our relationship today based on things from centuries ago? Daily Mail is deluded and you were correct to say Daily Mail is only for stupid people. Why on earth people waste their money on that crap is beyond me. I guess it is only because it suits their low level of intelligence and the readers are unable to understand other newspapers.

[FlyingJesus]

I'm under no illusion that America does what it does for anyone's benefit buts its own (just like anyone really) but using the past to justify mistrust isn't a great tactic and doesn't make a lot of sense - we don't think the Germans are still Nazis and Italians are still fascists, so why pretend that FDR and Truman still run America? Historical precedent is interesting but not a good way to determine current events

[-:Undertaker:-]

Are you trying to base our relationship today based on things from centuries ago? Daily Mail is deluded and you were correct to say Daily Mail is only for stupid people. Why on earth people waste their money on that crap is beyond me. I guess it is only because it suits their low level of intelligence and the readers are unable to understand other newspapers.

Playing the man & not the ball. Hasn't got an effing clue about anything I have just posted so resorts to insults.

I'm under no illusion that America does what it does for anyone's benefit buts its own (just like anyone really) but using the past to justify mistrust isn't a great tactic and doesn't make a lot of sense - we don't think the Germans are still Nazis and Italians are still fascists, so why pretend that FDR and Truman still run America? Historical precedent is interesting but not a good way to determine current events

I think if you had to use a Facebook status to describe the relationship with America it would be "it's complicated" rather than the "special relationship" we're used to hearing. It was only a few decades ago after all that America invaded Grenada (a Commonwealth realm without informing us prior similar to Britain invading Puerto Rico) and the Falklands took place as recently as the 1980s with the Royal Navy nearly coming to blows with the US Navy over Suez.



I love this clip with the US Ambassador.

[Kesuki]

Hmm... yeah. Self importance and patriotism. It's understandable, necessary on occasion, and it's destructive. Thought people would have learned that by now.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Hmm... yeah. Self importance and patriotism. It's understandable, necessary on occasion, and it's destructive. Thought people would have learned that by now.

What are you referring to sorry? President Obama and American foreign policy or something else?

[Kesuki]

Peter Hitchens' worldview, judging by that article.