As far as I remember, we've had a good relationship ever since Queen Victoria's death.Quote:
Originally Posted by bopa the Magyar
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As far as I remember, we've had a good relationship ever since Queen Victoria's death.Quote:
Originally Posted by bopa the Magyar
It is not that we in the USA do not value Britain's friendship. We do, we have, and we will continue to do so. Unfortunately, when a relationship lasts for a time it tends to fall into predictable patterns and it is far to easy for one or both partners to take the other for granted. I think it's pretty clear that some of that has been going on.
It's been like this ever since Monty Python went off the air.~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
I expect you mean as far as you have read, and if that really is the case then you must have pushed certain historical facts to the back of your mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
I don't place the U.S' treatment of Britain and the other old European powers onto a pedestal of complete evil as some may, but simply as the acts of a great power attemptimng to give itself hegemony over them. Mass media and sentiment and denial have allowed some to construct the nice warm fantasy of the "special" relationship. But it is just that, fantasy, the ones to blame here are not the Americans, who act like any other hegemonic nation, but we the British who have become so stupid and slow that we actually imbue PR stunt (i.e the special relationship) with some kind of real value.
For a start, we love Churchill, the man who invented the "special" relationship, who also happened to be the man who was a military incompetent and who as prime minister lead us into an unecessary war which we were not ready for. Then, due to his inhereted fascination with America, we had to nod politely when Roosevelt stupidly took Stalin for good guy.
If the relationship was special, the U.S would have demanded that the great titans of German industry who had helped fuel the Nazi war machine, were torn apart and distributed amongst the Western Allies, they would have scrapped the debt we owed them and they would have suppoerted us in the Suez crisis. None of this happened, fair enough as I can understand the reality of the relationship.
It is time we stopped this nonsense.
Indeed, they built up Germany and Japan and left us to rot.Quote:
Originally Posted by bopa the Magyar
The UK got a quarter of the marshall plan money, according to wiki.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
No, they did not, we got alot of money which meant unfortunately that the Labour government got alot of money. You may see how this was a bad thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
To be sure the Americans have often acted to ensure their own economic well being even if it meant the end of ours, I seem to remeber some jet planes...
But that, for me at least, is to be expected.
The problem I have, is with us and our government, who keep applying the face paint long after the play has eneded. Germany and France have grown up, we should too.
all this bombast and synthetic outrage rather misses the point, nations have interests and the special relationship never meant the the US/UK had only one set of interests, today it is a reflection of the truly titanic amount of data-sharing in the spheres of defence/technology/intelligence, a sharing that only happens because both partners trust the other.
there is nothing immature about this sharing, and claiming that france and germany have grown up rather ignores the fact that they never had this trust, and thus never had the sharing.
I don't know about data sharing because I don't work in law enforcement or intelligence but we even allow police cars to cross the (unsecured) borders in pursuit of criminals. I hear you guys even quarantine harmless pets because you don't trust them. :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
France and Germany have a long history of trust toward eachother, we were the same country for several periods of history as well, your shameless propaganda won't change that.
I'd like to know more about this sharing though, what data is it that they share except the presidential outlook calendars? AFAIK most of the western world shares data about terrorists and big criminals anyway, I can't think of anything outstanding in terms of military hardware that Britain has put out because of information sharing with the USA, but then I'm not a military expert and hardly have any insight into such things. So please enlighten me about that special information sharing, what's it all about?
my point was that france and germany never had this relationship with the US, but it may not have been clear. as to your point about sharing between france and germany............ lovely, but how does that compare with america which spends ~£40 billion on intelligence gathering when France and Germany each spend about £1-2 billion, the former is obviously the more useful partner.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
try here:Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
http://www.cer.org.uk/pdf/cerwp4.pdf
and here:
http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=1462
oh, and here too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship
and here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...World-War.html
here too:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/p...w/article/7661
oops, and here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/baker.html
let me know if you need some more........................?
From Wikipedia article posted:
Quote:
Friendly fire
More British servicemen were killed in the 1991 Gulf War by US fire than by Iraqi soldiers.[210] A public controversy arose after US military authorities refused to allow USAF pilots to give evidence at a 1992 British inquest into the deaths of nine British soldiers killed in a US air strike, saying they had already supplied all the relevant information.[211] The inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Families of those killed accused the United States of 'double standards' after three US military officers were reprimanded for negligence after a separate incident involving the similar death of a US soldier. Tammy Groves, solicitor for the families, said: 'We have been denied any inquiry in the US; there have been no reprimands; and the pilots have not been named. The contrast could not be greater.'[212] Anne Leech, whose son was one of the British soldiers killed, said: 'They are supposed to be a friendly country, but it shows it only goes as far as they want it to ... Unless people are made accountable for what they do in these situations it will continue to happen.'[213]
President George H. W. Bush responded: 'My heart goes out to their families. But I see no reason in going beyond what we've already done to fully account for this terrible tragedy of war.'[211] Peter Atkinson, whose son was also killed, said: 'We met George Bush. He was trying to slide out of meeting us so I ran after him, collared him and told him what I thought. He said to me "You want the facts? ... Right, you'll get them." Months later they sent us a report. It was rubbish. All the relevant details had been censored out.'[214]
Further friendly fire incidents in the 2003 Iraq War brought assurances from officers and politicians that they would not hurt the close alliance: 'A situation like this does not mean anything of harm to the coalition, but in many ways it brings us closer together,' said RAF Group Captain Jon Fynes.[215] However the US government again refused to co-operate with the coroner’s investigations. This culminated in the United States attempting to prevent the release of cockpit videos—later leaked to The Sun—showing events leading to the death of Lance-Corporal Matty Hull of the Household Cavalry, and threatening newspapers that published them with prosecution.[216] The coroner slammed US 'intransigence', and the British press accused the Pentagon of operating 'in a no-fault zone', with the Daily Telegraph commenting: 'This will reaffirm the view of many in the British military that while the US has the best kit, it does not necessarily have the best training ... Uninhibited by the risk of any sanction, is it any wonder that they go about their lethal business with such apparent insouciance?'[217] The Spectator described the British forbearance towards American evasiveness as "a bleak parable of the flaws at the heart of the U.S.-U.K. 'special relationship'."[218]
is this relevant............?:inquisitive:
I'm thinking this thread should be locked, and a new one about the British/U.S.A. alliance started in its stead. We haven't been talking about the spill in the gulf for a few pages now ...
I tend to agree.
However, one last push to get back on track.
Tony Hayward is to stand down as CEO of BP (with a £10m pension, poor baby) in favour of an American. Will an accent really make all that difference?
I imagine it will. Any American will be better, but a WASP will not be as good as having one of the inbreds from the Bush family heading it (a good ol' Southern Gent).
People trust those with similar accents / cultures as they have and are less likely to beat them up than a perceived foreigner.
The last person got closer to £40 million to leave. This one was a snip...
~:smoking:
Sooooo much wrong with this statement... :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
Appearances and perceptions do matter, but to what degree...who knows? I would think that what matters to the public now is the success of the relief well and the speed and effectiveness of the payment of damages to the affected locals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
So it takes an average of 13 dead Americans to bring down a BP CEO. With a golden parachute, of course.
At least they finally stopped the gushing oil.
CR
So you're saying what exactly? Any ideas of how many dead Nigerians it would take to get a Shell CEO? Or how many dead Americans it takes to put pressure on Halliburton? How many Americans would have to be evicted from their homes before Deutsche Bank will be stopped from fore-closing every single mortgage in their American properties?
If you are finally coming to see that large faceless companies are not the works of good and charity and that they will generally speaking do nothing if it does not benefit them and certainly not take their responsibility if they can get away without: why, are you actually surprised?
I have to admit, I am surprised at Crazed Rabbit. It seems that he is forgetting that is speaking about his beloved Free Market. Talking about tying down corporations to regulation, accountability and restrictions. How can such a corporation be free to exploit, if it wasn't for that pesky red-tape and that thing called human rights? Bah humbug. Where is the praise of how the CEO of BP must an awesome individual because he gets a massive pay check (which should be tax-free, because it is well earned) and anyone who says otherwise is just a jealous, lazy, simpleton.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios
Is the fact that 16 Americans died more significant in comparison to to other industrial disasters. Tell me, did those responsible for Bhopal or anyone outside India care about the thousands which died and the thousands which still continue to die as a consequence? We should all be so lucky that we don't live in the third world, then people wouldn't even care if the death toll was being continuously counted. I mean no disrespect to those people who died on the rig, but lets be quite clear here, Tony Haywood wasn't directly responsible for their deaths. Untied Carbine India on the other hand, that old American company however probably does have blood on its hands.
You should feel glad the Louisiana fishermen will get a pay out, do you think those affected by Bhopal will see anything from the pathetic sum paid out to them. If memory serves me correct, its a minuscule fraction of the BP pay out. But hey, you do it because you can. Ahhhh, the American hypocrisy. So long as it effects us, may the whole world look on at our rage. If it affects anyone else, possibly designate some media coverage.
tibilicus, you seem to be offended that Americans pay more attention to things that happen to them than things that happen to other people. It sounds as though you think this is a special awfulness that afflicts Americans, rather than, you know, a constant of the human condition.
Let's try on a hypothetical for fun: Would you pay more attention to a fire you read about in Sri Lanka, or a fire that starts in your living room? Would you be a "hypocrite" for paying greater attention to the fire that burned your home?
I swear, sometimes it seems as though folks get worked up about how Americans aren't a special race of super-empathetic Zen saints who defy human nature to beam justice and perfection to every corner of the globe.
Yes, we're paying greater attention to the Gulf spill than we paid to Bhopal, although that also made massive headlines in its day. We're also paying more attention the to Gulf spill than we paid to the Belgian genocide in the Congo. Go figure.
What the **** man? Am I some sort of jerk for not mentioning every other disaster in the world when I mention something that's happened to Americans? And blame the Indian government for settling for such a small sum.Quote:
Originally Posted by tibilicus
I never said they were, and never believed they were.Quote:
If you are finally coming to see that large faceless companies are not the works of good and charity
Of course you are. You don't comprehend my positions at all. You don't use strawman arguments just for debate; you seem to believe other people are embodied by such strawman characterizations.Quote:
I have to admit, I am surprised at Crazed Rabbit.
CR
Union Carbide India Limited was 49.1% owned by the Indian government and investors, 50.9% owned by Union Carbide. Has the US issued an arrest warrant for Haywood yet? Do we know that his corporate leadership and policies were responsible for Deepwater Horizon, any more than Warren Anderson's were for Bhopal? The Bhopal plant had a bad safety history, BP has a bad safety history.Quote:
Originally Posted by tibilicus
$470 million, paid in full in 1989. Adjust for inflation as necessary. The Indian government asked for more originally (~10x), but settled instead. Maybe they didn't want to sue themselves. :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by tibilicus
Your missing the point. What I was trying to illustrate that in terms of "disasters", this disaster isn't as significant as the press would have everyone believed. That the saga has dragged on so long is fuelled by a political issue, not an environmental one. On one of the news programmes here, one Louisiana environmentalist (don't have the source right now but I'm sure I could find it if some one requests it) even went so far as to add that the spill is not greatly worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill, in terms of potential long term effects at least. You can disagree with this point if you like but the point is this isn't an environmental issue any more, its a political one. The current US administration is using to save its own hide and the mid-term elections mean its an easy issue for any US Congressmen to focus on to hide their own failings.
Oh, and in regards to Bhopal, do you think the Indian government really wanted to settle for a small sum, or do you think external pressure "persuaded" them? Does BP also deserve no credit for what has been an unprecedented clean up effort, never before seen?
whole string of straw men there, but just so we're clear, i as a free-market enthusiast am absolutely in favour in rich people paying tax, just not a dispproportionate proportion more than any other tax-payer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
The saga has drug on so long because, until July 15th, oil was continuing to pour into the Gulf. With Bhopal and Valdez, the spillage was stopped fairly quickly, DH had been spewing for almost 3 months. We have short attention spans, now that the well is capped I'm sure it will drop from the front pages soon. I hear Miss Lohan's fellow inmates don't like her, if she gets shivved we'll never see the underwater cams and tarballs on TV again. By the way, BP are expected to post a cool $4 billion in profit this quarter. :2thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by tibilicus
The Indian government passed the Bhopal Gas Leak Act, which meant they were responsible for legal action against Union Carbide and UCIL. No private lawsuits or settlements could be brought. A US District court (backed by the Appeals Court) gave Indian courts jurisdiction over the case. UC/UCIL offered $370 million, India took it (with interest) after hemming and hawing about $3.3 billion. You would think the final result would be somewhere in the middle, that is what bargaining is all about. The Indian government failed it's people. What external pressure persuaded them otherwise?Quote:
Originally Posted by tibilicus
B...But Hollywood told me that's exactly what you are!?! :dizzy2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
When your nation's leader is declared leader of the free world and you pump out propaganda about how you wisah to bring freedom, justice and the American way to the world YOU ARE SETTING YOURSELF UP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
We are the leader of the free world. The problem is with one's perception of what exactly that means.Quote:
Originally Posted by bopa the Magyar
Criticism is welcome but it's up to the individual to manage their own expectations.
Isn't that rape by deception? :dizzy2:Quote:
Originally Posted by bopa the Magyar
So, you're saying that as long as "leader of the free world" can mean anything, what's the point of bothering with the epithet if anyone can use it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir
If a more usual description of "leader of the free world" is used then as bopa the Magyar states, one is setting up their actions to be reviewed in this light.
"Happily" America tends to view their wants and needs the same as the world's and so whatever they do is by definition the right thing and anyone who says otherwise / provides evidence otherwise is, to put it mildly, wrong.
~:smoking:
Do you have a particular grievance with the U.S. that you would like to discuss?Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
There you go.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir
Drone:Quote:
Originally Posted by drone
$4B represents a more or less normal quarterly profit for BP. GOOD quarters exceed $5B and Great quarters can slip past $6B. By contrast, they LOST $17B in the 2nd quarter of 2010. While their long-term financial prognosis is excellent, they have taken it on the teeth recently. Moroever, the USG is not done extracting its "pound of flesh" and will not be until sometime in 2011. This will sap their profitability by some margin for a while yet. As a stock, it would be a pretty good buy and hold choice right now.
I like self-appointed titles, I am going to appoint myself "Lord Master of the Universe, Slayer of the Crazed Rabbits, Befriender of the Lous VI the Fat"Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
I wasn't sure how they would apply the penalty in the accounting when I posted. I see now that they made $5 billion profit excluding the $32 billion charge, which was up from last year. I see they took the $32billion pre-tax, sticking it to the man!Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
I prefer the title "Emperor." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_NortonQuote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
You're not going to scare me, ever since Russia saved you from annihilation in WW2 you've just been jealous of their might.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir
It's only a matter of time until you succumb and import cheap military hardware from China which will be downgraded of course since you don't have a "special relationship".
Only a matter of time until Deutsche Bank has foreclosed enough houses to make NYC look like Rio de Janeiro as well.
And you call yourselves leaders of the free world? Pfah! Illusions!
BP's Record-Breaking Loss
Quote:
Troubled oil giant BP announced second-quarter earnings and at first glance, the numbers were not pretty. The company reported a loss of $17 billion for the second quarter after recording a charge of $32.2 billion related to costs related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Digging a little deeper into the earnings report, however, we found that revenues were strong in the second quarter, climbing 34%.
BP reports record loss of $17.1 billion
Quote:
As it posted a record $17.1-billion loss stemming from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, British giant BP moved quickly to change management, propose the sale of up to $30 billion in assets and refocus the company on its core businesses.
Senator demands probe of BP tax breakQuote:
Originally Posted by drone
:laugh4:Quote:
Two days after BP said it will write off the cost of the oil spill cleanup against its income taxes, a U.S. senator is calling for a Congressional probe into the company's tax plans.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, requesting a series of hearings on the matter and calling BP's plans to take a tax write-off "unacceptable."
On Tuesday, BP said it took a $32 billion charge in the second quarter for clean-up costs, resulting in tax savings of about $10 billion.
That's half the value of the $20 billion fund that BP set up to aid Gulf coast victims, Nelson pointed out.
BP announced the charge along with its second quarter earnings, saying the cleanup costs were the main reason for its $17 billion loss during the quarter.
BP spokesman Daren Beaudo, in an email to CNN, said the company is following U.S. tax code in taking the charge.
"Taxes are paid on profits and the Gulf of Mexico spill response costs have reduced BP's US profits -- so it follows that our tax obligations will be lower as well," he said.
In admonishing the oil giant for its tax plans, Nelson also pointed out that Goldman Sachs has said it will forgo any tax deduction for the $535 million it will pay in penalties in its settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Revived, just for this bit of humor:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39046088...ent/?GT1=43001Quote:
In the 193-page report, the British company describes the incident as an accident that arose from a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces.
Or is is humour?
We should just go back to calling them the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. That would irritate everybody.
It would make the American news broadcasters say it was a British and Iranian terrorist plot against America. :yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur