Tuesday 3 September 2013

The Special Relationship No More

Although we spawned the United States of America, the relationship hasn't always seemed over hyped to me so when the Conservatives Defence Secretary Philip Hammond expressed apprehension about the future of Britain's relationship with America it didn't seem that big a deal to me.
So let France, America's oldest ally as John Kerry described them, be the Americans mistress for a while especially now the States has gone a bit nuts since 9/11.
The Special Relationship always seemed more of a British thing as i always got the sense that Britain was pretty much irrelevant to American Governments as Thatcher, Blair and Cameron jumped and did cartwheels to gain the attention of Reagan, Bush and Obama who picked us up where ever we was useful and and put us down when the bigger and better nations were in town.
Maybe after the Syria vote we have wiggled free from under the American thumb and will no longer roll over every time the US wants us to have a war somewhere.
Maybe now amidst increasing scepticism of American foreign adventures, we will take a step back and reflect that actually, America has not been good for us.
The American Foreign Policy in particular has been abhorrent, they have frequently either attacked other countries directly or supported other states to do it and with the exception of Israel who America bankroll to keep it well stocked in firepower to suppress it's smaller and weaker neighbour, have been by far the Worlds greatest warmongers and really not the sort of country we should want to be closely allied to.
The UK's decision last week to let America get on with it is a welcome step forward and if it does signal the end of the Special then so be it although that's not to say that we should leave the bed of America and jump straight into the space in the king-size beside China.
Let America and France snuggle for a while and make cooing noises at each other and when America asks the French to join them in a little overseas trip, we can remember the times when it was us they used to ask and feel thankful we are out of that particular relationship.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

lucy,

that time of the month?

UK spawned the US, yeah with a repressive military monarchy - more like we cut the wart off...

nutty since 9/11. Yeah 3,000 civilians were killed and they hoped for many more.

bigger better nations? like who. you are acting nutty since 9/11...

I kinda got the impression the UK and france were behind this but I wasn't watching that closely

we have been bad for you no doubt. don't want to accept any consequences as being your own doing...

who else wants to ally with the UK? argentina... go for it

I think you should go for partnering with china. great idea. yawl have so much in common...

what are you thinking?

q

Anonymous said...

This is the thanks we get after taking the ass piers Morgan off your hands? If you dump us then you have to take the sorry ass back...

Q

lucy said...

are you drinking that strong coffee again? calm down dear

Anonymous said...

i did not like your post...

q

Lucy said...

...and you still have Piers Morgan there.

Cheezy said...

"that time of the month?"

That comment was beneath you. It's also about the most cliched thing you can say to a female who you disagree with.

"nutty since 9/11. Yeah 3,000 civilians were killed and they hoped for many more."

It's now a long-established fact that Iraq - the invasion of which was sold to us as a response to 9-11 - was built on a crock of shit and lies and pre-existing agendas.

How does that not fit Lucy's definition of a "bit nuts"... (personally I think she was being polite).

Anonymous said...

cheezy,

i agree that it was in appropriate of me. still, if one is going to get nasty using the classic cliches are best don't you think?

i don't view the "Facts" and events the same way you do.

also, when one chooses to only consider the negative aspects of a relationship all relationships appear to be bad...


q

Cheezy said...

I'm not considering just the negative of anything. Just pointing out that playing the ball, rather than the man, is the way to go when you debate 'stuff' on the internet. As I'm sure you agree. Otherwise you risk sounding a bit 'David-G-ish'... and nobody wants that.

Lucy said...

I did cringe on his behalf when i saw the 'time of the month' comment especially as q threw a hissy fit about not being personal when i asked him how being so religious fitted in with him killing things but i guess it is an option for future debates if i want to sink to that level now that being personal isn't a problem for him.
Either that or he is genuinely concerned about my menstrual cycle.

Anonymous said...



hmmm,

interesting because I don't see a cliché as being personal. quite the opposite since in this case it applied to approximately 50% of the human population.

to me the personal comment was when i said you were acting nutty. i apologize for that...

i thought i threw my fit at “he who shall not be named” because he did not address any comments he just spewed labels and nasty adjectives

one good thing about blogging is that there is not much consequence for stupid, uncouth, crass, etc behavior.

i’ll repeat what i already said “it was inappropriate of me”.

q