Posted by
Bert Chapman on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 6:44:12 PM
Last year's apology tour by Barack Obama was bad enough as he apologized for alleged U.S. national security and foreign policy sins during the Bush Administration which have, undoubtedly, emboldened our enemies. Just when you think it can get no worse it has. Obama has now decided to antagonize our friends. Not just any friends in the global neighborhood, but Great Britain, our most loyal friend. In a February 23 State Dept. press
briefing, departmental spokesman "Mr. Crowley" responded to a question about a dispute between Britain and Argentina over oil drilling in the Falklands by declaring that the U.S. was neutral on the question of the Falkland Islands sovereignty and that the U.S. was willing to serve as a mediator between these two countries. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, mustering a considerable amount of diplomatic tact, politely declined this treacherous U.S. mediation offer.
Crowley's imbecilic comment reflects the low level of relations between the Obama Administration and Britain, this administration's abject ignorance of the history of this question, Obama's gross insensitive to British feelings on this subject, and has been justly criticized in British newspapers such as the Times and Daily Telegraph as well as British political blogs including Nile Gardiner's
March 3 posting and British Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Daniel Hannan's
Feb. 26 posting. British settlers arrived in the Falklands around 1833 and have remained there since then. They have repeatedly stressed their desire to remain British to anyone who has bothered to ask them. In 1982, with a failing economy and deteriorating domestic political situation, an Argentine military government decided to invade the Falklands in the belief that the British were to troubled with domestic economic troubles to care and that their female Prime Minister had no desire or willingness to go to war over remote islands several thousand miles south of London.
Unfortunately, for the Argentinians they made the mistake of messing with the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher. Demonstrating sterling courage and unflinching leadership, Thatcher and her government assembled a naval force that sailed across the equator and, with significant help from U.S. intelligence assets provided by Ronald Reagan, successfully defeated the Argentineans and liberated the Falklands. This victory helped the west in numerous ways during the Cold War and would eventually lead to a restoration of democracy in Argentina. The British paid a heavy price in losing 255 soldiers in this campaign, but defending liberty against dictatorial governments and groups with malevolent aspirations is not cost free.
More than a quarter century has past and historical amnesia has set in. Despite the repeated expressions by Falklanders of their desire to remain British the Argentineans remain clueless. Argentina's President Christina Kirchner has called for the Falklands to be restored to Argentina and she is joined in this by Venezuelan dunce king dictator Hugo Chavez. During Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Argentina, she could have demonstrated statesmanship and geopolitical courage and even true diplomatic friendship by bluntly and publicly telling Kirchner and Falklands revanchists in Argentine political life that the Falkland Islands are British, always have been British, always will be British, and that they should quit clinging to fantasies that they will ever be able to incorporate the islands into Argentina.
Unfortunately, Kirchner comes from the same leftist ideological gene pool as Hillary Clinton. Kirchner's husband Nestor actually preceded her in the Argentine presidency in a example of Southern Cone political nepotism. Like Hillary, she has catapaulted to power on her husband's coattails, so when she and Hillary met recently it was truly a case of two madonnas from the leftist sisterhood of political power having a egocentric girl power love fest instead of the need for Hillary to speak truth to power to her ideological kindred spirit. Hopefully, Argentineans will soon tire of their love affair with leftist Peronist ideology and choose a more intelligent Conservative political course as their Chilean neighbors have done by electing Sebastian Pinera as their incoming President. This Obama Administration diplomatic fiasco involving our closet friends is acutely embarrassing and reflects rank amateurism that our country cannot afford as we enter this second decade of the millenium.