jmg@houxk.UUCP (11/05/83)
Gee am I glad Andy Berman quoted the NY Times and Reuters about the airport in Grenada being built by a British company. I was going to bring it up myself but I was sure I would be classified as some poor demented hacker. Berman and Kerwin take the British involvement in the airport as definite proof of its harmlessness. I've agreed with those guys on many things in the past but here's where we part company. I believe they suffer from an all-too-common naievte' concerning Anglo-American relations. In fact the so-called "good relations" between America and England have only existed for about 60 years - since the sinking of the Lusitania was engineered by Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill who was then Lord of the Admiralty to get America into WWI on England's side. Before that there had been considerable pro-German feeling in America. Up until that time New Yorkers celebrated Evacuation Day which was the anniversary of the British withdrawal from New York in the American Revolution. Afterward it was considered in bad taste. During the past 60 years America has acted as England's Ally but England has never acted as America's Ally unless it was in their own interest - and it usually was. During the Civil War England sided with the South following the divide and conquer principle. The South's ironclad ship, the Merrimac, was built in England and they frequently ran naval blockades with weapons and supplies to the South. Their support for the South did not come for any ideological reasons but was based purely on Machiavellian principles. In the end it only prolonged the war and caused a greater loss of American lives on both sides. If anyone cares to take a trip to West Point as I did recently you will find a large collection of cannon captured from America's foes thru the past 200+ years located around the grounds. A sizable proportion of them bear English markings, some stating the city and company that made them. Over and over one sees that the date of manufacture was just a year or two before their capture which means they were made specifically to fight THAT particular war against America. More recently during the American economic boycott of Cuba Britian was Johny-on-the-spot to carry on trade with the Cubans and supply them with everything they were unable to get from America. One retired U.S. Naval Officer wrote to a newspaper bitterly complaining of his experiences in finding captured North Korean soldiers fighting with British weapons during the Korean War and later he said there were many times during the Vietnam War when U.S. planes could not bomb Haiphong Harbor in North Vietnam because the harbor was crowded with British ships. In fact Britian had the second largest number of ships in North Vietnamese harbors after the Soviets. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when the U.S. called for a boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games the British not only allowed their athletes to go, but they came away with the largest number of medals from that Olympiad - a truly empty victory! After the take-over of Iran by the supporters of Ayatollah Khoumeni there were many uncaptured Americans in Iran seeking covert assistance from other embassies to get out of the country before capture. Not many people are aware of this, but those who sought assistance from the British Embassy were flatly refused help. Meanwhile as our people were being held hostage the British government was selling the revolutionary Iranian government tank engines for their British-built Scorpion tanks which would have been used against the U.S. in the event of a serious attempt to free the hostages. When the head of Amnesty International, Sean McBride, an internationally known jurist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient offered to negotiate for the release of the hostages the British used all their influence to stop this man because Amnesty International had proved in the European Court of Human Rights that the British government was guilty of the systematic use of torture in Northern Ireland in hundreds if not thousands of cases. After their first conviction and pledge not to use torture again the British government was brought before the same body on the same charges a few years later and was again found guilty. When the American hostages eventually returned, you may have noticed, their flight bypassed Britian and landed in Ireland for a rest before continuing home. When the U.S. government asked the British not to give technical aid to the USSR in the construction of the Russian pipeline to Western Europe the British again turned us down. When the U.S. developed a way to monitor Soviet telephone conversations using spy satellites the secret was revealed to the Soviets by an agent of British Intelligence and the Soviet leaks were stopped. Sir Anthony Blunt, a personal friend of Queen Elizabeth, was discovered by British Intelligence to have been acting as a Soviet agent since WWII. When it was discovered he was moved out of his sensitive position in British Intelligence and was made Queen Elizabeth's personal art advisor!! How much jail time did Sir Anthony Blunt serve? ZERO, ZILCH, NADA, NOTHING!!! In 1979 a $70,000 photographic image enhancer (System 8000 model 30SE) from the Comtal Corporation of California was purchased by a British arms manufacturer, Vickers Ltd (famous for machine guns) and a division of Rolls Royce. The device was then resold by Vickers to the Soviet Union. This device was presumably use by the Soviets to enhance their spy satellite photographs of U.S. bases and military movements. Eventually Comtal came up with an improvement retrofit for their device and notified customers to return the system to the factory for upgrading. The Soviets hearing of this (presumably from the British) sent the device back thru Vickers and when it came to the U.S. in 1982 it was seized by agents of the Commerce Department. To the best of my knowledge neither the British companies nor any of their personnel were ever penalized for this fiasco. Please consult the article "U.S. Seizes USSR-bound Device" by Howard Roth in a 1982 issue of Electronic Engineering Times. When the war in the Falklands/Malvinas came along the U.S. backed the British to the hilt with arms, money, technical expertise and the use of U.S. military bases and aircraft. One U.S. sailor even told me his ship was on standby to go to the Falklands if the British required naval assistance. This was done at the cost of considerable influence an prestige in Latin America and may have contributed to the radicalization of Grenada. Recently I read in a Jack Anderson column that when the U.S. tried to re-establish more friendly relations with Argentina, Margaret Thatcher threatened to let arms from Central American countries pass thru British occupied Belize into Mexico thus destabilizing the Mexican government and indirectly threatening the borders of the U.S. if we did normalize relations with Argentina. Now why don't you ask me if I think Britain would do anything to harm U.S. interests like building the Soviets an airfield in Grenada?
dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (11/05/83)
"Evacuation Day" is still an official holiday each year for Boston,
celebrating the day that British troops left the city. Of course
there is more of a tradition from the Boston Tea Party, etc., here.
+ Donald E. Eastlake, III
ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!deekdc@ariel.UUCP (K.COOLEY) (11/05/83)
It is refreshing to hear the other side of the so-called special relationship between the UK government and the USA. However the innuendo of the last paragraph implying that the UK is helping the "Soviets" does not make sense and reveals the prejudice of the respondent. The imminent deployment of US cruise missiles, targeted at the Soviet Union, at Greenham and elsewhere in Britain should make it clear how the UK government feels about the "Soviets". Keith
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (11/06/83)
J. McGhee's blast at Britain has a familiar style. It reads just like the Larry Flynt ad of a month or so ago telling how the USSR is a bunch of nice guys and the USA is a bunch of SOB's. I take it about as seriously, (although at least this article does cite a few references.)
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (11/08/83)
While I'm not going to comment either way on the article's thesis in
general, I do remember my grade 8 history on the U.S. Civil War. The
British are reported to have taken the attitude:
Though with the North we sympathize
It must not be forgotten
That with the South we've stronger ties
Which are composed of cotton.
(Amazing how these jingles stick with one after 13 years...)
This attitude still holds true today for many countries, if you
replace "cotton" with "oil". (I know, then it doesn't rhyme...)
Dave Sherman
--
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davepadpowell@wateng.UUCP (PAD Powell [Admin]) (11/08/83)
Whooo! Boy, if this fellow is able to drag up ancient history, I guess I can.
The U.S.A. launched an aggressive war of conquest against Britain in 1812.
It lost. Never hear about that, eh?
The U.S.A. has backed the kidnapping and transport of citizens of other
countries from these countries, to stand trial in U.S. courts. This is
in direct violation of treaties and agreements. I have a list of several
U.S. citizens that I would like to kidnap and have stand trial for various
things, up to and including murder, arson, hit and run (while drunk!).
(Details may be found on enquiry from the Globe and Mail in Toronto).
Last year over 1,200 handguns were seized at the U.S.-Canadian border.
I wish the U.S. would stop promoting this illegal arms shipment,
and educate their citizens that while pot shotting your neighbours
and friends is a fine hobby in the U.S., it is frowned upon elsewhere.
Patrick ("I think we should start net.innuendo and net.sillyness")
Powell