The Quality Of Our Leadership

[poliphilo]

According to WikiLeaks the incoming Tory administration was falling over itself to fawn on the Americans. William Hague proudly told Richard LeBaron, deputy Chief of Mission, that he and Cameron and Osborne were all "children of Thatcher". Their anxiety over the possibility that Obama might downgrade the "special relationship" was so febrile that (in LeBaron's words) it "would be humorous, if it were not so corrosive".

What Hague and his colleagues don't seem to have grasped is that the relationship between Reagan and Thatcher (whatever you may think of them) was based on mutual respect. Maggie thought nothing of ringing Ronnie up and giving him an earful

It's nice to know the gambolling of these little dogs amuses their American masters.

Comments

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I don't get the religious thing either anymore and, the older I get, I'm less able to understand the entire military edifice.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We look at you and see ourselves as we were in the high Victorian age- a great, self-righteous, god-bothering Imperial power.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

The comparison simply does not hold, though. At its height, the British Empire was secure and self-assured. You had absolute and unquestioned faith in your superiority as a civilization and the natural confidence that springs from such faith. The US has none of these things and has never had them. We collectively piss the bed at every loud noise and are terrified of every suggested threat, whether foreign or domestic and however palpably absurd. Even at the peak of American empire the US was arguably less self-assured, not more.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to disagree.

The USA is a very new country- a patchwork entity with a civil war in its recent history. I've always thought the bravado and flag-waving hid a deep-seated insecurity.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

You know, I always debate whether the US is an imperial power. Certainly the US is a massive, powerful and militaristic country, but it doesn't subjugate-and-tax the way every other empire has done.

I just don't see "American Empire" being comparable to other historic empires after, say, the Civil Rights Act.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You have a point, the American sphere of influence isn't exactly like the old time empires. I use the word- as many others do- as a kind of shorthand.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I tend to think the US got pulled into "empire" by the vacuum created by the end of World War II. A lot of demands were made of it as a result, especially considering the programme of our Russian counterpart and the resulting paranoia in Europe.

I don't know whether Europeans understand how much World War II sticks out in the American imagination. Or how it means we don't trust them; I really think most Americans have a nagging voice that says "the moment we're gone, someone will start trying to conquer the world and nuke Los Angeles for no apparent reason, just wait, it's their MO". Not like it hasn't happened before....

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I mean, we were neutral in World War I and then Germany started plotting a war to prevent us from helping Britain should we decide to enter.

Japan bombed us so we wouldn't declare war on it first.

We put an ocean between y'all and us and it still wasn't enough. We even militated for a fair peace, the only people who did, and it wasn't enough. There's this deep-seated need on the part of people in Eurasia to send troops to this continent. Started in 1492 and has never stopped.