America's ALWAYS tried to do down Britain

Originally posted by Insomniac
I don't agree that America has always tried to do down Britain, but I do think that President Obama is trying to deflect blame.

By deliberately and erroneously refering to BP as 'British Petroleum' (It's been BP since 1996) he is implying that the UK is responsible.

BP is actually a multinational company:

From Times Online...
As of December 2009, 40 per cent of BP’s shares were owned in Britain, but 39 per cent were owned in the US.

It has six British directors and six American, and employs 22,000 Americans against only 10,000 Britons.

A lot of searching questions need to answered by the US's Mineral Management Service whose decisions directly lead to BP having lower safety specification than hindsite tells us were necessary.

MMS Role in BP Oil Spill

BP should be held accountable, but so also should the MMS and the US government .

I think this is what Obama is trying to protect by fooling the people of the US that the Brits are to blame. By taking this course of action he is playing a very dangerous game turning the tragedy into a diplomatic incident.

Your closing line is exactly what interests me with this article, it's my view that he is using the situation very cheaply by positioning himself in any way that'll gain him favour regardless of the fact it's a horrific event that effects so many.

I agree as well, that articles headline is utter nonsense. Thank you for replying.

Originally posted by Sed Non Credo

it's my view that he is using the situation very cheaply by positioning himself in any way that'll gain him favour regardless of the fact it's a horrific event that effects so many.

It's a classic case of political damage limitation. The trouble is Obama seems to have overlooked the fact that the long term diplomatic consequences could be very serious indeed.

edit to add...
You're right it is an horrific event, and although the environmental consequences and loss of life are far more serious than the political fate of the US Government and MMS, the damage to international relations with the UK could take years to heal.

[edit on 11/6/10 by Insomniac]

Give me a break, are you now trying to play the role of the victim? It is all an evil American conspiracy to down Britain! Brits... beware!

I hope that BP falls victim to a hostile takeover, which would be the ultimate penalty for the negligent behavior and the damage it has caused.

reply to post by Mdv2


It's clear in the thread that the OP and myself blame BP and MMS. The point being made is that President Obama is deflecting blame by deliberately and erroneously calling BP 'British Petroleum' and in doing so he is implying that the UK is to blame and that the USA is not responsible in any way at all.

No ones's claiming to be a victim of anything but blatant politicking and playing to the crowd. Obama does seem to be succeeding though!

reply to post by Mdv2


It's too bad normal people will be the ones that suffer from that, and not the people responsible.

Originally posted by Mdv2
Give me a break, are you now trying to play the role of the victim? It is all an evil American conspiracy to down Britain! Brits... beware!

Yes and no. This serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it will help Obama push through his agenda. Secondly, it helps the speculators on Wall Street continue to attack and impoverish the EU and it's citizens in an attempt to distract the world from the state of the US economy, by making our economies look bad.

reply to post by belial259


I disagree. As someone posted earlier in this thread, BP has more American stockholders, and American employees than British.

To whoever asked about their willingness to ignore safety, just look up their safety violations. 760 "egregious" violations, and 60+ "willful" violations. Who cares if they call it British Petroleum it is BP which used to mean British Petroleum, BP is obviously short for British Petroleum, and it is not always used by Obama and the media they say BP more than anything.

Not trying to detract from the devestation caused by this issue in the Gulf, it is not only the Daily Mail questioning the reasons behind the Administrations use of the term "British", even Vince Cable has voiced a little concern on the use/miss use of the word "British"

My relatives in the US assume given the use of the Word "British" by the US Administration that this is a British company, and Britain for it's lack of action in the Gulf worthy of a boycott over the issue. I'll be sad if that is the path they, and other Americans choose, but would not be suprised.

I won't claim Obama dislikes Britain, but I do have to question why they continued to use the term even after it has been pointed out..

Originally posted by Insomniac
It's clear in the thread that the OP and myself blame BP and MMS. The point being made is that President Obama is deflecting blame by deliberately and erroneously calling BP 'British Petroleum' and in doing so he is implying that the UK is to blame and that the USA is not responsible in any way at all.

No ones's claiming to be a victim of anything but blatant politicking and playing to the crowd. Obama does seem to be succeeding though!

Although I see your point, we all know that Cameron would most probably act similarly if, let's say Royal Dutch Shell, would have caused such a disaster in British territorial waters. Not trying to explain away anything, but that's the dirty part of politics.

Originally posted by belial259
Yes and no. This serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it will help Obama push through his agenda. Secondly, it helps the speculators on Wall Street continue to attack and impoverish the EU and it's citizens in an attempt to distract the world from the state of the US economy, by making our economies look bad.

From an economic point of view, this has been going on for more than a year and also the British press is guilty of exactly that tactic, but then against the Eurozone economy, in order to distract attention from the British economic woes.

In the end, everyone is trying to save his own skin, from individuals to governments.



[edit on 11-6-2010 by Mdv2]

C'mon, who can bash the Brits, those fine folks who gave us Gorgo and British Petroleum?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0eb36e458626.gif[/atsimg]

Now that I think of it, there may be a connection between Gorgo and BP...

— Doc Velocity

I have been speaking to some friends in the UK who tell me what has been reported in their media that US citizens blame brits specifically for the accident in the Gulf. I can tell you straight up this isn't the case. BP is on the hook, and more indirectly Transocean, Halliburton, and others.. but the least of BPs and therefore they catch the heat. The backlash is coming from a large number of shareholders who have lost alot of money from BP stock, and understandlby they are upset because the worlds 4th largest company is in distress. Many nest egg investment took a hit..

Another aspect of this, is a movement within the UK that is being described by the term "Johnny Foreigner" which is nothing short of racial bigotry. This did not come for the US, but the UK media has taken a position that US is picking on BP because they are a foreign company. What they fail to mention is Exxon got similar treatment with the Valdez accident, and we boycotted for years thereafter... (even 10 years after the accident)

My opinion UK mainstream media lends too much credibility to blogs, many of which are shotty commentaries for people speculating from every possible angle. There are a couple of journalist from Bloomberg (UK) and BBC who are being terribly irresponsible with the info they are publishing, and making thing worst for BP shareholders. The US (wall st in particular) is catching all kinds of blame for tanking stock. Fact is there were global shareholder (40% are US investors) Goldman and other major shareholders were massively selling off BP the very moment the rig exploded. Nothing stings like losing a bunch of money on an incident like this, but goes to show you that even a huge company like BP are not immune to market hits, and stocks are risky business. That Transocean company collected a $400M insurance policy for the sunk rig which was twice what it was worth, and they were cutting their dividend checks when the explosion occurred. If BP can't get a handle on their stock freefall there is a chance they will be subjected to a takeover on deflated shares alone.

I can't speak for all US citizens, but the blame game on goes as far as fixing the gusher and that is nothing to do with with British citizens but BP and players on that rig. (and yes that includes MMS and the US gov) The ecologic cleanup effort is going to be a long term effort that will require massive resources and volunteers.

The other thing that is creating tension between UK and the US is the first round match in the world cup... That is pretty much creating an adversarial issue. Unfortunate timing for the competition.

As BP's share price has plummeted, it has lost £55billion of its market value, and the company's entire outlook is very bleak, which affects most of us. Every British insurance company, building society and pension fund has large holdings of BP shares in its portfolio. If you have a pension, at present or in prospect, your income falls with every sour word Obama speaks. It's a fine way for a friend to behave, if indeed we should regard the president as a friend.

What is this nonsense? We're supposed to defend BP because we have our grubby fingers in their pockets? Stocks do not work that way.

the president talks in a cheap way about 'kicking ass'. Whether or not the American president can kick our asses, he can certainly hurt our wallets and purses.

This is an example of how UK media took something completely out of context. The "who's ass to kick" comment came out of his last trip to the Gulf Coast was said about what work needed to be done and who would be doing it. It is amazing to me this UK reporter twists that statement to mean Slim is going to kick any british ass all the way to blame for economic woes in the UK.

I'm not sticking up for Obama's poor diplomacy skills, but just pointing out how the media distorts the story to fit their own agenda. It like the author is trying to insight hostility... a real war of words.

On this topic specifically, take a look at BP Wiki page where they talk about the FOIA documents describing the UK/US/BP relationship between Pres. Eisenhower, the CIA, Her Majesties Secret Service/MI6 staging a coup against the Mossadeq government with support from the British government. It says that codename Operation Ajax intelligence documents describe the overthrow of the prince (Shahzadeh) of Qajar Dynasty and installed the new regime Ayatollah Khomeini. The deal was BP got 90% of the Iranian oil money, and Khomeini and his followers got 10%.

What a gravy train.

Originally posted by Sed Non Credo

America's ALWAYS tried to do down Britain

Well, except for that World-War-I-World-War-II business, they may be onto something. I know, I know..."what have you done for me lately?"

In my experience, when people use ALWAYS or NEVER with respect to relationships (be they between individuals or nations), it usually indicates emotion talking, rather than reason.

Perhaps more to the specific point here, I do think the British are being given short shrift by Obama compared with past presidents. The administration has also alienated and angered some other allies by various gaffes: The Japanese were a bit upset that on a recent trip to the East, Hillary Clinton stopped over in Tokyo for 3 hours only before heading over to Beijing for 5 days...despite the fact that Japan is once again the biggest lender to the USA. That's just one example.

The worst accident in the British North Sea oilfields was the fire on board the Piper Alpha platform, when 167 men died. The rig was owned & operated by Occidental, headquartered in California USA.

I'll repeat that just so you take it in. 167 men either burned to death or drowned.

The Lord Cullen's judicial report into the accident made criticism of Occidental's lax safety & maintenance regime (mm, sound familiar ?) ... but at no time did his or media criticism of Occidental degenerate into general anti American sentiment.

That's what makes the whole British Petroleum thing so odd, with the company being routinely criticised by US commentators as foreign, hostile ... even though US shareholdings in BP almost match those of their British equivalents.

Accidents happen & that's to be expected in such difficult environments, although they do everything to prevent such things. What's not acceptable is that companies such as BP, Occidental and the rest are so large, are global in their spread that they seem outside the laws of just about every country, the USA included, their CEO's show no fear because they've got nothing to be scared about, they're almost untouchable. That's not acceptable.

reply to post by getagripplease


Yes but look at who two of them were. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Because of regulatory issues surrounding things like naked short selling and credit default swaps. It's possible for them to hold shares that don't exist so they can drive the stock price down by selling them.

Then using CDS they can bet the company is going to collapse. It's the same thing they did to Lehman and AIG.

And the people that end up suffering are pension funds and 401ks. This happens all the time and it is a criminal activity. But if they can take down BP, then it will be the perfect crime. Because not many people bother investigating defaulted liquidated companies.

I think the only people who should be blamed in this mess should be BP.
the fact that america/Obama is using the name British petroleum is a probably a slur against the English but then again this comes as no surprise if you watch any american shows or cartoons (which in england most of the world its pretty hard not to.) you see the English as high class perfect speaking snobs or evil villains who must be stopped at all costs. this is what i see as a almost racist look on Britain by the us (i know its not the way all Americans think but you do like to cast us as "that guy") throughout this whole chrissis bp has been trying albeit failing to fix this leak the fact that some movie director thinks he knows better than leading scientists is laughable (i actually laughed at that.) this is just another instance where america gets to play the damming game because england has a finger in the pie. i think we all know by this point bp isn't rely going to listen to what it should do when it comes to safety and protocol because like the rest of the top 10 companies in the world it has too much money/power to care. we all know that these big companies will do what they want to ascertain the biggest profits they can look at golden sacks another big company that did illegal and unlawful business did they listen to rules and regs? no they were given them to chop up as i recall these big companies are like their own country they work by there rules and don't listen to the respective country's they operate in so to pin blame on the English for this is just plane retarded

reply to post by Sed Non Credo


Oh Please! If an American based company peed in your territorial waters you'd be screaming to. If what I think I heard a week or two ago is correct there were safety feature's our government didn't require. Which administration signed off on that? Not that little things like that would have been noticed. Believe it or not most American's understand perhaps somewhat abstractly BP is a corporation, which by the way is like any other big corporation. Any way if your feeling picked on, let me tell you what the legacy of my extended family is. My Dad was born in Kent in "31, and he came from the UK in 1936. We had, and still have distant relatives in Germany. My Dad's Dad reportedly was heard at the out break of war to say "I just hope none of us goes off and does something stupid, and "family reunion's are going to be a bitch," or something like that. We fought on both side's and lost we think, but not sure 12 when Dresden was turned into glass. We still have at least 40 or so relatives in England, some in Australia, New Zealand, 2 or3 Canada and a handful still in Germany. Around the holiday's phone and Internet provider's go to seriously amazing length's to be our friend. It went from irritating to creepy. They already gave me every channel they had, including 30 really expensive sports channels. OK, but I call 99% of sports the thrill of competitive sweating.
So I finally lost my cool, a bit and said to the sales lady I want you to give those channels to a person I know in Kent. She said "is that near St. Paul"?, and all I could say was "much farther east" I mean this company has the "Oil" channel ". how a*** is that? the only channel they don't have is the White Situation Room with a camera looking down **** ***** blouse and if you did I would't care. So I gave all the sport's channe's from my cable company via a UK provider to a cousin of mine in Kent. I guess I'm back in the will. In WW-2, my relative's were fighting for the allies and axis. You think you got problem's? Almost any where on Earth something get's Royally, you know, (no offense),our reaction before" is everyone is all right"?, it's "does anyone still wonder how it's logically possible to fight for both side's in a war, and still lose"?