Shorting Bermuda

I admit to being an over-the-top anglophile, so I’ll just announce that bias right now. From the moment I read my first Shakespeare play and met my grandfather’s British cousins, I swooned. I have two majors as an undergrad, one of them is history, and it was English History. I started hooking into rock and roll as a tot right at the time of the Beatles and the British invasion. My first big film crush was James Bond and Scotsman Sean Connery. I think I’ve mentioned here before, that as a kid, I wanted to be Emma Peel. My dad still tells me of his time in the US Army Air Force when he was located in Ipswich and he and his flight crew would hit London for a much needed break from bombing Germany and I still get goosebumps to this day.

Yanks and Brits have this special relationship that has been forged in blood, family feuds, language and law. We are kidding ourselves if we don’t think that a major portion of every thing we’ve ever done is a direct product of the English enlightenment and the Magna Carta. We are their hippy offspring and while we don’t have to agree with everything that say and do, we at least should show some respect. (Respect, to me, does not include leaving someone out of the loop to protect them. That is the very definition of arrogant patronization to me.)

In less than 4 months, we have not only snubbed the UK four times in some fashion, we have now left them completely out of a negotiation that directly impacts them can only be characterized as steps in a remake of our special relation. This is especially true in light of the recent protocol gaffes. I was really appalled by the shabby treatment by POTUS and the administration shown to PM Gordan Brown and his family on their visit to the White House. The gifts were tacky and the lack of a formal news conference was embarrassing. It got passed off as a young, inexperienced administration blunder and I tried to give every one the benefit of the doubt. Upon, a visit by POTUS to London for the G-20, we had a second round of tacky gifts and some complete disregard for protocol surrounding royalty. (At least the British royalty, the Saudi royalty got more than any one anticipated).Then, we had the misunderstanding surrounding the disenfranchisement of Her Royal Highness, the only surviving head of state to have been an active member of an Allied Service during World War 2 that was said to be a combined misunderstanding between Brown (who is a bit of a bumbler), Sarkozy (French, nothing else to add there), and Obama (wtf? Isn’t he briefed on these things?).

Now, the BBC reports that the US ‘kept Guantanamo deal from UK’. We have now gone from a series of protocol and diplomatic blunders and missteps to something that, I’m sure, will be seen by many in Parliament as a re-working of the Anglo-American Alliance.

A senior US official has told the BBC Washington decided not to tell London ahead of time about a deal to resettle four Guantanamo detainees in Bermuda.

A diplomatic row blew up over Bermuda’s decision to accept the four Chinese Muslim Uighurs on a US request.

Bermuda is a British overseas territory but the US official said Washington had acted secretly to ensure success.

Meanwhile the US said on Friday three Saudis at Guantanamo Bay had been transferred back to Saudi Arabia.

The transfers are part of US President Barack Obama’s strategy to close down the Guantanamo detention centre before next January.

Hostility

The unnamed senior official also told the BBC that Washington was attempting to shield the UK from Chinese anger.

Beijing has demanded the return to China of all 17 Uighurs held by US forces but Washington says they could face persecution in China.

Hiding things that could potentially create a rift between huge, powerful countries is just about as arrogant of a policy of anything I’ve heard coming down the pipe. Exactly what is every the UK, China, and the Bermuda parliament supposed to do now? I’m not saying placing the Uighurs in a less prison-like atmosphere and protecting them from prosecution in China isn’t a laudable idea. I’m saying doing a run around diplomacy is a chicken shit move I would expect from a Cheney administration. I thought per campaign pledges we were supposed to diplomacy differently now?

Britain, meanwhile, has expressed anger that it was not consulted, saying in a Foreign Office statement: “The Bermuda government consider this to be a matter regarding their day-to-day responsibility for immigration.

We have underlined to the Bermuda government that it should have consulted the UK on whether this falls within their competence or is a foreign affairs or security issue for which the Bermuda government do not have delegated responsibility.”

For the time being London has reserved its expressions of ire for Bermuda, with a spokesman for the UK prime minister insisting Bermuda bore “the primary responsibility for ensuring that the constitutional requirements on the Bermudan government were adhered to”.

Britain is supposed to handle Bermuda’s defence, security and foreign affairs, but it delegates the authority to make decisions on immigration to Bermuda.

Not only that, but we seem to have caused an uproar in Bermuda also! This from The Weekly Standard. (Yeah, Yeah, I know, I know).

Bermuda MP: “Outrage” and “National Crisis” Sparked by Release of Gitmo Detainees

Shawn Crockwell, a member of Bermuda’s parliament and shadow minister for immigration, says that the decision to accept four Uighur detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has “created a national crisis for the island of Bermuda.”

“People are outraged in this country,” says Crockwell. “I’ve never seen the people in this country get so exercised so quickly over an issue.”

Crockwell tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that Bermudians are very concerned about the potential threat the Uighurs pose to the security and economy of Bermuda, and are outraged by the secretive and unilateral manner in which Bermuda premier Dr. Ewart Brown decided to accept the detainees.

“There’s a great deal of anxiety right now,” says Crockwell. “We have not received any information at all in terms of who these individuals are.”

So, The Guardian has announced the UK is going to have to look at their legal relationship with Bermuda.

Britain is to review the legal basis of its relations with Bermuda following a transatlantic row over the resettlement of Guantánamo detainees on the Caribbean island.

The US transfer to Bermuda of four Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, represents an acute embarrassment for the British government, which is supposed to oversee the foreign and security policy of the British overseas territory.

In angry telephone exchanges with Bermuda’s prime minister, Ewart Brown, UK officials have contested his right to negotiate the transfer of the four Uighurs from US custody without consulting Britain.

Barack Obama has said he wants to close Guantánamo Bay detention camp by the end of the year, but is encountering serious problems in deciding what to do with the remaining 240 inmates. The Washington Post reported today that the administration had “all but abandoned” plans to resettle them on US soil in the face of determined bipartisan resistance.

Last year a US court order the Uighurs’ release on the grounds that there was no evidence that they had acted against the US. Another 13 Uighurs are awaiting transfer to the Pacific archipelago of Palau, where there is considerable public resistance to the government’s agreement to take them.

If arbitrary and capricious decisions are what the new diplomacy is all about then I have to say it’s looking a lot more like the OLD diplomacy. How can you justifying doing an end-run around around the democratic process in a democratic country? How can you completely turn on people that should be on your side? Oh, wait, I think I heard this one about a year ago …

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