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?

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