Airstrip One

So where are our chips?

Anne Applebaum says that America ignoring British interests is all our fault (thanks to David Ross for pointing it out, and applying it to Gibraltar) since we asked for things such as a UN vote to go in.

Of course there is some truth that we weren't good at asking for anything that may have been actually useful to us, but that's hardly the point. You see the way it was sold to some of the doubters is, yes this will make us unpopular with the rest of the world but America will be so grateful that she will owe us. We can cash in our chips later. (Of course the Anglosphere cult would say that America would do this any way and that we should be fighting with America because that is what friends are for, but outside the bloggosphere they don't really count). Of course when we do try to cash in chips over British citizens under some deluded Civis Romanus Sum claptrap we're told that's not what we asked for.

The point is that we weren't some corrupt Eastern European country that wanted the cash, we did not necesarily know what we would want - and so the peace process in the Middle East or the UN votes were not our reward, they were simply a strategic decision backed by a large segment of the American administration. We couldn't foresee that the Americans would threaten our citizens with death unless they fessed up to being Osama's mates or that GW would phone up Blair to pressure him to give up Gibraltar. Does that mean that all bets were off?

The reason why America is not looking after us is not that we asked for the wrong things, its more that we are simply not taken for granted. Whatever Uncle Sam does the Brits will still be available when some international cover is needed.

This should not come as a surprise, it should act as a lesson.