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Posted on 11/25/2001 9:58:21 AM PST by klee

In London, the "special relationship" between America and Britain, originally defined by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, is often cited as a living, breathing thing that allows the United Kingdom to "punch above its weight" in international affairs.

Not so in the United States, where, until recently, it was rarely admitted and frequently derided.

During Mexican President Vicente Fox's visit to Washington just before Sept. 11, the message went out from President Bush that there was "no more important relationship" for America than that it shared with Mexico. But it did not take long for the old order to reassert itself.

Britain and its prime minister, Tony Blair, have given everything they can to the United States in its hour of need. In doing so, they continue a proud tradition. Some have argued in the past that the Brits are White House poodles, rolling over or baring their fangs, depending on what is required. Others, more fancifully, have referred to them as the Greeks to America's Rome. Whatever the truth, the British are always there when America needs them.

But who gives a high-five for Britain?

The Irish (of whom I am one) are beloved in the United States. The IRA and Sinn Fein received the bulk of their funding over the years from the United States. Much of that cash enabled acts of terrorism against British interests and citizens. The Jews are embraced as America's chosen people: Billions of dollars go out each year to Israel. America humbles itself before the black and American Indian lobbies because of its guilt over past wrongs and its resolve to place things on a better footing.

Parades are held each year to celebrate the Italian connection and the Chinese connection. Even the Germans, after two world wars, are celebrated in America with Octoberfests and other festivities.

But for England? Nothing. The silence is deafening. Brits must, it seems, suffer in perpetuity for the sins of their forefathers. Their heritage is denied or disguised. Even the Pilgrim fathers, who landed in Cape Cod in 1620, are recalled not as English, but rather as proto-Americans, as if they had been born again in national as well as Christian conviction.

Hollywood has only confirmed the disdain. There was the attempt in "The Patriot," starring Mel Gibson, to characterize British troops in the Revolutionary War as "butchers"; the pretense in "U-571" that an American submarine, rather than a British boat, found the Enigma machine; the absence of any reference to British arms in the dramas "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers." These have caused real hurt.

Even battle brings no relief. The closeness between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill that ensured victory in the World War II ended for Britain in the humiliation of "lend-lease," whereby London surrendered much of its gold reserves and overseas markets to America in return for armaments with which to continue the struggle, alone. To rub it in, post-1945, the (safely non-Communist) United Kingdom, though bled dry and exhausted, was studiedly excluded from Marshall Plan aid.

Perhaps, though, change is at last in the air. Britain, like America, is in the fight against international terrorism for the long haul. The campaign, for which Blair has provided much of the rhetoric and diplomatic drive, has caused Washington to acknowledge in public that it has no stauncher friend in the world than the United Kingdom — a sentiment that many Brits had not thought to hear expressed in their lifetimes.

Is it really too much to hope that Blair and his countrymen and women might now get a little back? Or must the spirit of 2001 be automatically negated by the spirit of '76?

It's not too late. Let's hear it, one time, for the Brits.

Check out what Blair just recently said. "Our future is with the EU" kind of leaves the US out does it not. I for one hope we have as little to do with them as possible. The Brits have cost the US enough blood and money. They are as worthless as the the rest of Europe, Neo-Commies all.

VLADOG: The UK is - believe it or not - in Europe. So Blair might be wise to keep an eye on what the Euro lot are doing.

I very much doubt his statement meant 'so stuff you, America'.

I also doubt the many English posters on FR would agree with your statement that we are 'neo-commies all'.

You are probably one of those bigoted one-eyed Yanks that has never ventured out of your own street, let alone country.

Your idiotic and inflammatory remarks have earned you the Five Bum Salute.

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