Barack Obama tells MPs and peers how he wanted to reaffirm "one of the oldest and strongest alliances the world has ever known"

Comments

[Ultimo Tiger]

Is he talking about England and Wales? We've been together for a long time now :-D

[Ricardo's Ghost]

Hate to break to to him, but the alliance is neither that old nor that strong.

The transatlantic friendliness isn't much more than 100 years old (prior to that we were at each others throats, with the US regarding the Americas as its sphere of influence and deeply resenting the presence of a Royal Navy fleet stationed in the Caribbean), and I wouldn't date the alliance to earlier than the 1940s. Compare that to the history of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, or how about Anglo-Norwegian, or Anglo-Danish?

As for strength, the US has always been an unreliable friend: forcing us into lend-lease during WWII; Suez crisis; Skybolt crisis; demanding the rapid end of Empire; ambivelence over the Falklands; sabotaging Britain's climate change and international development efforts; suggesting nuclear disarmament at Reykjavik; invading Grenada; very one-sided extradition treaties etc..

[eugene]

Hate to break up the party. Special relationship? Would that be financing the IRA or more trivial stuff like having a £5 million congestion charge bill they refuse to pay?..or is it perhaps getting us in on their dirty wars?..or maybe waiting for us to get almost get destoyed by Hitler before they woke up to help?

Not too keen on this crowd.

[Roderick]

Why doesn't this web site have more extensive links to videos regarding this subject??

America's http://www.c-span.org has lots..... but the image quality of linked-to videos is poor!!

U.S. President Obama Addresses both Houses of the U.K. Parliament:
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Pres-Obama-Addresses-British-Parliament/10737421747-1/

U.S. President Obama Holds Joint Briefing with U.K. P.M. Cameron:
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Pres-Obama-Addresses-British-Parliament/10737421747-2/

________________
Roderick V. Louis,
Vancouver, BC, Canada

[Roderick]

BETTER QUALITY VIDEO:

U.S. President Obama Addresses both Houses of the U.K. Parliament (entire speech):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9495000/9495513.stm

[rob g]

Does he meen the Alliance between England and Portugal. Thats been in place since 1386. A few hundred years before the US existed.

[robert]

Did anybody else think President Obama's speech was an over generalisation and lacking in substance?
It reminded me of a university lecture.
I preferred the oratory of the previous President Bush which was factual and to the point whether you agreed with him or not.

[Dawn Carpenter]

Britain and the United States are so close to one another and so alike in everything that matters, that when we carp at each other, it is like a man shouting at his reflection in a mirror.