Remember Iraq in 1990 (Desert Shield/Desert Storm), then Iraq II in 2003 (Operation Iraqi Freedom), then Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom), and so on. There was one country that always backed the U.S. and that country was the United Kingdom. Visit http://icasualties.org/oef/ and see that Afghanistan fatalities suffered by the U.K. ranks second only to the U.S.
Now we have the BP oil spill and the dramatic effects on the Gulf coast. There is no doubt that BP has a significant and primary responsibility for containing the spill and paying damages. However, President Obama has shown his seemingly politically contrived anger at BP in a variety of ways including condemnation of dividend payment and demand for payments to those idled by Obama's ban on offshore drilling.
BP has turned to the British government for help and received same as demonstrated in the attached article from yesterday's Financial Times http://tiny.cc/eheo4. We can only hope that President Obama and his advisors remember who our most staunch ally is and contain their politically motivated rhetoric while continuing to seek solutions to the spill.
