Ruse by Any Other Name | |
| By Timothy Birdnow Monday, April 23, 2012 Recently President Obama made a gaffe during a speech in Cartagena, Colombia, in which he mistakenly referred to the Malvinas as the Maldives. Now, an Obama gaffe may be shocking to the U.K. Telegraph, but it is hardly Earth-shattering to American Conservatives who are quite familiar with ridiculous statements from Mr. Obama such as his belief there were 57 states, or that Abraham Lincoln founded the GOP, or that a tornado killed ten thousand people in Kansas, but the American media is so thorough at covering his gaffes that a foreign news agency can be forgiven for being surprised by a bone-headed remark by the President. Still, the Maldives are a world away from the Malvinas; the former being a small island chain in the Indian Ocean (a place Mr. Obama should be familiar with, given that he spent several years of his youth living in Indonesia) and the latter being the Argentinean name for the Falkland Islands. Both are remnants of the British Empire. But my question is, was this a gaffe? President Obama has a notoriously anti-British streak. One of his first acts as President was ridding the White House of a bust of Winston Churchill, and he seemingly took great pains to insult the British Queen by giving her American DVD’s of his own speeches, recordings that would not even play on British equipment, and his wife hugging Her Majesty (the Queen, not Michelle) in a gross violation of protocol. (The Obamas are quite aware of protocol, with Mr. Obama forever bowing and scraping before any form of royalty but particularly Islamic royalty.) Mr. Obama’s grandfather was likely a Mau-Mau (an African terrorist organization) , and spent many years in a British prison. Obama himself was a British subject. So his choice of the Argentinean name for the island chain that guards the Magellan Strait is interesting; it strongly suggests that he is siding with Argentina in the dispute over the sparsely-inhabited islands at the ends of the Earth. Argentina’s claim to the Falklands stems from the older Spanish claim to these islands; Spain took over a claim by France, and established themselves at the French colony at Port St. Louis, renaming it Puerto Soledad. The Royal Navy subsequently kicked the Spanish off the islands, and the British established their own colonies. Upon gaining independence, Argentina was granted the old Spanish territory, which included the claim on the Falklands. But there was never an Argentinean foot set upon the islands, and the British islanders have repeatedly voted to remain part of the Empire, rejecting both admission to Argentina and independence. It was on the strength of this that the British obtained support from the international community to retake the islands after Argentina invaded in 1982. American assistance in terms of logistics and materials was invaluable to the British, who had to launch air sorties from Ascension Island 3,200 miles away. The British navy was inadequate to prosecute such a distant war. There is no Royal Navy to speak of today; the islands are Argentina’s for the taking. Was Mr. Obama signaling a future refusal to aid the British should Argentina invade? It seems likely, using the Argentinean name. And the stakes are higher - much higher. Argentina is an emerging energy state, with hydraulic fracturing opening oil and gas fields that had been unexploitable. As it turns out, the Falklands are sitting on just such a field, a big one. Meanwhile, Argentina is busily nationalizing foreign energy corporations, having recently seized the assets of YPF, a subsidiary of the Spanish company Repsol. And there is also Brazil’s Petrobras actively working in the South Atlantic, thanks to Mr. Obama’s Gulf of Mexico drilling bans and the heavy investments of his friend George Soros in the Brazilian corporation. Mr. Obama has promised large sums to Brazil and Petrobras to develop South Atlantic oil and gas fields. Considering this, it seems likely Mr. Obama was sending a message to the British. But Barack Obama has never been bold in matters of foreign affairs, and it seems possible this slip-of-the-tongue was intentional; he can walk it back should Argentina act rashly and he faces too much political heat. He has plausible deniability, can claim he was speaking of the Maldives; had Argentina invaded the island paradise of the Indian Ocean he would not have objected, but to invade the Falklands is impermissible! I know it sounds ridiculous, but it is the way these people operate. Perhaps Argentina should take him at his word and mount an invasion of the Maldives. Dinesh D’Souza has argued that the key to understanding Barack Obama is to understand his hatred for colonialism. Mr. Obama believes that the wealth of the world was stolen by the European powers and white America, who have horded this wealth at the expense of people of color and the indigenous of the Third World, and he sees his mission as restoring this “stolen” wealth to it’s “rightful” owners. Mr. Obama could scarcely support British claims to the Falklands, especially if the Falklands have the potential to reap enormous petrochemical wealth. He would naturally support a contrary claim to ownership of this wealth. But there is a larger world strategy being implemented by the Obama regime; U.N. Agenda 21 is globalist revolution clothed in environmentalism, and it is the child of the RIO Summit in 1992 (which just so happened to be held in the capital of Argentina), which set down a number of principles. Among them: Principle 2 If the Obama Administration is serious about implementing these U.N. goals - and it has shown every tendency to do so - it would naturally oppose British sovereignty over the Falklands. How can Mr. Obama allow an exploitive colonial power to profit from oil and gas that rightfully belongs (in his view) to Latin America? (In point of fact, Interior secretary Ken Salazar has been promoting Agenda 21 via the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives while visiting Brazil.) So the question remains; was this slip-of-the-tongue by President Obama really a simple mistake, or a calculated ploy? Given the manipulative nature of Mr. Obama, and given his recent comments to Russian President Medvedev that he will have more flexibility in giving foreign powers what they want after his re-election. I suspect it is the latter. He simply cannot say what he means at this juncture. A ruse by any other name smells as, well it isn’t sweet! Just one more reason why we must prevail in the next election.  Timothy Birdnow Most recent columns Timothy Birdnow is a conservative writer and blogger and lives in St. Louis Missouri. His work has appeared in many popular conservative publications including but not limited to The American Thinker, Pajamas Media, Intellectual Conservative and Orthodoxy Today. Tim is a featured contributor to American Daily Review and has appeared as a Guest Host on the Heading Right Radio Network. Tim’s website is tbirdnow.mee.nu Timothy can be reached at: tim@timothybirdnow.com |
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