Thursday 3 April 2014

We should all be grateful to Putin

In life sometimes not getting what you want turns out best for your interests. Many years ago I knew a Yank banker, George, who worked for a major US bank in London who was trying to put together a very big loan for a US corporate. We were having lunch one Sunday at his very posh flat by Marble Arch. He kept on dashing out to take phone calls related to this loan. The last time he came back crestfallen and said the loan was dead as Onassis has just pulled out of the deal. He reckoned that would cost him a lot of bonus money. We left soon after.

The company he was going to lend to was Penn Central railroad and two days later it went bust and defaulted on its loans. Onassis actually saved George's career!

I opine Putin is our Onassis. He stopped us getting involved in Syria saving us money, material and most important the lives of our young men. We could not do any good in Syria which is in a state of civil war. Preening politicians like Clegg who want to have 'clout' - a Russian term - and want to walk tall on the world stage get other people's sons and daughters killed whilst they stay safe in Brussels

As David Starkey pointed out  freeing France from German rule in 1944 got us nothing but the undying hatred of the French. I remember one Eurocrat around 1980 telling me France had been liberated by the Free French forces. Incredible! The only thing they did was to march up the Champs Elysee after Paris had been liberated by the Yanks and British Commonwealth forces. When De Gaulle was having one of his many delusions of grandeur, left NATO, and demanded all US troops should be withdrawn from the sacred soil of  France the US Secretary of State simply asked what do we do about the ones in the cemeteries?

Farage was right to point out the good aspects of Putin's actions. The claim that Putin could have stopped the civil war in Syria with a single telephone call to Assad is a LibConLab fantasy that shows how out of touch Clegg, Cameron & Ashdown are.

2 comments:

Edward Spalton said...

I remember a very realistic Frenchman talking about the occupation and liberation of France.

He Said "In March 1944 Marshal Petain visited Paris and 2 million Frenchmen turned out to greet him.

In August 1944 General De Gaulle entered Paris and 2 million men turned out to greet him"

Then, with an expressive Gallic shrug

"Statistically, it was the same crowd".

Of course, after the end of the war the Gaullistes had to co-operate with the former Vichy collaborators to stave off the very strong communist threat. So people like Mitterand (who had received the highest Vichy French decoration for propaganda work but took French leave of the Marshal in 1943) were able to reach high office - the highest in his case.

In Germany too, Adenauer was permitted and encouraged to recruit former Nazis for the same reasons.

Eric Edmond said...

I guess its what you call realpolitik. British interests must come first and that is not the same as Clegg walking tall. That just gets your head blown off or in Clegg/Cam/Blair's case some pooor squaddy's head.