Obama sends bronze bust of Winston Churchill back to UK..but they didn't ask for it?

[Billy Golightly]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4623148/Barack-Obama-sends-bust-of-Winston-Churchill-on-its-way-back-to-Britain.html





Wow....


Any of you UK guys, hows this make you feel?

[Tri-Z 250]

I'm not from the UK, but I say it was a nice peice of art that belongs back home. I'm not getting any brush off or sign of discust...Billy whach yu talkin bout?

[Billy Golightly]

"Barack Obama has sent Sir Winston Churchill packing and pulse rates soaring among anxious British diplomats. "

"But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks." "


"Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill's second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President's grandfather.

The rejection of the bust has left some British officials nervously reading the runes to see how much influence the UK can wield with the new regime in Washington. "



Seems pretty straightforward to me, that it has angered or at the very least upset some people. It appears to be motivated by the above quote about his grandfather's ties to British occupation of Kenya at the time. I think it was a pretty block-headed thing to do.

[UlsterATCFan]

Interesting stuff, I hadn't actually heard about this incident. Heres a quote from Sir Winston Churchill, a man who had the balls to face down Hitler even when it seemed Britain would be invaded and occupied from his book: The Second World War:

"No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not fortell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder."

Now that shows the respect and appreciation Sir Winston had for his greatest ally, the United States and the role she played in liberating Europe. You can say what you want about G.W. Bush but with him that respect was clearly mutual. Barack Hussein Obama seems to be singing from a different hymn sheet.

Here's another quote from Sir Winston that I suspect Mr. Obama may be familiar with and which may shed some light on his decision to return the artefact in question (hopefully I don't get banned for this):

"'Keep England White' is a good slogan"

[firehart]

I think right now Obama just trying to sit on the fence. He does not want to upset anything or anybody. We'll see what happns when somebody pushes him off the fence.

[Billy Golightly]

That quote from ww2 is awesome...I mean it makes me really proud to know that Churchill, and probably lots of other people in Britain felt the same way. That there was that much confidence in our abilities and our resolve....

Its to bad that now-a-days we're so watered down from that.