How long can Obama leave Brown hanging on Afghanistan?

Number7

Did Brown mislead parliament?

Cuffleyburgers

At least Blair was able to fly into Washington, be listened to and pretend to influence strategy, and he would undoubtedly not have allowed himself to be treated the way Obama is treating Brown.

The development of a strategy should not be the US alone - they have to realise that as allies our input is vital and it is wholly unacceptable to leave the head of govt of your principal strategic ally hanging like this.

I appreciate Obama doesn't want to talk to Brown, the man's an idiot, but the meetings being held to decide the way forward HAVE to be bilateral. There must be senior British people in Washington during this process. For both practical, political and diplomatic reasons

PS what is the word to use instead of "both" when you have three things in your list? I've been in Italy too long!

Paul Hughes

Obama has explicitly revealed what the unsentimental right has known for some time: the special relationship doesn't exist and never existed.

The UK was crewed into the ground over Marshall Aid. The UK was screwed over by the Americans in Suez. At every turn, the Americans have acted solely in their own interests. If only we did too.

It's time to accept that prosperity need not depend upon military muscle abroad. It's time to realise that we are no longer an upper-middle ranking power. It's time to realise that, as an island nation, we are neither American nor European. We are special in ourselves and could easily follow a middle path between these two poles.

Iraq and Afghanistan were too good wars badly bungled by those who sought war on the cheap (cheap in terms of cash and bodybags). Both were failures, when compared to the promises made. "Barely a shot."

Let's get the hell out. The west is finished. Let's become a quiet little island Switzerland. I'm sick of vainglorious hopes that we can remain a major player in league with the US/EU (delete as desired). A major player to what end.

Yours

a rightist isolationist.

Michael Booth

Nice being an independent country, aint it?

strapworld

We can all look forward to Copenhagen and the sight of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom slavishly following Obama wherever he goes! Totally unbelievable and so sad!

Mind you two politicians who both cannot make decisions and who live in bunkers! They are well suited.

Carroll Barry-Walsh

Here's an idea: why doesn't a British PM make a decision in Britain's best interests? And please - no guff that our interests involve doing what the PoTus tells us to.

Thomas Cussans

Brown's 'great statesmen' role has always depended on his hanging on to the coat-tails of others, principally because he is too scared to take any active decision himself unless he can see an immediate short-term political benefit. It is the precise opposite of leadership.

Brown is a man schooled in the narrow world of Scottish socialism. Everything he does is dictated by the need to score cheap points. Wider goals have no role in this nasty, self-regarding world.

Translate this tiny vision onto a world stage and you end up with a crude schemer with exactly no notion of what he is trying to do or why. If you chuck into this already dire mix Brown's desperate need to pose as Obama Beach's best friend despite his, Brown's, slashing of the defence budget, a clear contribution to those British deaths he now pretends to mourn, you end up not merely with a buffoon, but a one who near uniquely combines nastiness, dishonesty and clod-like incompetence.

Brown has never escaped his Scottish background. It makes him obviously unfitted for any global role. It shames his nation.

DavidL

You're right. This is no way to treat loyal allies. Obama really needs to give a lead and set clear policy objectives and means. At the moment British soldiers are dying on an almost daily basis:for what? A mission that may be abandoned? A corrupt Goverment? I cannot possibly bring myself to feel sorry for Brown twice in a week but no British Prime Minister would or should find this acceptable.

Frizby

Obama's snubs to Brown are becoming habitual. Foreign leaders must see him coming towards them with the conceit of the Titanic and flee for their lives. The sad thing in this particular instance is that their are British lives in the way of danger and Brown is not the man (or Titan) to steer them to safety.

Chuck Unsworth

"How long can Obama leave Brown hanging on Afghanistan?"

Just as long has he damn well likes.

Brown is a completely irrelevant nonentity to America and, in particular, to Obama (or President Omaha, as Brown likes to call him).

It's time that Brown understood that the 'special relationship' never really existed. But Brown is so stupid as to believe that it actually means something.

Tankus

"as long as he like's" ...true
plus ..I don't think that brown is trusted. If any strategy (not for immediate public consumption) is discussed with Obama , brown will be all over media , straight away , on how he "is getting on with the job " in Afghanistan , and that how Obama is following his world changing lead ..

brown is not safe

brown is way too needy .

brown cannot be trusted

porkbelly

Don't forget that Obama already announced a carefully considered Afghanistan policy after an intensive review - back in March. The current dithering and hand-wringing represents his second attempt, and his aides are making it clear that he reserves the right to change his mind again in the future. If Brown is waiting for Obama's lead he had better prepare to have the ground cut out from under him if things don't go according to plan in the months ahead (i.e., when the clamor from the American left gets in the way of Obama's domestic agenda). But Obama sees Brown as a dead man walking anyway so he will shed few tears for him.

skingers

After all this time it had better be a really good strategy. Or Obama will loose credibility and more importantly life will be lost to no immediate end and that is a sure way to loose the politics and the people.

TrevorsDen

If Obamas policy ends up being basically training the Afghan army and not doing much else - then all our losses are for nothing. Without serious commitment the training will be useless.

It will also call into question the plausibility of browns claim that our involvement is protecting us on our own streets.

Archie

Chuck Unsworth: "Just as long as he damn well likes" arrogantly insults the memory of the British service personnel fighting and dying in Afghanistan, and even though Brown might be a nonentity to America (I wonder just how many Americans even know where Afghanistan is on the map; never mind the name of the Prime Minister, and of where) if he had any balls after this treatment by a so-called ally, he would immediately announce the withdrawal of all British troops NOW!

Billy Blofeld

Brown happily blusters, distorts and lies in parliament. This won't bother him in the slightest.

logdon

The irony of Radio Four knows no bounds.

Brown, interviewed by that rabid rotweiller of Today, Evan Davis repeating in his dreary monotone the myth that troops in Helmand are saving lives on British streets.

Question? How many Afghans have blown themselves up, driven cars into airport entrances or been convicted of hatching terror plots in Britain?

Ask next, the nationality or ethnicity of the bulk of the ones ditto above.

Doh! If it’s the safety of British subjects aren’t we targeting the wrong people?

Being brutally honest the situation boils down to this.

Afghanis are killing British troops because we are there. Pakistanis are killing or attempting to kill British civilians because they are here.

Brown dismisses ‘Fortress Britain’, a deliberately loaded term but sooner or later we have to face facts. The evidence is overwhelmingly stark.
Militant groups of Pakistanis in Britain are either slaughtering us or endeavoring to do so.

Link that overt and unequivocal threat to our political correctness and moral equivalence and there's your answer.

By dint of threat and our own pc pussilanimousness we have opened our doors to a force intent on bringing Britain down the the chaotic level of Pakistan.

So how, to repeat my initial premise, is a contingent of British military in one of the most hostile environments on God’s earth stopping all of that?

What will, is the message, to reverse the Liquid Bombers bombast, ‘don’t mess with the Muslims’ , don’t mess with the British.

Severely curtail any more immigration from that quarter. End the import flow of arranged marriages and family reunion immigrants. End the phoney student visa scams. And, as we did from Ireland, dedicate airport terminals and secure passages through which all Pakistani’s must pass through in order to enter.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Archie

No insult on my part, merely an observation of fact and the opinion of someone who has actually been on active service in one or two theatres. I think you may find a trip to ARRSE informative. It's clear that Obama calls the shots whilst Brown seeks to gain whatever political capital he can from the crumbs falling from the White House table.

What is profoundly insulting is Brown's cretinous handling of the finances and the policies of this action. His mendacity is matched only by his incompetence and timorousness.

Naomi Muse

Brown should get us out of Afghanistan. There is no winning in Afghanistan. The lessons of very recent history should have been learned.

Brown won't do so because he is waiting for Obama.

Brown should act for the UK. He would gain more political capital if he did.

He should also apologise for having blocked essential spending on the military since he was Chancellor and cry himself to sleep for the unnecessary deaths of our people caused by his stingyness, in the name of his old friend 'fiscal prudence'.

More than that, he should be ashamed of himself.

Beer Moth

Until May, when we sack him.

old fogey

Really the quickest,cheapest, easiest and most satisfying way of ending the Afghan /Pakistan terroist threat in the UK is to immediately halt immigration from Pakistan--totally, without exception--and to send back all Pakistanis who have overstayed visas, or who have abused their educational entrance permits. Then to suspend all air passsenger traffic between Pakistan and Britain.
We might have to be selective about who we allow in from India as well--basically this is an anti Islamic measure. And then require that all the Afghans allowed in over the last few years bid us farewell, in return for our troops coming home.

Keith

Oh come off it Naomi Muse.

Brown isn't stingy. He's very liberal with taxpayors' money. It's just that his liberality is entirely driven by and co-extensive with, the political interests of the Labour party.