Ferrus
1 Nov 2008, 12:10 PM
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5057772.ece
Interesting article, which says a lot about the US-UK alliance.
In 1966 we gave America what is effectively a 50-year lease [on Diego Garcia]. We got nothing in return except, it is rumoured, a notional discount on some Polaris missiles. There were some two thousand of those “few Tarzans and Man Fridays” and they had been there for two generations before being conveniently reclassified as temporary workers. We lied and lied and lied again about this.
Since then the US writ has run on Diego Garcia; its airbase there has become key to US defences, vital for Iraq and Afghanistan. The poor Chagossians and their descendants (also called Ilois) have stewed in slums in Mauritius with derisory compensation; or washed up in the Seychelles or Crawley, by Gatwick.
...
The Chagossians may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but a Whitehall that has successfully denied them justice for a quarter of a century will find the ingenuity to continue blocking their return. Everybody knows why. It's the Americans. They want this archipelago to themselves. The US military call Diego Garcia alternatively “Camp Justice” and “the Footprint of Freedom”. It is used for “extraordinary rendition” flights. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, knows that, too - or, rather, has understood the benefits of not examining Washington's story too closely.
...
During the Second World War, Washington built an airstrip [on Ascension island]; in 1957 a US presence was re-established, and its occupation of the base has been renewable annually by consent ever since. Britain is paid nothing: indeed we have to pay the Americans $1,000 every time one of our civil aircraft lands there.
During the Falklands war the Defence Secretary, John Nott, was astonished when the Americans at first refused Britain's request to refuel Vulcan bombers at Ascension: an “intolerable and disgraceful episode”, he wrote in his memoirs Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, that he thought could only have come from General Alexander Haig. Washington did back down - but that a US Secretary of State could have even tried to deny us use of our own island to defend our own possessions tells us something we ought to hear about our ally.
...
In both possessions we British get the continuing colonial stigma, while America gets the practical use. In Diego Garcia the Americans are well on the way to de facto possession. We cannot stop them using the place for torture flights; it is inconceivable that we would thwart them there in any military purpose. To us, this possession is a source only of shame. It serves no national interest beyond its use to an ally.
We should cede it to America. With eight years of the present agreement left to run, London should talk to Washington about selling the possession for an eye-watering sum; compensate its former inhabitants and their descendants generously; and pocket the rest. Diego Garcia is vital to US military strategy; $15billion should be our opening bid.
Interesting article, which says a lot about the US-UK alliance.
In 1966 we gave America what is effectively a 50-year lease [on Diego Garcia]. We got nothing in return except, it is rumoured, a notional discount on some Polaris missiles. There were some two thousand of those “few Tarzans and Man Fridays” and they had been there for two generations before being conveniently reclassified as temporary workers. We lied and lied and lied again about this.
Since then the US writ has run on Diego Garcia; its airbase there has become key to US defences, vital for Iraq and Afghanistan. The poor Chagossians and their descendants (also called Ilois) have stewed in slums in Mauritius with derisory compensation; or washed up in the Seychelles or Crawley, by Gatwick.
...
The Chagossians may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but a Whitehall that has successfully denied them justice for a quarter of a century will find the ingenuity to continue blocking their return. Everybody knows why. It's the Americans. They want this archipelago to themselves. The US military call Diego Garcia alternatively “Camp Justice” and “the Footprint of Freedom”. It is used for “extraordinary rendition” flights. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, knows that, too - or, rather, has understood the benefits of not examining Washington's story too closely.
...
During the Second World War, Washington built an airstrip [on Ascension island]; in 1957 a US presence was re-established, and its occupation of the base has been renewable annually by consent ever since. Britain is paid nothing: indeed we have to pay the Americans $1,000 every time one of our civil aircraft lands there.
During the Falklands war the Defence Secretary, John Nott, was astonished when the Americans at first refused Britain's request to refuel Vulcan bombers at Ascension: an “intolerable and disgraceful episode”, he wrote in his memoirs Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, that he thought could only have come from General Alexander Haig. Washington did back down - but that a US Secretary of State could have even tried to deny us use of our own island to defend our own possessions tells us something we ought to hear about our ally.
...
In both possessions we British get the continuing colonial stigma, while America gets the practical use. In Diego Garcia the Americans are well on the way to de facto possession. We cannot stop them using the place for torture flights; it is inconceivable that we would thwart them there in any military purpose. To us, this possession is a source only of shame. It serves no national interest beyond its use to an ally.
We should cede it to America. With eight years of the present agreement left to run, London should talk to Washington about selling the possession for an eye-watering sum; compensate its former inhabitants and their descendants generously; and pocket the rest. Diego Garcia is vital to US military strategy; $15billion should be our opening bid.