Mitt Romney's overseas tour

So, will the UK be kicking the US athletes out of the Olympic Village if they are so outraged over this issue?
 
Because that's what the Argentine's call them and they get pissed when someone calls them the Falklands?

Because the US giving a nutjob government a diplomatic message that the US appreciates that government's claim on another peoples' land is unlikely to have adverse consequences *cough..Kuwait*
 
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Well, criticising a sitting President on foreign soil didn't work out so well for the Dixie Chicks, now did it? It would be interesting to see what the right wing's reaction would be if Romney does indeed criticise Obama on foreign soil. Will they send him death threats like they did the Dixie Chicks? Will C&W radio ban his ads from ever playing on their airwaves? The skeptic in me seriously doubts that...

As a personal side note - I happen to like the Dixie Chicks and think that the song "Not Ready to Make Nice" is a very well written piece. It says a lot about the state of political discourse in this country.


Prediction: hypocrisy
 
It’s treacherous for a US presidential candidate to travel overseas — lots of opportunities for mis-chosen words and getting drawn into other countries’ domestic politics.

Oh, for goodness sake! I don't like Romney and I suppose I hope Obama wins but some of this utter tripe that partisan hacks write is irritating.

Obama went to Berlin and to Israel, if I remember rightly, to do some overseas promotion and did quite well out of it.

John McCain showed up in Georgia and acted senile.

So what?
 
The administration supporting Argentina's position over negotiations regarding the "Maldives" (Obama's bushism not mine). Heck, why even (try to) call them the Malvinas instead of the Falklands?

The US has never supported Argentina's claim AFAIK. Can you show any evidence that Obama has ever backed Argentina's claim to the Falklands?
 
Yeah, you do. No diplomacy == war. Sometimes diplomacy doesn't help, but several thousand years of experience have shown it is preferable to start with.

This is a silly thing to say. People have said all kinds of undiplomatic things without war being a result. Similarly, people have simply not said things on the basis of diplomacy rather than browntongued everyone.

Are you seriously suggesting that if Obama hadn't uttered the magic diplomatic words "Maldives" then there would be a new war?
 
The US has never supported Argentina's claim AFAIK. Can you show any evidence that Obama has ever backed Argentina's claim to the Falklands?

As far as I know, Jeanne Kirkpatrick was the last fully-fledged supporter of Argentina vis-a-vis the Falklands. I remember when she died and laughed watching John Bolton blub over her carcass.
 
The US has never supported Argentina's claim AFAIK. Can you show any evidence that Obama has ever backed Argentina's claim to the Falklands?

Here is the State Department Position:

QUESTION: Does the U.S. take a position on the recent posturing between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falklands?

ANSWER: This is a bilateral issue that needs to be worked out directly between the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom. We encourage both parties to resolve their differences through dialogue in normal diplomatic channels.

We recognize de facto United Kingdom administration of the islands but take no position regarding sovereignty.




Here is the Telegraph's take on it:

In response to a question on the Falklands at*Thursday's State Department*press briefing, a*US government*spokesman supported direct negotiations between Buenos Aires and London over the sovereignty of the Falklands, something that Argentina has been pressing for aggressively, and which Britain sees as completely unacceptable.

As far is London is concerned, the sovereignty of the Falklands was decisively settled in the 1982 war when British forces retook the Islands after Argentina’s brutal military junta invaded them. The Falklands’ 3,000 inhabitants are 90 per cent British (according to the 2006 census), and 0.1 percent Argentine, and have no desire to live under the boot of Buenos Aires. There is nothing whatsoever to be negotiated over regarding the future of the Falklands, a position the British government has reiterated on numerous occasions.

Here is the official State Department*press release*on the Falklands issue*published today*– note the insulting use of the Argentine term for the Islands, "Malvinas", a de facto declaration by the Obama presidency that it recognises Argentina has a legitimate claim over the Islands:


My comments:
Encouraging the UK to talk when there is nothing to talk about and calling UK soveriegnty just "de facto administration" (why didn't they just come out and call it "colonial occupiers"?) is giving the Argentinian position an unwarrented, unjustified and unpalatable respect.
 
Me thinks the Telegraph read way too much into a standard "we don't know what you are talking about so we'll just say the parties in question need to resolve it peacefully" canned response.
 
Here is the official State Department*press release*on the Falklands issue*published today*– note the insulting use of the Argentine term for the Islands, "Malvinas", a de facto declaration by the Obama presidency that it recognises Argentina has a legitimate claim over the Islands:

Where?
 
My comments:
Encouraging the UK to talk when there is nothing to talk about and calling UK soveriegnty just "de facto administration" (why didn't they just come out and call it "colonial occupiers"?) is giving the Argentinian position an unwarrented, unjustified and unpalatable respect.

Here's a question, if the US government is currently talking about "de facto" ownership and making it sound like the claims are 50-50, then at what point did the US government change from an earlier policy?

The answer is they haven't. The US has always blown hot and cold on this. Just ask Alexander Haig.
 
Does the UK recognize Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands?

It seems like the general rule for third countries not directly involved in a territorial dispute to remain neutral.

ETA:
Also, I don't see a call for "resolving differences through dialogue" as the same as calling for "negotiations."
 
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It seems like the general rule for third countries not directly involved in a territorial dispute to remain neutral.

If the UK was asked about the Hawaiin Sovereignty Movement, would the UK's official position be: "We recognise de facto US administration of Hawaii but take no position regarding sovereignty and encourage both sides to sit down and negotiate"?
 
Does the UK recognize Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands?

I don't know. Nobody even lives there. What difference would it make anyway?


It seems like the general rule for third countries not directly involved in a territorial dispute to remain neutral.

So what about Takeshima? Doesn't the world recognize it as Japanese? Only Korea considers it Dokdo.

As for the north-east islands, well, sorry, the world considers it Russian except for Japan.

Just because disputes happen it doesn't mean that every dispute is the same.

ETA:
Also, I don't see a call for "resolving differences through dialogue" as the same as calling for "negotiations."

As Arthur Koestler might have said, it requires an advanced form of dialectics to understand that.
 
I don't know. Nobody even lives there. What difference would it make anyway?

It's a pretty big deal actually, not because of the islands themselves but the ocean territory and possible oil or other resources that might be under it. Also fishing rights.

As Arthur Koestler might have said, it requires an advanced form of dialectics to understand that.

"dialogue" and "negotiations" are clearly different things.
 
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