Obama is anti-british

RDM said:
It isn't really about being anti British but deflecting blame from the administration and the US companies involved. It just happens to be that BP is (mostly) British. Of course the CEO of BP really, really needs to hire a decent PR person and stop saying stupid things.
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^^ This. Obama is purely doing what all politicians would do in his position - pass the buck and point the finger elsewhere.

I love how they're expecting BP to pick up the tab for other oil companies staff because of the moratorium on drilling, yet it was a decision made by Obama. They do seem to forget it was an accident and one BP have always said they'd pay to sort out.
 
Jokester said:
Indeed, it purely a PR campaign to deflect attention from the fact that it was Obama that opened up the US coast to drilling and one of the US governemental departments were responsible for signing off the removal of some safeguards from the drilling program for the well.
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That, and the fact that Obama should have pressure BP much, much earlier.
It was weeks before anything was even attempted!
 
Strife212 said:
For you maybe, since you were wrong :p
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So you refuse to accept the fact that it is indeed called British Petroleum but shorthanded to BP since the merger with Amoco Corporation? What about the fact that it's still a wholly British company based in London? You're just backpedalling because you've finally realized how ridiculous all this 'Obama hates Britain' diatribe is.
 
Gerard said:
Yeah "special" relationship.
shifty.gif
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:p

I only don't like America coz they won't let me in. :mad: + :p
 
You're just backpedalling because you've finally realized how ridiculous all this 'Obama hates Britain' diatribe is.
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How is it ridiculous in any way? All the evidence, however minor, points to him not liking Britain very much.
 
Strife212 said:
For you maybe, since you were wrong :p
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Haha YUP.

The BP brand appears on production platforms, refineries, ships and corporate offices the world over, as well as on solar products, wind farms, research facilities and at retail service stations.

Our brand is summed up by the phrase 'beyond petroleum'. BP recognises that meeting the energy challenges of today and tomorrow requires both traditional hydrocarbons and a growing range of alternatives. We are at the forefront of delivering diverse, material and real solutions to meet the world's needs for more and secure, cleaner and affordable energy.
Named after the Greek sun god, our logo - the Helios, symbolises all these characteristics. It represents diverse forms of energy. Perhaps most important to BP is human energy: the spirit, determination and pride our people bring to everything we do. If BP fuels the world, it is our people who fuel BP.

We have a set of values that we use in all our business decisions. They guide our behaviours, and the types of products and services we offer. It is these values, and what we stand for as a company, that make BP distinctive.
 
I'm so outraged, blah, blah blah, it's so fashionable, blah blah, blah, hang Obama, send in the troops. I'm not really. :p
 
Also, it needs to be viewed in the context of mid-term elections taking place in November which are likely to be heavily contested so the current administration obviously has to be giving off populist messages.

What's interesting though is from what I've seen the Republicans are unusually, although predictably, quiet in their criticism of the government - they can't exhort the government to clamp down on oil drilling, regulation and suchlike, nor can they criticise the prior plans to open up more drilling and exploration because they can't be seen to be opposing the oil companies (Drill, baby, drill) - the initial response from the Reps until it became clear it was a massive oil spill was simply 'accidents happen'. :p

So in a political atmosphere where the inter-political criticism is somewhat muted, the only real target for criticism is BP itself.



But equally, I still maintain that no-one here really cares about the British aspect, only the company response.
 
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KNiVES said:
So because Obama no longer treats the UK like a cute little poodle and instead like any other ordinary ally, he's anti-British? Ok. He has every right to heavily criticize BP by the way. Every right. The Gulf of Mexico could take decades to fully recover from the Deepwater Horizon spill, and just because Obama wants the BP executives' heads on a silver platter, doesn't mean he's anti-British.
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He's overstepping the mark either way - there were three companies involved the two US ones aren't getting anywhere near the same amount of flack. BP is the well owner so responsible for the cleanup and has stated the will compensate victims but the actual blame for the disaster isn't as clear. It was a Haliburton (a US company) that installed the blowout preventer that failed for example. There was an argument between transocean and BP over procedures, BP wanting to go down the lower cost route transocean wanting to go down an expensive route (this is normal for a service provider/contracted firm to extract as much as possible from a job) - either way there was a **** up they're all blaming each other - Transocean was running the rig, BP demanded certain procedures and the Haliburton blowout preventer failed...

deep drilling is risky, the US govt knows its risky, they allowed deep water drilling and have to accept that risk - they set a legal limit for liability for oil firms - BP had already said it would compensate victims Obama wanted to introduce new legislation after the event to remove the cap on liability.

Obviously there are some Americans getting hysterical about it all and obviously he needs to be seen to be dealing with it and getting upset at the companies involved but BP seems to be getting a disproportionate amount of flack and the demands for BP to not pay its dividends are ridicules - he's trying to interfere with the running of one of the larges UK companies when paying dividends or not is irrelevant to the cleanup - in short he's scoring some cheap points prior to the mid-term elections at the expense of pension funds and therefore pensioners on both sides of the atlantic - these are some of the biggest shareholders in BP - pension funds have a huge exposure to the company.
 
Superficial said:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/n...britain-in-the-face-again-over-the-falklands/

to be honest there is lots of tangible evidence for this pov.
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It's ok, misunderstanding, it appears they aren't talking about the Falklands, they're talking about:

CONSIDERING its repeated statements that the Question of the Malvinas Islands is a matter of enduring hemispheric concern;
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The Malvinas Islands, wherever they are...?;)

If they do want to enter negotiations about The Falklands then it's fine by me. I reckon clearing our entire national debt (public andd Private) and then paying any interest and fees regarding that and we give them the islands...

Nope? Well then they can stay ours...:p

RDM said:
Nah, if it was a Chinese matter he would have beene executed for making China look bad, the deaths and the environmental damage would be immaterial.




The man is indeed a grade A idiot. However, he isn't really responsible for this incident, the US company that owns the platform (and several others without the same safety features) are. However that wouldn't be a decent political target so BP as a "foriegn" company works better.
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I dunno if he's an idiot, we've all said things that have come back to bite us in the ****, unfortunately he said them in front of a TV camera...

mjt said:
That, and the fact that Obama should have pressure BP much, much earlier.
It was weeks before anything was even attempted!
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Really? You really think that BP will just have gone, "meh, it's just a leak..." knowing full well that they would have to pay the bill for the cleanup either way? It takes more than a couple of hours to organise/assess and mobilise for that big an operation. I'm guessing it would take months to organise something like that if it wasn't an emergency...

Either way I think there will be some heads rolling, not just at BP but the subcontractors heads too...
 
Dissapointing. You'd expect a proud born and bred Kenyan like Obama to be a bit more respectful to his former Colonial Master.

OP clearly learned his craft from the Glenn Beck school of Journalism
 
scorza said:
You mean the cement which if faulty, could account for the Deepwater Horizon fire and subsequent collapse?
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Yes, but BP changed the well design meaning there was an increased risk of failure of the cement plug and then subsequently didn't carryout any testing on the integrity of it.

BP are at fault for that one, no doubt about it.
 
dowie said:
It was a Haliburton (a US company) that installed the blowout preventer that failed for example. There was an argument between transocean and BP over procedures, BP wanting to go down the lower cost route transocean wanting to go down an expensive route (this is normal for a service provider/contracted firm to extract as much as possible from a job) - either way there was a **** up they're all blaming each other - Transocean was running the rig, BP demanded certain procedures and the Haliburton blowout preventer failed...
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How key was going the lower cost route in terms of that explosion happening? In other words, had BP gone with Transocean's recommendation of the more expensive route (putting aside Transocean wanting to get as much money as possible) might that have stopped the disaster occurring? I'm trying to ascertain if the explosion was avoidable or not. Otherwise, what could BP have done to stop it? I mean let's face it, accidents happen even with the most technologically advanced equipment. Terrible an accident as it is, it does seem unfair that americans are so critical of BP, UNLESS BP was actually negligent or irresponsible by cost cutting, or in any other way.
 
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