Butt-out, Barry.....

If there is one thing guaranteed to get up British noses it’s when foreigners stick theirs into our business.

 

So the British public is unlikely to have been impressed by Obama  pontificating for months about how essential it is for UK to stay in the EU. His latest piece of nonsense is to suggest that leaving would undermine European security.

 

Eh?

 

The EU has no security role. That is the realm of NATO which is older, bigger and more successful in its task than anything the EU has tried to tackle. On the contrary, Brussels’ persistent attempts to set up an EU security force would weaken NATO. Its track record to date has been abysmal. It is still struggling to get agreement on how to handle the influx of refugees, a task that we took in our stride in similar circumstances immediately after WW2. Meanwhile, the other members have been content to rely on Britain and France for credible military capability in Europe whilst they spend about 50% less on defence budgets.

 

The EU would still be meeting in Brussels as Ivan’s tanks rolled up The Mall.

 

And it is particularly outrageous that Obama should propose that the UK should accept the kind of regime that would cause another civil war if anyone tried to introduce it into the US . Just imagine; the decisions of the Supreme Court overturned by a jurisdiction based in Mexico City; or the suction-power of vacuum cleansers laid down from Canada; or decisions of Congress being struck  down by another legislature based in Venezuela.

 

He recently upbraided Cameron for not doing enough to contain Libya ‘because he was distracted’, presumably by the EU pre-referendum negotiations. (The real reason was lack of military capacity due to Cameron’s spectacularly ill-judged and ill-timed defence cuts).

 

But what did Obama contribute to snuffing out the troubles in Libya? After all it is worth remembering that the chaos now infecting the whole of MENA was a direct result of America’s disastrous Gulf War 2, described as ‘the greatest strategic screw-up since Hitler invaded Russia’.

 

The US disbanded the Iraqi army so there was no internal security presence. It fired all Baath party members leaving the country without a civil service. Rumsfeld was warned of the consequences before the war began, which he proceeded to ignore. Dubya had just about cleaned up the mess when Obama took over.

 

He dashed for the exit as a result of which the disastrous Premier of Iraq got rid of Sunnis in Government and the military. The army then disintegrated after the US had spent about $25 billion on training it. Undoubtedly ex-Iraqi soldiers explain the success of ISIL, which the world is belatedly recognis9ng as more than a rablle of savages.

 

But after starting a bushfire that has spread across the Middle East, Obama has sat on his hands. Every time he draws a Red Line, Putin scrubs it out. He has done almost nothing about the Syrian conflict in five years. As to the refugee problem, the US has taken less than 3000 to date out of a total that must now exceed 2 million in Europe alone.

 

Now Obama is to visit the UK, stirring up apathy.

 

So keep it up, Barry. Every time you open your mouth there’s a few thousand more ‘ leave’ votes for the Brexiteers.