Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. "Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour," Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.Hey, the guy's name is Weird... That's weird... Heh heh heh...
Source: Financial Post
Anyway, Weird wanted to help. And Weird had the equipment, the crews and the experience to do just that. What do you think the Obama administration said?
The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.Huh... Imagine that? And despite claiming they were refusing outside help for environment reasons (read the Financial Post article for all the details on that angle), the US finally relented after two months. But there was a catch!
There is ALWAYS a catch with the Obama bunch:
The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.In other words, the Obama administration put the country at risk for two months while they refused outside help, in an effort to appease labor unions. When the disaster was already out of hand, they agreed to allow outside equipment into the area, but they barred experienced international crews from using their own equipment. And if that's not scary enough for ya, the Obama administration further delayed the use of international equipment in the cleanup effort while they waited for US crews - presumably union crews - to be trained in how to use the international equipment.
So is it safe to say President Obama has put politics and personal connections ahead of national security in this case? Yup...
