Has Vice President Joe Biden ever read The Quiet American by Graham Greene?
If he did, he's much deeper than anyone has ever expected. Introducing a toast to U.S.-British friendship over the years, Biden said:
"Graham Greene, in The Quiet American,
said and wrote, "Friendship is something in the soul. It's the thing
one feels. It's not a return for something." I think that is a simple,
best definition of the relationship between the United States and Great
Britain." Vice President Joseph Biden, Official Lunch for David Cameron, March 14, 2002
Is this some coded message from the vice president, a warning about British treachery? The Quiet American revolves around the conflict between a British journalist and Alden Pyle. The story is set in Vietnam during the French collapse in the 1950s. Quiet American Pyle is a classic whiz kid with sure fire pan to save Vietnam from the red tide. The British journalist has Pyle murdered to resolve a love triangle the two have with a Vietnamese woman.
Is Biden just clueless in D.C. or is this some strange irony meant to warn us about British treachery? Enquiring minds want to know?
Why should more than a very few care about the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain? The real relationship driving the friendship and shared national policy is between the financial elites and national security state fanatics in both countries. That relationship produces something more aptly referred to as a predatory rather than a special relationship.
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