I have a hard time viewing the original post as little more than jingoistic America bashing. It would seem that Combwork is equating anti-BP sentiment with anti-British sentiment. I think that conclusion is entirely unjustified.
As a result, I'll try very hard not to draw similar conclusions about his litany of catastrophes perpetrated by US companies. Rather, I'll limit myself to some of the specifics in his post.
Let me begin by saying that I agree that US companies have indeed acted in horrifyingly irresponsible ways in the past. That they did doesn't somehow disqualify us as US citizens from criticizing non-US corporations when they commit similar outrages.
Combwork's list of offenses includes the Liberian tanker, the Torrey Canyon. The Torrey Canyon ran aground off the Cornish coast and broke up. The disaster was largely the result of human error. The cleanup, which was largely unsuccessful, was conducted by the Royal Navy.
He is correct, by the way, that the Torrey Canyon was owned by a Union Oil subsidiary. Guess who it was leased to though.
That's right! BP!
Now, let's move on to the Exxon Valdez. Again, a case of human error on the part of the tanker crew and again a tanker running aground and leaking. There was also the matter of a broken radar system that Exxon knew about and failed to repair.
That being said, the real problems came from the botched cleanup effort. Guess who was in charge of that!
Aw, you peeked!
Now, the matter of who's to blame for the current catastrophe. True, the investigation is yet to come but the press reporting all seems to point to BP ordering that the
drilling be sped up and that drill mud be replaced with sea water. The operation was behind schedule and over budget and BP wanted to cut its losses. The operators objected to this but, since BP was paying the bills, their decision carried the day.
As to BP trying to "fix the problem", I'd have to say that their idea of that was to conceal the magnitude of the problem by
barring "outsiders" and media from the area, requiring cleanup workers to
sign a contract forbidding them from talking to the media and using
dispersants (despite being told not to by the EPA) to make it impossible to quantify the amount of leakage (and therefore their liability). And you don't think the first thing they did was run to their lawyers?
Finally, Combwork claims that it appears BP is succeeding in stopping the leak. All one need do is look at the
live video feed to see just how absurd that notion is.
Anyone want me to go through the list of other disasters that
BP has been responsible for?
John