Sunday I watched footage of the President of Chile in England, where he seems to have attained rockstar status because it took over a month to evacuate trapped workers from an unsafe collapsed mine. The dude did an interview were he waxed on and off about how this month-plus rescue will make the world have greater respect for Chile. Seriously? The mine was unsafe, it took several weeks to get the people out, and you are parading yourself to the international media as a hero? That doesn't make any sense!
I am glad to see the workers have been rescued and it is great news, but that they required rescuing in the first place was a monumental blunder. The questions people should be asking him are what kind of safety standers should have been in place for Chilean mines but were not?
Shortly before the mine failure I watched the Chilean President in an interview with Rose on PBS. He speaks well and represents his country with a lot of class. He is, of course, a politician but he did his country a great deal of good during the interview. He criticized the US but not as strongly as we once heard from the degenerate Liberals of our country.
ReplyDeleteHe is atempting to raise his country's profile on the international stage. I haven't seen or read any of his U.K comments so I cannot give you any direct feedback.
And just who was it that finally drilled down to the miners ?. An American drill team. They are the heros in this debacle. They drilled through 700 metres of rock. Anyone can drop a "capsule" attached to a cable down a deep hole.
ReplyDeleteYes, the US did it, and plan C had a Canadian component, Alberta's Precision Drilling. Chile's pres did do a lot of photo ops, but I think his hope and support were extensive and genuine. Canadians became very aware of Chilean expertise when we did the trade pact, but the world took little note of their growth. I visited Chile just before and felt a real connection to the people. The country terrain looked like a mix of BC, Alberta and Nevada; it was a bit unsafe, but not as bad as Brazil. The people were very cool and charming! I must say that I felt at home. They had built a middle class and had lots of solid accomplishments from 1970 to 1995.
ReplyDeleteThey also looked skilled, more recently, when dealing with their earthquake, showing that they did have competent, modern emergency management infrastructure and are not a basket-case country by any means.
Chile is a good Canadian partner, and if the president is seizing the moment, well maybe we should just cheer him on, as Chileans are good people who share our values. We need more friends like them. It is to the US's credit that they did NOT steal the spotlight. This was a global mining engineering success, with others like NASA involved. Let Chile celebrate a great collaborative success! If they were not able to bring together those partnerships, it would not have happened, so the credit goes to Chile for orchestration.