16bha
New member
How should 30 years since the conflict be commemorated?
All bells and whistles or maybe a diplomatically understated affair?
You Decide!
All bells and whistles or maybe a diplomatically understated affair?
You Decide!
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Las Malvinas / The Falklands
- Thread starter 16bha
- Start date
- Aug 7, 2003
- 8,093
Recognition for the greatest Prime Minister of the modern era.
Weststander
Well-known member
Quietly satisfied that the people of the Falklands have the destiny they chose, and hope the loss of lives on both sides are remembered.
Remember many of the Argentine military were conscripted by an evil Junta.
Remember many of the Argentine military were conscripted by an evil Junta.
Weststander
Well-known member
Great hand grenade tossed in. Await the leftwing reaction.
- Aug 7, 2003
- 8,093
Eric Potts
Well-known member
Borges summed it up.
Spanish Seagulls
Well-known member
Invade Argentina.
We should negotiate with Argentina and agree some kind of dual ownership. Aparently we have 2000 troops there protecting 3000 islanders. For what reason exactly? Time to move on now. If the islanders don't like that deal they can join all the other immigrants here in England.
severnside gull
Well-known member
Tell the Argies to f*** off (again) as they have started making serious noises again this week about us handing it over to them
The 500billion barrels of oil just off the coast of the Falklands might have something to do with it
(British Owned) (so could see the US having a wordSeagull over Canaryland
Well-known member
I think the anniversary should be marked, but with due restraint. We lost many brave military personnel and their memories should not be forgotten but not in a jingoistic fashion.
The Argies may feel differently but then it is a political football for them.
Sadly this issue will not go away now there is oil at stake. After all thats why we really went to war in Iraq twice since the Falklands. We should certainly not back down.
In 1982 we had more military resources but crucially had the backing of the US which probably had more of a bearing on the outcome than we acknowledge. I'm not sure we will have the same advantage if there is a next time. It will be an interesting challenge to see how we would reinforce the Falklands in the event that things escalate.
The Argies may feel differently but then it is a political football for them.
Sadly this issue will not go away now there is oil at stake. After all thats why we really went to war in Iraq twice since the Falklands. We should certainly not back down.
In 1982 we had more military resources but crucially had the backing of the US which probably had more of a bearing on the outcome than we acknowledge. I'm not sure we will have the same advantage if there is a next time. It will be an interesting challenge to see how we would reinforce the Falklands in the event that things escalate.
GoldWithFalmer
Seaweed! Seaweed!
The 500billion barrels of oil just off the coast of the Falklands might have something to do with it
I don't go for all this OIL talk-the middle east for example? oil? 800 years ago? nope-however on this you are indeed correct-possibly 9x that of the oil that lies beneath the North Sea......it's just the getting of it.
northstandnorth
THE GOLDSTONE
And the left wing response is(same as at the time)Fatcher f***ed up.
read Michael Foot,from Hansard apr 03 1982,the great patriot and euro sceptic said.
Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale) It was obviously essential that the House of Commons should be recalled on this occasion. I thank the Prime Minister for the decision to do so. I can well understand the anxiety and impatience of many of my hon. Friends on the Back Benches who voted in the Division a few minutes ago and who desire to have full and proper time to examine all the aspects of this issue. I shall return to that aspect of the matter in a few minutes.
I first wish to set on record as clearly as I possibly can what we believe to be the international rights and wrongs of this matter, because I believe that one of the purposes of the House being assembled on this occasion is to make that clear not only to the people in our country but to people throughout the world.
The rights and the circumstances of the people in the Falkland Islands must be uppermost in our minds. There is no question in the Falkland Islands of any colonial dependence or anything of the sort. It is a question of people who wish to be associated with this country and who have built their whole lives on the basis of association with this country. We have a moral duty, a political duty and every other kind of duty to ensure that that is sustained.
639 The people of the Falkland Islands have the absolute right to look to us at this moment of their desperate plight, just as they have looked to us over the past 150 years. They are faced with an act of naked, unqualified aggression, carried out in the most shameful and disreputable circumstances. Any guarantee from this invading force is utterly worthless—as worthless as any of the guarantees that are given by this same Argentine junta to its own people.
We can hardly forget that thousands of innocent people fighting for their political rights in Argentine are in prison and have been tortured and debased. We cannot forget that fact when our friends and fellow citizens in the Falkland Islands are suffering as they are at this moment.
On the merits of the matter, we hope that the question is understood throughout the world. In that respect I believe that the Government were right to take the matter to the United Nations. It would have been delinquency if they had not, because that is the forum in which we have agreed that such matters of international right and international claim should be stated.
Whatever else the Government have done—I shall come to that in a moment—or not done, I believe that it was essential for them to take our case to the United Nations and to present it with all the force and power of advocacy at the command of this country. The decision and the vote in the United Nations will take place in an hour or two's time. I must say to people there that we in this country, as a whole, irrespective of our party affiliations, will examine the votes most carefully.
I was interested to hear how strongly the President of France spoke out earlier this morning. I hope that every other country in the world will speak in a similar way.
If, at the United Nations this afternoon, no such declaration were made—I know that it would be only a declaration at first, but there might be the possibility of action there later—not merely would it be a gross injury to the rights of the people of the Falkland Islands, not merely would it be an injury to the people of this country, who have a right to have their claims upheld in the United Nations, but it would be a serious injury to the United Nations itself. It would enhance the dangers that similar, unprovoked aggressions could occur in other parts of the world.
That is one of the reasons why we are determined to ensure that we examine this matter in full and uphold the rights of our country throughout the world, and the claim of our country to be a defender of people's freedom throughout the world, particularly those who look to us for special protection, as do the people in the Falkland Islands.
I deal next with the Government's conduct in the matter. What has happened to British diplomacy? The explanations given by the right hon. Lady, when she managed to rise above some of her own party arguments—they were not quite the exclusive part of her speech—were not very full and not very clear. They will need to be made a good deal more ample in the days to come.
The right hon. Lady did not quote fully the response of Lord Carrington, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, at his press conference yesterday. She referred to the Minister of State, who, according to Lord Carrington, had just been in New York discussing with Mr. Ross, his opposite number, the question of resumption of talks with the 640 Argentine Government about the problems of the Falkland Islands. And they had had a talk and come to an agreement. Mr. Ross went back to the Argentine and a number of things came up and they sent a message which"—— I emphasise the words—— I have not yet had time to reply to. Lord Carrington added: So there was every reason to suppose that the Argentines were interested in negotiations. Those talks took place on 27 February. The right hon. Lady gave an account of these negotiations. But from what has happened it seems that the British Government have been fooled by the way in which the Argentine junta has gone about its business. The Government must answer for that as well as for everything else.
What about British communications and British intelligence? The Guardian states today in a leading article: This country devotes a greater proportion of its annual output to its armed forces than any other Western country, with the exception of the United States. It has extensive diplomatic and intelligence gathering activities. And all of that gave Mrs. Thatcher, Lord Carrington and Mr. Nott precisely no effective cards when the Argentine navy moved. I should be very surprised to hear, because of some of the previous debates and discussions on the crises that have arisen with the Argentine, that the British Government did not have better intelligence than that. So good was our intelligence that, although the Prime Minister now tells us that the invasion took place at 10 am yesterday, the Lord Privy Seal—I know that he has apologised for some of his remarks—told the House of Commons and the British people: We are taking appropriate military and diplomatic measures to sustain our rights under international law and in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations charter."—[Official Report, 2 April 1982; Vol. 21, c. 571.] When he was saying that, it was the Argentine Government who were taking appropriate military, not diplomatic, measures to enforce their will.
The right hon. Lady, the Secretary of State for Defence and the whole Government will have to give a very full account of what happened, how their diplomacy was conducted and why we did not have the information to which we are entitled when expenditure takes place on such a scale. Above all, more important than the question of what happened to British diplomacy or to British intelligence is what happened to our power to act. The right hon. Lady seemed to dismiss that question. It cannot be dismissed. Of course this country has the power to act—short, often, of taking military measures. Indeed, we have always been told, as I understand it, that the purpose of having some military power is to deter. The right to deter and the capacity to deter were both required in this situation.
The previous Government had to deal with the same kind of dictatorial regime in the Argentine, the same kind of threat to the people of the Falkland Islands, and the same kinds of problems as those with which the Goverment have had to wrestle over the past weeks and months. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) compressed the whole position into the question that he put to the Government only last Tuesday. I shall read his remarks to the House, and I ask the House to mark every word. This was no factious Opposition. This was an Opposition Member seeking to sustain the Government if the Government were doing their duty.
My right hon. Friend said: 641 I support the Government's attempts to solve the problem by diplomatic means, which is clearly the best and most sensible way of approaching the problem, but is the Minister aware that there have been other recent occasions when the Argentinians, when beset by internal troubles, have tried the same type of tactical diversion? Is the Minister aware that on a very recent occasion, of which I have full knowledge, Britain assembled ships which had been stationed in the Caribbean, Gibraltar and in the Mediterranean, and stood them about 400 miles off the Falklands in support of HMS "Endurance", and that when this fact became known, without fuss and publicity, a diplomatic solution followed? While I do not press the Minister on what is happening today, I trust that it is the same sort of action."—[Official Report, 30 March 1982; Vol. 21, c. 198.] The House and whole country have the right to say the same thing to the Government. The people of the Falkland Islands have an even greater right to say it than ourselves. The right hon. Lady has not answered that question. She has hardly attempted to answer it. It is no answer to refer to the matter so effectively disposed of by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands), who has much knowledge of these matters. It is, of course, a very different question.
No one can say for certain that the pacific and honourable solution of this problem that was reached in 1977 was due to the combination of diplomatic and military activity. These things cannot be proved. There is, however, every likelihood that that was the case. In any event, the fact that it worked on the previous occasion was surely all the more reason for the Government's seeking to make it work on this occasion, especially when, according to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs—I refer again to the diplomatic exchanges—it had been going on for some time. According to the diplomatic exchanges, the Argentine Government were still awaiting an answer from the Secretary of State on some of the matters involved.
The right hon. Lady made some play, although not very effectively, with the time it takes to get warships into the area. We are talking about events several weeks ago. All these matters have to be answered. They cannot be answered fully in this debate. There will have to be another debate on the subject next week. Whether that debate takes the form of a motion of censure, or some other form, or perhaps takes the form of the establishment of an inquiry into the whole matter, so that all the evidence and the facts can be laid before the people of this country, I have not the slightest doubt that, at some stage, an inquiry of that nature, without any inhibitions and restraints, that can probe the matter fully will have to be undertaken.
I return to what I said at the start of my remarks. We are paramountly concerned, like, I am sure, the bulk of the House—I am sure that the country is also concerned—about what we can do to protect those who rightly and naturally look to us for protection. So far, they have been betrayed. The responsibility for the betrayal rests with the Government. The Government must now prove by deeds—they will never be able to do it by words—that they are not responsible for the betrayal and cannot be faced with that charge. That is the charge, I believe, that lies against them. Even though the position and the circumstances of the people who live in the Falkland Islands are uppermost in our minds—it would be outrageous if that were not the case—there is the longer-term interest to ensure that foul and brutal aggression does not succeed in our world. If it does, there will be a danger not merely to the Falkland Islands, but to people all over this dangerous planet.
Regarded as one of the greatest speeches in the history of Parliament but effectively,COME ON FATCHER.GET OFF YOUR FAT ARSE AND DO SOMETHING.
GoldWithFalmer
Seaweed! Seaweed!
Look to the past and you will see the future
People can debate the rights and wrongs all they want.
Me? I shall simply be raising a quiet glass to Muhammed 'im hard' Bruce Lee and all the soldiers, sailors and airmen who served alongside him.
Different class.