The Falklands

[simmo]

Maybe it's time to make friends with Chile, if only we hadn't given protection to that nice General Pinochet who was friends with Maggie.

Maybe that's something else she got right?

Throughout history all leaders, including British ones, have allies with at times despotic leaders because it is in their strategic interests at that particular time to do so (was Churchill wrong to have an ally of Stalin in World War 2?).

It also explains why once Saddam was our "ally" and we supplied his weapons, because at the time his armed forces were tying down the fundamentalists of Iran led by the Ayatollah Khomeni, whom the West deemed (probably rightly in 1980 just after Khomeni had held American hostages at the US embassy) to be more of a threat at that moment than Saddam was.

 

[daveinprague]

I remember the delegation from the Falklands islands the year before the invasion going to UK to ask for full British citizenship, which was refused...and they remained a British dependency.
Strangely, they got it after the Argentinians invaded.
And lets be honest...it was never about the sheep herders that lived there, its always been touted as a base of operations
for the oil industry.

 

[IKDRF]

QUOTE=Beach Hut;3358092]I think it is something to do with the potential oil exploration - Thatcher got it right (yet again)[/QUOTE]

Thatcher therefore must have got the following right:

1) Not noticing the hardening of Argentinians attitude in the run up to the invasion

2) Not listening to Lord Carringtons insistance that HMS Endurance not be withdrawn from the islands "Other claims on the defence budget have priority" She told parliament I seem to remember.....

3) Leaving a command force of two soldiers on the island. (Who bravely held out for 4 hours before capture )

4) Leaving the forces vulnerable to missile attack to the point she had to threaten Mitterand into giving codes to the Excorcets he had sold Argentina because the effort was cracking (This threat was to issue a nuclear strike in the event of failure)-see Mitterands memoires. This explains the Polaris Submarine docked of Asscension Island.

5) Starting a conflict in which nearly 1000 died- Young Brits in their prime and poor Argentinian teenage conscripts pitted against a highly trained Western army.


The Falklands was one misjudgment after another, producing a catalogue of errors and missed opportunities which provide the raw material for a formidable indictment.

But that never happens..

Like so much of Thatchers policies she caused the mess and then took all the credit for clearing it up....

 

[User removed 4]

edited

 

[User removed 4]

something wrong with the edit function

 

[captainmorganrum]

The Falklands.

Two main islands with a few thousand people sharing them.

Simple solution.

We have one, Argentina have the other. Joint company set up to exploit the oil revenues.

End of problem. We can remove the majority of the garrison and save money, and they can help bankroll oil exploration. We end up with a country that really wants us as a partner, instead of as an enemy.

But of course the Daily Mail and the Sun would never settle for that!

 

[User removed 4]

QUOTE=Beach Hut;3358092]I think it is something to do with the potential oil exploration - Thatcher got it right (yet again)

Thatcher therefore must have got the following right:

1) Not noticing the hardening of Argentinians attitude in the run up to the invasion

2) Not listening to Lord Carringtons insistance that HMS Endurance not be withdrawn from the islands "Other claims on the defence budget have priority" She told parliament I seem to remember.....

3) Leaving a command force of two soldiers on the island. (Who bravely held out for 4 hours before capture )

4) Leaving the forces vulnerable to missile attack to the point she had to threaten Mitterand into giving codes to the Excorcets he had sold Argentina because the effort was cracking (This threat was to issue a nuclear strike in the event of failure)-see Mitterands memoires. This explains the Polaris Submarine docked of Asscension Island.

5) Starting a conflict in which nearly 1000 died- Young Brits in their prime and poor Argentinian teenage conscripts pitted against a highly trained Western army.


The Falklands was one misjudgment after another, producing a catalogue of errors and missed opportunities which provide the raw material for a formidable indictment.

But that never happens..

Like so much of Thatchers policies she caused the mess and then took all the credit for clearing it up....[/QUOTE]Two errors there that im certain of, there were far more than 'a command force of two soldiers' that held out for four hours, it was a platoon of marines i believe, also , not all the argentinian soldiers were conscripts.

As for this

'' Leaving the forces vulnerable to missile attack to the point she had to threaten Mitterand into giving codes to the Excorcets he had sold Argentina because the effort was cracking (This threat was to issue a nuclear strike in the event of failure)-see Mitterands memoires. This explains the Polaris Submarine docked of Asscension Island'' What the f*** are you on about ??

 

[User removed 4]

The Falklands.

Two main islands with a few thousand people sharing them.

Simple solution.

We have one, Argentina have the other. Joint company set up to exploit the oil revenues.

End of problem. We can remove the majority of the garrison and save money, and they can help bankroll oil exploration. We end up with a country that really wants us as a partner, instead of as an enemy.

But of course the Daily Mail and the Sun would never settle for that!

You live in cloud cuckoo land , why the f*** should we give half the oil away ? What does it take for clowns like you to realise that EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS OUT FOR THEMSELVES, you are a fool if you think different.

 

[IKDRF]

edited

Well firstly I accept not all the Argentinians were conscripts but lets face it, they had no chance in combat unltimately

As regards the threat of a nuclear strike-according to Mitterand-Its in his memoires.

French-made Exocet missiles had killed crew members of ships. British naval officials feared that the Exocet was so effective that it could jeopardize the entire operation.

Shortly after that, according to Mitterrand he ordered the Exocet codes to be handed over to the British at Thatcher’s insistence. Mitterand was worried about the impact this would have on foreign sales

It was beleved she was threatening to attack Cordoba if things went wrong. Would she have done it? You decide. Perhaps it was bluff. Who knows with her.

 

[coventrygull]

You live in cloud cuckoo land , why the f*** should we give half the oil away ? What does it take for clowns like you to realise that EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS OUT FOR THEMSELVES, you are a fool if you think different.

Bushy we give everything away

 

[captainmorganrum]

You live in cloud cuckoo land , why the f*** should we give half the oil away ? What does it take for clowns like you to realise that EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS OUT FOR THEMSELVES, you are a fool if you think different.

Finca Las Moras, the UK's favourite Argentinian wine

This wine has a map of Argentina on the bottle. Only Argentina, not Chile, not Brazil. Included in the map are certain south atlantic islands.

On sale in the Co-op.

You should write and complain.

 

[looney]

Think my point was slightly badly explained last night.

I just find it interesting that countries (and not just Britain, although it is a common offender) can plant their own population in an area (Ulster, Gibraltar, Falklands), and then claim it as their own based on the wishes - and yet would obviously feel uncomfortable exploring a similar idea if it was to take place in contemporary times in their own backyard.

Drawing parallels to 1916 is slightly off the point (although unsurprising given the poster) as there you had sovereignty imposed on an indiginous population that were adverse to it - which is not what this debate is about.

you slightly contradict yourself here, you miss the point that most English settlements were in unpopulated places, ie the Falklands and the Cape for Example, throw in Hong Kong for that matter.

The Indigenous populations of Gibralter and Ireland chose differently and to an exstent have their wishes granted.


John Nott Screwed up more than Thatcher, UK Intelligence screwed up. Thatcher Got lucky as it not only provided a distraction it also exposed the treachery of the left who are "Against Facism" .

It effectivly handed Labour over to the Looney Left that kept labour out of office for another 15 years. You can Describe Thatchers years as a mixed bag of pluses and minuses but for Labour it really was all bad.

 

[captainmorganrum]

You live in cloud cuckoo land , why the f*** should we give half the oil away ? What does it take for clowns like you to realise that EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS OUT FOR THEMSELVES, you are a fool if you think different.

Because we might find it tough to defend the islands at the moment.

What we'll hopefully never know is whether a combination of underfunding, Iraq/Afghan-related overstretch, and equipment gaps in a crucial areas, would undermine the ability of a "sophisticated and modern" naval force like our own to fight a re-run of the Falkalnds conflict.

 

[User removed 4]

Finca Las Moras, the UK's favourite Argentinian wine

This wine has a map of Argentina on the bottle. Only Argentina, not Chile, not Brazil. Included in the map are certain south atlantic islands.

On sale in the Co-op.

You should write and complain.

Why would i do that , they can put as many maps on as many bottles of wine as they like, they're just deluding themselves.

 

[bhaexpress]

I think it is something to do with the potential oil exploration - Thatcher got it right (yet again)

Agree about the former but sorry, Thatcher wanted to win an election.

 

[beorhthelm]

5) Starting a conflict in which nearly 1000 died- Young Brits in their prime and poor Argentinian teenage conscripts pitted against a highly trained Western army.

whatever the other details, the Argentines sent in those conscripted troops, not Thatcher or anyone else. whatever your claims about the lead up, the Argentines were the aggressors. they started it, not us. fact.

this is a major problem for the conspiricists, they assume that somehow the Argentines where drawn into a war. they were not, leaving an island insufficently defended is not an invitation to invade. or were the Kuwaities asking for invasion? The Faroes Islands probably dont have any garrison, maybe we should invade them?

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

The Faroes Islands probably dont have any garrison, maybe we should invade them?

If Gordon thought he's win an election out of it - we'd be there in the morning.

 

[Gully]

Apparently many of the Argentinian conscripts thought that they were on an exercise in Tierra del Fuego...they were extremely surprised when real bombs started dropping on them and a combined force of Paras/Marines/Gurkhas came over the horizon...many threw down their weapons and ran for their lives, which seems like the wisest decision.

 

[daveinprague]

Theres a good book about the war from the Argentinian soldiers side..some of it just makes laugh.
One bloke said he saw a missile heading towards his trench, so he legged it..only to find the thing had turned and was still after him ...
And yeah, a lot of them didnt realise they were on The Falklands...
I heard from a ex para and some guy in the signals on separate occassions that some American mercenaries were captured, and were shot of hand, but never heard about it anywhere else...

I was working at Amex in the comms center during the conflict and the people we dealt with most was Buenos Aries.. my supv whose brother was on the Coventry, just refused to work with them...and made sure we didnt on our shift either..as we were at war with them so feck em etc
Actually got a bulletin from the president of Amex advising we would deal with them etc etc, its not the companies war blah blah..so we were forced to work with them again.
Coventry was sunk the following day.
You can only imagine.

 

[skipper734]

The Faroes Islands probably dont have any garrison, maybe we should invade themthem/QUOTE]

We have already invaded them during WW2. Built them some nice roads and an airport. Left them with a bigger population and a few hundred trucks.
At the end they waved us goodbye said thanks come back any time.