Falklands dispute

Ryan_m_b

Whilst keeping abreast of the situation I've found this article by the BBC (good but possibly a bit bias) that summarises the competing claims for those still interested:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17045169

jim hardy

What's in Antarctica ? Are not Britain's claims there based on Falklands?

or am i fifty years behind?

In 1981 a Englishman visited our office and I asked him about their interest in the islands. His reply was "A few thousand of our blokes who want to stay British."
Sounded logical enough. We wouldnt want to give away Hawaii.

Ryan_m_b

I don't think based on, about a century ago when Britain was reafirming claims over the Falklands it did so over some Antarctic Territory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...ctic_Territory

Considering no claims of Antarctic Territory by any country are really respected it's a bit of a pointless thing anyway. Ideally I'd love to see the antarctic treaty extended but I'm skeptical.
That's pretty much the size of it. The majority of the population of the islands who are the descendants of some settlers hundreds of years ago identify as British and want to remain that way. If they wanted to become Argentinian I would be shaking their hand and saying goodbye, I really think it should be down to them.

Goodison_Lad

You may be well be right in this case, but it's worth remembering that Britain certainly does not have an unblemished record when it comes to safeguarding people's rights to live where they want. Only a decade or so before the Falklands War, the inhabitants of UK-owned Diego Garcia were given short shrift and told to clear off so that the UK could offer the US military a population-free island as a base.

Depressingly cynical this view may be, but if the UK government were routinely in the business of doing the morally right thing they'd have done very many things very differently. This doesn't preclude them from ever acting out of morality, but its more likely they're acting out of self-interest. Imagine the media damage that could be done to a UK government that didn't act tough. The original war is viewed by many to have come at a wonderfully convenient time for the government, which was enjoying some of the lowest poularity ratings on record.

One thing did puzzle me at the time, though. It was clear that being part of NATO, and therefore being theoretically able to invoke full NATO support if your territory were theatened, did not offer any 'protection'. The US was particularly sensitive about concealing the support it was giving to a NATO democracy against a dictatorship. Perhaps everybody was embarrassed.

Ken Natton

I was not seeking to suggest that Britain's record on foreign policy matters was unquestionable. The prevailing suggestion on the thread before I posted was that Britain's only interest in the Falkland Isdlands was because of the prospect of finding oil reserves over which Britain could thus lay claim. I felt it necessary to offer a different viewpoint. I am certain that such was no part of the motivation in 1982 and I see little reason to believe that it is what is driving the current British government's stance. Doubtless that draws a big raspberry from the cycnics, but the truth is that there is no evidence to support such a notion. It is founded entirely on cynicism.

TheMadMonk

It will be a long time before Welsh independence would become a serious prospect. Even here in Scotland there isn't exactly overwhelming support for it and there isn't anything like that level of support in Wales.

What would the Sea Harriers have to shoot down? We could slash the garrison the Falklands and the Argentines still wouldn't be able to take the place, their military simply does not have the capability it did in 1982. The crowing in the British press about our inability to retake the Falklands completely ignores the fact that Argentina could not occupy them in the first place.

Goodison_Lad

Fair point, and I, too, don't think mineral reserves are the reason. I think in '82 it was a combination of outrage at Argentinian nerve plus good old fashioned opportunism that led to war. I'm sure many politicians did feel a moral duty to defend the islanders against the invasion, but after public outrage had been whipped up over a place that most people at the time thought was somewhere near the Shetlands, the rest, as they say, is history. I'm pretty sure that the present government could not generate consent for anything like a similar campaign, and I'm even more sure that they haven't got the resources to mount one anyway. However, it seems that the Argentinian miltary has been run down even more than the UK's, so it's a problem that won't arise.

This time, I think the UK, politically, has no option but to counter the public noises from Buenos Aires. But I do feel that political reasons are at least as important as any sense of moral duty.

In defence of we cynics, though, I'd say much cynicism is well-founded on pretty impressive heapings of precedent. However, in fairness to politicians, the electorate makes them that way - politicians, more than ever before, are acutely conscious of how any utterance could be presented to the public by the media. We voters don't always cover ourselves in glory, either.

mheslep

At least this time the UK will not have to suffer the advice of then US Secretary of State Al "Im in control here" Haig, who told the UK to just give up the islands, to heck with the people there.

.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...502105454.html

Ryan_m_b

To be honest there are far too many people with that attitude today. George Galloway recently argued that the people weren't natives but settlers (just how many generations you have to spend somewhere to become a native I have no idea) and should be paid to be relocated. An even more annoying attitude is when one sees actors voicing their uninformed opinions and people listening...because they're actors....

mheslep

Galloway? I thought he'd be in jail by now, or at least widely recognized as a vulgar marxist, oil-for-food, Saddam hugging, clown.

Goodison_Lad

I don't agree with Galloway on this particular point, either. But, since you mention the oil-for-food allegations, he was very good at the US Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations. I cheered.

Having been accused of giving false or misleading testimony under oath, he challenged them to charge him with perjury. Which they didn't. He did, though, win £150,000 damages from The Daily Telegraph in a related libel case. (The idea that the US Senate accused him of grubby deals with dicatators! Oh, the irony!)

So it's a pity he's well off-beam on this one - but generally his instincts are right.

On the territorial claim issue, the UK still faces a claim from Spain over Gibraltar (and the Spanish are in dispute with Morocco over various pieces of land). The legacies of Empire. Heaven knows how many territorial disputes there are in total, but many of them will simply rumble on unresolved for decades until one side gets bored.

The appetite of western democracies for miltary interventions of any sort, let alone defending remote appendages, has so diminished over the last decade or so that it would take something pretty seismic to generate enough public consent for any new conflict where our own forces were in danger from a well-armed modern miltary.

Office_Shredder

The downturn in acceptance for warfare has generally been over the fact that the public is not clear on whether the military action has any defensive value. I don't think it's obvious that a direct threat to a part of the UK would engender a response like 'what and get into another Iraq?' or anything similar.

mheslep

I have the opposite opinion. Some Galloway gems:

“Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability.’’

— Spoken to Saddam Hussein, 1994

“Democracy in Cuba is more free than in the U.K.’’

— 2006 speech to the Oxford Students Union

“Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. ...’’

— 2002 interview with The Guardian


http://www.thestar.com/news/article/...-a-holy-terror

Ryan_m_b

A minor yet pathetic development
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17946838

Goodison_Lad

Yes, all pretty depressing stuff, but the key word is 'pathetic'. The issue of the Falklands is going nowhere. However, I fear there could be an unpleasant reception for Argentina from the UK public at the forthcoming Olympics. The press would love this. I only hope people will ignore it, both as the pathetic posturing it is and the predictable response from Hammond et al. But I wouldn’t put any money on it.


Agreed, some foolish stuff. But he takes no nonsense off the rich and powerful in the UK, and I stand by my view that his instincts are generally right. He was absolutely brilliant on BBC’s Question Time recently.

Yes, a direct military threat to the UK is one thing, and I think you’re right to say that there would be a strong public demand for action. But I can’t conceive where such a threat could realistically come from.

Elsewhere in the world, though, I’m not sure. The public response to casualties in Afghanistan suggests that politicians would have to be mad to consider hazardous interventions. Of course, politicians are quite good at whipping up the required sentiment through the media when it suits them, but I think that it will be a very long time, if ever, before the UK gets involved in another significant military venture.

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, the reduction in the capacity of the UK to defend the Falklands is greatly exceeded only by the reduction in Argentinian capacity to take them.