Anyone in the UK during the Falkland war would remember these nightly reports.

25 years has passed since battled in Port Stanley, Goose Green and events such as the exocet which sunk HMS Sheffield.

So here's to Baroness Thatcher; you either loved her or hated her. Here's to those who died ensuring the people of the islands still had freedom. And here's to the fact that the Argentinian Junta fell after this conflict.

Was just reading this on the BBC.
Argentina still considers the Falklands Islands (Las Malvinas) as theirs and want a peaceful resolution to the dispute, which will never happen since the British Governments stance (quite rightly) is that the Falkland Islanders want to be British and until that changes they are British and the Falkland Islands are therefore British sovereign territory. Geography is unimportant.

Personally it sounds stupid to me. Britain has owned the islands since 1833, so what if they pushed out some Argentine settlers at the time, 190 odd years of history means the Argentines should give it up.


Edit, saved Thatchers Government as much as it ruined the Argentinian. Thatcher was a good war leader in the Churchill mold, but like Churchill pretty rubbish at peacetime economics.

I joined the Mob (RN) shirtly after this. Amazing that we managed to pull it off, due mostly to British Bull Dog tenacity & Thatchers refusal to back down militarily.
The logistics were a nightmare & we managed it just by the skin of our teeth. Type 42 destroyers were an absolute death trap & without intelligence from the US & huge amounts of pressure on France to divulge military secrets regarding Exocet, we would probably have pulled out.
Thatcher, not too keen to be honest, complete disregard for the common man & a reliance on Victorian style "Gunboat Diplomacy", luckily for us it came off.
I will be thinking of those that served & died (on both sides) & counting my lucky stars that I just missed out on this one.

Interesting Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...lkland_Islands

So I guess, using that logic, that if the Argentians manage to displace the British settlers now with some of their own the Islands would be clearly theirs and the British should 'give it up'.


I think you'll find that the geographical proximity does matter, quite a lot. Some sort of long term accomodation will have to be reached.

Should you be interested:

Falklands: War at the White House

Wednesday 4 April 2007 11:00-11:30 -UK time (Radio 4 FM)


http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/index.shtml


Peter Snow examines the political, diplomatic and military role played by the United States in the Falklands War of 1982. Archive interviews with key players in Washington reveal profound differences of opinion on Capitol Hill, differences which lingered long after Reagan declared support for Britain.

The sheer number of Argentinian munitions that failed to explode after they hit their target is amazing. There would have been many more ships lost if the Argentinian ordnance had been reliable.

Plus the British had an amazingly lucky escape when that exocet hit the 'Atlantic Conveyor' instead of one of their aircraft carriers.

According to the history, they were hardly Argie at all.

I recall hearing from those opposed to the fighting that it would've been cheaper and blood-less if the British Government gave each resident a million pounds and resettled them elsewhere under British protection.

What is the ethical stance in a situation where you can avoid war? Better red than dead? (Apologies, Bertrand Russell) Or does Sovereign pride / Business- / military interests rate more importantly?

No - they 'belong' to France going by that.

I guess the lesson from history is that whoever can take a place with military force, owns it. With that in mind, 'owning' a place on the far side of the globe means you'd better have a damn strong military/lots of cash to defend it.

Well if they managed to take them, and hold them for 190 years and turn them Argentinian, then yes they should keep them. Seems fair to me.
However I doubt it will happen.

If Geography matters, then the French and the Spanish are going to lose a lot of territory.
Its not the geography its the people that matter I'd say, self determination.

Agree with the first one, shoddy maintenance on bombing capabilities.

On the second, the carriers were kept well East of the Falklands & were never in real danger. The fact that we beat up the Frenchies until they divulged how many Exocets they had flogged to Argentina was the real balance here. We also succeeded in getting them to declare an arms embargoe for the duration of the war, thus cutting off any potential technical assistance for the ones they already had.

I'm sure all the residents of Hong Kong who tried and failed to get British passports via to the handover to China would agree.

Hong Kong had a lease attached to it, whether they agreed or not it was always going to happen.

Oh well, if there was a lease involved rather than a territorial claim by a neighbouring country then that's different I suspect what was really different was that Britain was in no position to take on the military might of China.

Anyhow - what happened to the 'principle' that the residents of the place could be British if they wanted to be? They could have been issued with British passports and allowed to live in any part of Britain or British territories if they didn't want to stay in Hong Kong. Strangely, most of them found that despite being British subjects all their lives they had no right to British citizenship when the sh*t hit the fan.


Then there's the small matter of Diego Garcia. The British government didn't and doesn't seem to give a flying fig about what the residents of that island think.

Gav,

you may find this interesting reading : http://www.guardian.co.uk/falklands/...047980,00.html

Sigh..of course its different. Hong Kong was leased from China, it was never disputed that they owned it after the lease ran out. You borrow your neighbours lawnmower, you give it back.
You go over and steal your neighbours lawn mower, he can call the police and get it back by force. Simple.

If you have a vested interest in Hong Kong thats fine, I am not going to argue about what you think was right and wrong at the time.

The Falkland Islands are British, because the people living there want them to be. It is there choice surely.

I have no vested interest in Hong Kong or Diega Garcia. The point here is that the principle of self-determination expressed in article 73 of the UN charter, used to support the claim of the Falklanders to be British, has been ignored by Britain when it was deemed expedient.

In the case of Hong Kong: At the very least, British passports could have been issued to those who wished to 'remain British' as many Hong Kong citizens would have been prepared to leave the territory anyway once China took over.


In the case of Diego Garcia, the native islanders were disgracefully treated and the place was depopulated in the interests of keeping an important military ally happy.


Given that you apparently don't see a problem with either of the above examples of GB totally ignoring the wishes of people in their dependencies or colonies, it's astonishingly hypocritical to come out with a comment like

"The Falkland Islands are British, because the people living there want them to be. It is there choice surely."

.. when that choice doesn't clearly and demonstrably doesn't extend to other territories under, or formerly under, the control of Britain.

It has been.

Dave

Until the next time the Argentinian govt deems it expedient to press the matter further of course.