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The Falklands and Some Other Stuff
British Soldiers during the Falklands War
The Falklands and Some Other Stuff
By Michael Shrimpton
This week has seen one of the more monumental diplomatic gaffes of recent years. Argentina’s crass Foreign Minister Hector Timerman stated on a visit to London (of all places) that “The Falkland Islanders do not exist.”
This comes on top of a campaign of Argentine lies, designed to boost Argentina’s threadbare claim to the islands, weaker than France’s. Johnny Argie has been claiming that Britain ‘invaded’ the islands in 1833, ‘expelling’ Argentine settlers. There were of course no settlers and the islands had been British for decades before 1833.
It is not clear that Timerman was trying to do. The best guess is that he was hoping to trigger a crisis in Anglo-Argentine relations. If so, he succeeded. Argentina’s Embassy on Brook Street (it’s just up from the US Embassy and handy for Claridges, one of the CIA’s favoured watering hotels in London) may not be there for much longer. It would make quite a nice base for a think tank.
The time has come to expel Argentina’s ambassador. The Falklands are being reinforced but we need more stuff down there and should start planning for a major war in the South Atlantic. This will require a major boost for British naval aviation, and more Astute class SSNs. This in turn will require cuts elsewhere, preferably in the bloated $300 billion plus a year welfare budget, abolition of the failed National Health Service and withdrawal from the EU.
Thanks mainly to the Foreign Office British policy in 1982 was in a state of utter confusion. Number 10 thought we were at war, but the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office blocked a formal declaration of war, generating spurious doubts about the legality of sinking the ARA General Belgrano. The confusion was exacerbated by the 200 mile Maritime Total Exclusion Zone, which led non-lawyers and stupid people to think that hostilities could only take place within it. In fact the Argentines conducted an operation, which was foiled by good intelligence work, as far away as Gibraltar. South Georgia, which was way outside the TEZ, had already seen an amphibious operation. The TEZ only applied to civilian shipping.
We only booted the Argie invaders off our islands. There was no peace treaty and the Argies were never required to abandon their claim. This was part of the penalty we paid for our strategic errors during the war, such as not bombing Buenos Aires. Sadly, the low level of Argentine casualties has meant they were not deterred from planning further aggression. They would be a lot less talk of war now had Michael Beetham’s mighty Vulcans been allowed to turn downtown Buenos Aires into a parking lot.
A second Falklands war appears highly likely. This time we will need to finish the job. If we could finish off the UN too that would be a bonus. They are far too sympathetic to the Argentine enemy, which could be a crunch point for UK membership. They were an absolute pain in 1982, insisting on a messy end to the war. There’s another crunch point coming up in the Eastern Congo, where the UN, as big a failure as the League, is backing Kinshasa, and we are backing the nice Rwandans, who have started playing cricket. It would be good to see the SAS take on the shameful blue berets – it’s about time they took some heat! No one in Britain – outside the Cabinet Office that is – has forgiven the UN its role in sponsoring the Rwandan genocide. The Cabinet Office forgives genocide fairly easily.
That fine movie Judgment at Nuremberg was shown again on British TV this week. Spencer Tracy gave arguably his finest performance ever, as an honest judge, who in the end votes to convict a fictional group of German lawyers and judges, who these days would probably be nominated onto the Supreme Court. Burt Lancaster is very convincing as the dignified old judge who wasn’t a Nazi but sentenced Jews to death anyway. Richard Widmark plays the Pat Fitzgerald character.
The movie captures the atmosphere of the late 1940’s when everybody thought the war was over. Nobody of course was told that so far as German intelligence was concerned it was business as usual, indeed the Krauts got one of their allies – North Korea – to start a major war only two years after the events portrayed in the movie.
I think the war crimes trial were a mistake, indeed they were reduced to a farce when the Deputy Director of the DVD, Generalleutnant Erwin von Lahousen, was allowed to give evidence for the allies. He was far more evil than any of the defendants and went on to support the single currency and the creation of the EEC. The trials smacked of victors’ justice and the use of hanging for military officers was a disgrace. I respectfully agree with Reichsmarschall Goering that he should have been shot.
My old friend the late Lord Elwyn-Jones, later a distinguished Lord Chancellor, was a junior prosecuting counsel. He told me when I was a young law student that he thought the trials were wrong and he was right. Of course he reported to British Military Intelligence and he was smart enough to have picked up that the trial process was being abused. There is also the issue of jurisdiction, which could only have been de facto.
A couple of trivia points: the supporting cast included William Shatner, later of Star Trek fame, who played the aide to Spencer Tracy’s character. It also marked, so far as I am aware, the first pairing of two of the lead actors in the brilliantly funny TV series Hogan’s Heroes, Werner Klemperer (‘Colonel’ Wilhelm Klink) and Howard Caine (‘Major’ Hochstetter, who usually appeared in SS uniform, with the wrong rank insiginia).
Apologies to my declining band of critics. IT issues have prevented me from uploading posts, but if any one makes a substantial point I can always deal with it on one of my articles.
My congratulations to the Ravens. No word yet on who pulled the plug, but it wasn’t the 49ers.
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Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=238963
Posted by Michael Shrimpton on Feb 10 2013, With 0 Reads, Filed under Editor, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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The Superbowl is history, but heads up for this coming Sunday the 24th. At 1 pm ET, we have the Danica 500, oops I mean the Daytona 500. Danica has the pole position, a very good start. Last year was only her first full year in Nationwide, and she finished 10th. She and Juan Pablo Montoya definitely add color to the Sprint Cup races, in more ways than one. I usually have the race on in the background while I take a nap, but I might actually watch this one.
You have a major point about NO TREATY concluding the Falklands War. That’s a point that could be made about other wars, such as WW2, Korean War aka police action, Vietnam War, etc. Countries don’t declare war anymore, either; they just attack and go at it for years, and stop when they go broke and the bankers move on. Treaty of Versailles between Germany and the Allies at the end of WW1 didn’t solve much. There was no treaty concluding WW2, which Dr. Zundel has recently complained about. But neither the Germans nor the Soviets were about to push for a treaty at the time. The Abwehr had already set up their Continuity of Government (COG) in Madrid back in 1942 I believe, so they went merrily on whether Germany lost or won. Big mistake on the part of the Allies, the lack of a treaty. Instead, we got stuck with this: the (dis)United Nations, 4 occupiers of Germany, Rudolf Hess in Spandau prison, DPs everywhere, concentration camps full of Germans, the Marshall Plan, forced repatriation of ethnic minorities to the Soviet Union, and before we knew it, the Berlin Wall and the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Question: Are declarations of war, as well as treaties, obsolete now?
Hugo Chavez is apparently back, assuming it’s him rather than a double, as I have not seen the photos of him reading the newspaper.
1) Not only the MALVINAS (Argentinian name for the “Falkland Islands”), South Georgia too is Argentinian territory and must be returned to Argentina.
2) Michael Shrimpton is an armchair FREEBOOTER, more entertaining to read (as gossip-banter) than the UK Yellow Press, and there is always a self-promoting message embedded in what he writes. Last time the wink was to Buckingham Palace, (desperate to be noticed by the “Royals”) , then he tried to ingratiate himself with the Algerian Gen. Tartag and now with Paul Springer from the US-based vulture fund, NML Capital, calling for war against Argentina-Venezuela and sending flowers to the defunct Chilean murderer Gen. Pinochet.
3) He is mad at the Cristina Kirchner Govt because it does not take orders from London City. Last month Argentina GOT its tall ship “S/S ARA LIBERTAD” freed from Ghana, by decision of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg, Germany, a Court similar to Den Hagen International Court, in charge of applying the UN Convention regarding the Laws of the Sea, hence Shrimpton rant against the UN. S/S ARA LIBERTAD had been sequestrated last October in Ghana, upon arrival there, by a Kangaroo Court, at the request of of above mentioned Paul Springer, manager of NML Capital.
4) Another reason why Shrimpton is mad at Argentina, and wants “to convert its capital Buenos Aires into a parking lot”, is the creation of a Joint Iranian-Argentinian Commission to INVESTIGATE the bombing of AMIA (Mossad-Shin Bet’ False Flag), the Zion Talmudic Mafia claimed was an Iranian job.
5) Shrimpton, from the cosy-comfortable safety of his living room, wants GB to invade Venezuela too, and maybe claim that country a booty in the name of “Her Majesty the Queen”.
7) Guess who is brain dead, President Chávez or Michael Shrimpton?
Nice post Ken, especially the point about shrimpie’s self promotion to his ‘betters’. And the last line, summing up the rest.
Stephen, it is your indisputable right to dissent. That’s what freedom of speech-opinion is all about.
3 arguments speak in favor for Argentina’s claim to Las Islas Malvinas, aka The Falkland Islands:
1) History: The Islands were first sighted by The Magellan Expedition in 1520. The Treaty of Tordesillas of June, 7th 1494, between Spain and Portugal, with its amendment sanctioned by the Pope Julius II in 1506. In 1820,
French settlers from St. Malo occupied part of the Islands and gave them the name “Les Malouines”. English settlers came in about the same time. In 1770, Spain bought the French out and expulsed the English in 1774, invoking the Discovery of the New World by Cristobal Colon and the treaty of Tordesillas. Argentina got independent from Spain in 1816 and in 1820 claimed its sovereignty over Las Malvinas, being a natural inheritor of Spain’s contiguous territories, not disputed by Portugal, Chile or Brasil. In 1829 the Govt of Buenos Aires named a Political Military Commandant for Las Malvinas. In 1833, the English retook the Islands and in 1892 declared them a British Colony.
2) The UN, in 1960, urgent the old colonial powers (GB-F) to decolonize. GB made a promise to comply, then dragged its feet regarding Las Malvinas. The UN urged Argentina and GB to reach a peaceful settlement through negotiation. Then in 1982 the military Junta decided to occupy the Islands, loosing the war against the British.
3) The geographic position of Las Malvinas by itself is a strong argument for their belonging to Argentina and not to GB.
Not sure that that Argentinian claims are as sound as Ken seems to suggest (and certainly geographical proximity would seem to be the weakest of the arguments). There have been a number working papers and UN resolutions on this subject post 1960 and these are to be found on the South Atlantic Council website:
http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/SAC/INDEX.HTM
The documentation on there is freely available for educational use as long as the website source is quoted as above.
I must admit that I am not smart enough to actually get through a shrimpton post, but the comments section here is great. I laugh out loud. Most posts on the site can get a man down, but at least here I smile.
He claims Pinochet was his ‘old friend’, so that’s all that matters, they could have swapped massacre scores with each other.
I see my test post was successful, but oddly I needed to log back on to see it!
We lost too many ships in ’82 because we lacked enough fighter cover and sufficient CIWS. I had spotted that problem as a student, aged 21, when I got a motion passed by the Welsh Federation of Conservative students calling for HMS Ark Royal to be retained, citing a possible attack on the Falklands as a reason.
Having survived an assassination attempt by the DVD and having gone head to head with them for 15 years now I don’t have any problem looking combat veterans in the eye. As it happens I have worn uniform, albeit briefly, in the RAFVR, I volunteered for the Gulf War and stayed in Australia as a teenager during the Vietnam War, ie I had no plans to scuttle home to England to dodge the draft. I didn’t return to England until after my 18th birthday, by which time the war was over.
Wars happen because people like me aren’t listened to. I spotted the first Falklands war coming a mile off and I can see the second war coming a country mile off. Once you get into a war you fight it hard and win it comprehensively, thus preventing further conflict. Pussy-footing around with Argentina in 1982 has meant that the problem has not gone away. We fixed it for a few decades, that as all.
I said ‘downtown Buenos Aires’, not the suburbs! Any civilian casualties would have been collateral, and there wouldn’t have been many by bombing at night. The enemy’s commercial and command center was and remains a legitimate strategic target.
Somebody doesn’t understand ‘iron’ bombing. We bombed ACROSS the runway, not DOWN it, deliberately, to make sure of at least one hit. The runway was straddled and the boys put a hole in it alright. It was a strategic as well as a tactical success, like sinking the Belgrano. The Argie air force stayed away from Port Stanley, meaning limited time over the Falklands, the same problem the Luftwaffe fighters had in the Battle of Britain. After the Belgrano the enemy navy stayed in port, ceding sea control.
The Argies are not popular in South America. No country entered the war on their side except France and we got substantial help from my old friend General Pinochet and some useful help with a Vulcan from Brazil. When they start the next war Venezuela might enter the war on their side, assuming she stays under German control (like Cuba), but that’s about it. Chavez may be brain dead (like Steve, no offense!) , indeed all the signs are that his brain is in a worse state than Cameron’s, but his protege is lining up to take power. Defeating Venezuela would be a desirable strategic outcome, ditto Cuba if they join in, although the Cubans aren’t crazt enough to take on the Royal Navy (every strategic target in Cuba, including Havana, is within gun range).
Downtown Buenos Aires is full of civilians, and ‘turning it into a parking lot’ would have killed and wounded large numbers. Of course that would have been just the sort of thing you and your old friend Pinochet could have drooled over, whilst discussing how many thousands he had tortured and murdered over a glass of claret. And the DVD only tried to get you once? Gee that’s a pretty poor show for such a mighty outfit. But still it lets you look combat vets in the eye, in your own feverish imagination.
Btw how is a second war supposed to happen, given the incredibly weak state of Argentina’s economy and armed forces (not to even count their complete disavowal of force as an option). I get it, of course, the DVD will arrange something regardless, after all, they pulled off Korea according to you, whilst Germany was fully occupied and being dismantled by the Allies, ie the bits that were still standing.
Brain dead? Indeed it is, your bollocks that is. Pathetic and sick.
(And the Argies are a sight more popular than Britain is there, you can bank on it).
Keep it up you will widen the gap even more at this rate.
Stephen,
That was a silly thing you said in your last paragraph, “And you survived an assassination attempt by the DVD. Now i now you are lying. Nobody could survive a DVD hit.” Actually, it’s very possible to survive a DVD-attempted assassination. Gimme a break. They are human (sort of) not gods, and they are fallible too. And if you know their methods, countermeasures could be effective.
what the hell does Shrimp have against the Germans,,i havent seen an article yet that isnt some psy op blaming the DVD or ultra sympathetic to those poor Jews that never did anything to anyone..
yea sounds like a great movie,maybe i’ll rent it this weekend….NOT!
Expulsion of the Argentine ambassador might be a good idea. Looks like Argentina is trying to take the focus off their domestic woes again. They are famous for boom/bust spectacular cycles. I believe Argentina has plenty of resources that they could develop, with no need of the Falklands. Argentina is HUGE, and its potential has barely been tapped. It’s not just beef down there.
Sad goings-on in some of Argentina’s neighbors too. Venezuela has just devalued by 32%, and more to come. I can’t believe people were surprised, as currency devaluations are always telegraphed by the government ahead of time, usually by an official denial to try to stop currency outflows. I take the devaluation as one sign that Chavez must have died or be near death; he hasn’t been seen in 2 months.
Some South American countries are doing really well and improving, by contrast. Brazil, Chile, spring to mind.
This is a severe case of mental diarrhea. You my dear may be in need of attention,and your resource to appeal common sense and create that band of critics appear to be the ultimate resource of an old tired man sipping gins while living in the past after all this is the Nation that lost an empire, but still keeps the big attitude’s. Please wake up to the 21st Century, ” Las Malvinas son Argentinas” Imperialism has seen his better days, and as a dying shark on its desperate final movements the Empire does not realizes that going into a South America will be declaring the war in a continent, may not be as easy as the Middle East or Africa.
Tomer, I think you mean Monroe Doctrine rather than Madison Declaration? Monroe Doctrine very famous! Madison declared a lot of things, but nothing special stands out.
Just testing
If you ready then take your hands out of your pockets, if you had them then they must be still there!!
‘Declining band of critics’ only because VT readers don’t bother to read your BS. I am not even sure you wrote this, no mention of the DVD.
Apologies you did mention the DVD so it is probably you after all. Look back at the videos of the British going to war in the Falklands. It was a reinvention of WWll but more flags, bunting and jingoism. It was the media glorifying war and its main purpose was to bolster the ebbing political career of Margaret Thatcher. It was all about rule Britannia, not about the impending death and injury or the vainglorious and totally pointless VC. Read Irving’s Dresden and tell me it’s not the ravings of a psychopath wanting to bomb downtown Buenos Aires. Read about the privations, mental health problems and sickness of veterans on VT and justify getting rid of welfare and the National Health Service. Go back to grazing in Jurassic Park.
Hmmm, well Mike? Perhaps you need to strap on a chute and a rifle and go take care of some business once and for all ay? Old boy? The RAF can find you a larger chute so you can remain behind your desk as you attack downtown Argie? No? Thought not.
If you do go for vacation down there, I’m sure you can find plenty SR-58′s (semi-auto) out in the hills therebouts, never fired and only dropped once! Cheers chicken hawk….
He really would but he’s too old (sob), and there’s the old sporting injury too…
He leaves James Bond in the dust, they have supposedly started wars, run world leaders as their stooges, and pulled off 9/11 etc, but they can’t get him? Can’t be Krauts then, they are efficient if nothing else.
The measly Argies are just not worth his while…
Well my position is well known, I will not hold my tongue for the likes of shrimp when it’s justified, which it generally is. And as shrimp is his own species of specimen, operating by his own piratical rules of discourse, ordinary standards don’t apply. The other writers here deserve some respect mostly, and get it. shrimpie could get it too if he earned it. But like I said, they can do what they darn well like, if their conscience can stomach it.
And let’s face it, as Derek X said above, this is the comic relief section of the site.
Well said Stephen. Stacks of smoke – straight down the middle – last one dead’s a sissy!
Wherever there is OIL you find plundering armies from one of these countries: UK, US, France:
***************http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/03/world/falklands-argentina-background
British rig due to begin Falklands drilling
***********http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/22/falklands.oil.rig/index.html
Michael you know better than anyone that what ever the British HAVE “it” has been stolen, occupied, taken over, or by means of brute force made to change and assimilate. Brit’s should stay on their rock and not bother the decent people of the world anymore. This goes for yanks and the dis-ease as well. You just could not make it on your own. Besides does not this earth belong to humans (all humans) the scourge of Brit’s and yanks and the dis-ease is all but moldy bread to be discarded.
War is all you know and love. Make everyone else suffer, cause your all messed up mentally.
Brits yanks dis-ease all want war not PEACE !!!! war to survive that’s how you survive, WAR !!!!!!
ITS A SICKNESS EMBEDDED DEEPLY NOW. embedded.
Its realy not yours as you claim but belongs to all.
That’s not very nice greenrecovery. Somebody was bound to have explored the world first. Maybe you would have preferred someone like the Japanese to have been the first ones to build a world Empire? (… and I doubt it would have been based on trade!)
yes Ex your right..
it is not nice to look in the mirrior at what has been done in the name of nation/empire ….
what I “would have preferred ” is to have humans , most of all leaders,teachers,writers,passers of instruction and information to act in a civil and resposible way rather that what we have collectivly as a cultural mash of humans on one planet not a bunch of lame ass nationalist “Looking out for their turf” and f the rest, which is what you have now …. it is indeed a sad state but it what it is ….
I personally would’ve prefer the Japs, what do we have from the Brits? Bad food and bad tooth, slavery, India’s and Pakistan’s open wound, a Banking system that sucks humankind by the jugular, people obese by Fish, Chips and Ale. A greedy, cold and out of touch monarchy, a system of classes that makes us believe that some human beings are better that other because of the color of their skin. In the other hand the appreciation of beauty, Bonsai and Ikebana, sushi, steam baths, and personal responsibility…Appears as a no brainer to me my friend.
Actually, it was the Royal Navy that brought an end to the export of African slaves, through a blockade. Slavery has existed for millenia, and still exists today. There are thousands of white women annually, who are abducted or tricked into “job opportunities”. They are sex slaves, and the vast majority are “owned” by citizens of a shitty little country in the Middle East.
I can’t speak about the British Royal family, because I hav never met any of them. I wouldn’t know if they are “greedy, cold and out of touch”. I do know that the citizens of Britain, unlike those of Japan, do not consider the King or Queen to be a diety.
Banking? Who gave the tribe protection while they were undermining the British king 370 years ago? Holland was the genesis of the banking system that sucks humanity by the jugular.
As for skin colour, the caste system is much more oppressive than anything in Europe. Don’t believe for a minute that it is not in existance to this day.
StephenG and Ex
Not to isolate you at all, every country that has aided and abed fore mentioned post,( that means all common wealth nations as well as most un and the rest who ride the coat tails) are also just as guilty of the crime and the consumption of the spoils. Don’t flatter the British way, of divide and conquer or just conquer. You don’t own it.
As for the Highly esteemed Japanese way of life or culture, a heathen can only dream of such discipline and structure in a society.
Now look at your own and the rest of the pack that rides with it.
Shame Shame !!!
As for directing fire at “leaders” it is not the leaders that are ultimately responsible but the very citizen individual who does nothing but complain and allow to keep happening the same bullshit year after year…. see that’s the shame “us” everyone standing sidelined watching …..
Expel him for what drama queen?