Showing posts with label Falklands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Falklands. Show all posts
Friday, 4 May 2012
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
30th anniversary of the sinking of the Belgrano
30 years ago today the Royal Navy sank the Argentinian ship, the General Belgrano.
It was all part of the Falklands conflict that had begun a month earlier when the Argentinians had invaded and taken over both the Falklands Islands, which they call the Malvinas islands, and South Georgia.
As part of their campaign to recapture the islands, the British government had announced a 200-mile exclusion zone, but, when HMS Conqueror, a nuclear powered submarine, launched 3 torpedoes at the Belgrano it was outside of that exclusion zone, in international waters, and sailing away from the islands and the British Task Force that had been amassed in the South Atlantic over the previous weeks.
The General Belgrano posed absolutely no threat to Royal Navy ships and had every right to be where it was, and yet, on the orders of Margaret Thatcher, the UK Prime Minister, it was sunk, killing 368 men.
Today, in a tasteless events and a reunion, British veterans of the conflict celebrated this massacre and justified this dreadful attack.
Why, instead, were they not arrested for war crimes? And why has Margaret Thatcher never had her day in court at the Hague to account for the cold-blooded murder of so many men?
Thatcher did many things during her premiership that people find distasteful, for the sinking of the Belgrano she should have spent her later years in prison.
It was all part of the Falklands conflict that had begun a month earlier when the Argentinians had invaded and taken over both the Falklands Islands, which they call the Malvinas islands, and South Georgia.
As part of their campaign to recapture the islands, the British government had announced a 200-mile exclusion zone, but, when HMS Conqueror, a nuclear powered submarine, launched 3 torpedoes at the Belgrano it was outside of that exclusion zone, in international waters, and sailing away from the islands and the British Task Force that had been amassed in the South Atlantic over the previous weeks.
The General Belgrano posed absolutely no threat to Royal Navy ships and had every right to be where it was, and yet, on the orders of Margaret Thatcher, the UK Prime Minister, it was sunk, killing 368 men.
Today, in a tasteless events and a reunion, British veterans of the conflict celebrated this massacre and justified this dreadful attack.
Why, instead, were they not arrested for war crimes? And why has Margaret Thatcher never had her day in court at the Hague to account for the cold-blooded murder of so many men?
Thatcher did many things during her premiership that people find distasteful, for the sinking of the Belgrano she should have spent her later years in prison.
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
OPINION: Just get rid of the Falklands
30 years on from the Falklands Conflict, the UK and Argentina are getting hot under the collar again about the desolate rocks in the South Atlantic.
When Margaret Thatcher sent a large task force to the Falkland Islands back in 1982, following Argentina's invasion of the islands and South Georgia, it had more to do with pulling the heart strings of Little Englanders, playing the patriotism card, in order to help her chances of reelection following a bad couple of years in the opinion polls and an economy that was struggling and the deaths of several hundred Argentine sailors, and some (*cue fake tears) British heroes achieved its goal - she was re-elected by a landslide a year later.
Today things are different. I'm sure that Cameron quite fancies the poll boost that a war PM tends to get (Tony Blair can only puzzle as to why his cynical wars backfired) and it would serve as a wonderful distraction from his flatlining economy and other political woes, but now there is a far bigger issue.
Oil and gas fields have been discovered beneath the waters around the islands. It's been long suspected that there was a large amount of oil and gas there, someone just had to find it. So now the battle for the Falklands has another purpose - the pursuit of climate destroying oil.
Because of the Falkland Islands legal status, however, the UK won't benefit from the oil and gas found there. The UK spends millions of pounds each year protecting the islands, including having two warships permanently there, for which the islanders pay nothing, but the monies generated from discovery of oil and gas are the islanders. Every single one of them, men, women and children, could, it seems, become multi-millionaires but the UK won't receive a penny, or peso, of it. We, the UK taxpayers, pay to protect the islands, build them infrastructure, etc. but won't benefit from any oil windfall. How can that be right?
It, of course, makes no sense but raises the question, why do we continue paying out huge amounts of money to protect a set of bleak, inhospitable islands with a tiny population?
In the late 1970s the UK was trying to get rid of the Falklands and, had the Argentine junta not tried to gain popularity by invading the islands, there is every chance the islands would have been given away by the mid-1980s.
I'm all for self-determination but, surely, that is to decide between independence and being ruled over. If the Falkland Islanders can choose who they want to pick up their security bill and not their independence it's like Southampton declaring that they are now a French port.
And it's not as if the Falkland Islands have always been under some sort of British flag. It was only in the 1820s that the UK stole them from Argentina! Hardly a long history.
So what will happen?
The Argentine government have accused the UK of upping the stakes and "militarising" the South Atlantic. The UK say they are simply changing ships (to a much bigger and more armed one) and that William Windsor, second in line to the British throne is there as a routine duty. They'll be lots of huffing and puffing (including, announced this week, the renaming of the Argentine football league as the "Cruiser General Belgrano Premier League") and eventually someone will do something stupid, quite probably for personal electoral gain.
I fear another conflict and the inevitable loss of life. I fear this will increase narrow-minded Little Englanders patriotism and that, if he times it right, an overall election win for David Cameron at the next general election. I fear the British taxpayer will be asked to pay more and more money for islands we don't really want and which it would make more sense to get rid of. And I fear that, with huge amounts of oil and gas being discovered, it will delay the inevitable development of alternative technologies and we'll have more decades of polluting carbon-based fuels.
My solution? Give the Falkland Islands to Argentina - it makes much more sense for them to look after the Malvinas, as they call them, and allow any Falkland Islanders who want to be "British" to settle on UK soil (though I guess they won't do that if there's a chance their snouts can be buried in the oil trough).
MILITARISATION OF THE DALKLANDS? (HUMOUR)
When Margaret Thatcher sent a large task force to the Falkland Islands back in 1982, following Argentina's invasion of the islands and South Georgia, it had more to do with pulling the heart strings of Little Englanders, playing the patriotism card, in order to help her chances of reelection following a bad couple of years in the opinion polls and an economy that was struggling and the deaths of several hundred Argentine sailors, and some (*cue fake tears) British heroes achieved its goal - she was re-elected by a landslide a year later.
Today things are different. I'm sure that Cameron quite fancies the poll boost that a war PM tends to get (Tony Blair can only puzzle as to why his cynical wars backfired) and it would serve as a wonderful distraction from his flatlining economy and other political woes, but now there is a far bigger issue.
Oil and gas fields have been discovered beneath the waters around the islands. It's been long suspected that there was a large amount of oil and gas there, someone just had to find it. So now the battle for the Falklands has another purpose - the pursuit of climate destroying oil.
Because of the Falkland Islands legal status, however, the UK won't benefit from the oil and gas found there. The UK spends millions of pounds each year protecting the islands, including having two warships permanently there, for which the islanders pay nothing, but the monies generated from discovery of oil and gas are the islanders. Every single one of them, men, women and children, could, it seems, become multi-millionaires but the UK won't receive a penny, or peso, of it. We, the UK taxpayers, pay to protect the islands, build them infrastructure, etc. but won't benefit from any oil windfall. How can that be right?
It, of course, makes no sense but raises the question, why do we continue paying out huge amounts of money to protect a set of bleak, inhospitable islands with a tiny population?
In the late 1970s the UK was trying to get rid of the Falklands and, had the Argentine junta not tried to gain popularity by invading the islands, there is every chance the islands would have been given away by the mid-1980s.
I'm all for self-determination but, surely, that is to decide between independence and being ruled over. If the Falkland Islanders can choose who they want to pick up their security bill and not their independence it's like Southampton declaring that they are now a French port.
And it's not as if the Falkland Islands have always been under some sort of British flag. It was only in the 1820s that the UK stole them from Argentina! Hardly a long history.
So what will happen?
The Argentine government have accused the UK of upping the stakes and "militarising" the South Atlantic. The UK say they are simply changing ships (to a much bigger and more armed one) and that William Windsor, second in line to the British throne is there as a routine duty. They'll be lots of huffing and puffing (including, announced this week, the renaming of the Argentine football league as the "Cruiser General Belgrano Premier League") and eventually someone will do something stupid, quite probably for personal electoral gain.
I fear another conflict and the inevitable loss of life. I fear this will increase narrow-minded Little Englanders patriotism and that, if he times it right, an overall election win for David Cameron at the next general election. I fear the British taxpayer will be asked to pay more and more money for islands we don't really want and which it would make more sense to get rid of. And I fear that, with huge amounts of oil and gas being discovered, it will delay the inevitable development of alternative technologies and we'll have more decades of polluting carbon-based fuels.
My solution? Give the Falkland Islands to Argentina - it makes much more sense for them to look after the Malvinas, as they call them, and allow any Falkland Islanders who want to be "British" to settle on UK soil (though I guess they won't do that if there's a chance their snouts can be buried in the oil trough).
MILITARISATION OF THE DALKLANDS? (HUMOUR)
Friday, 2 December 2011
COMMENT: Cutting diplomatic links with Iran
Things have been hitting-up with regard to the West's relationship with Iran (well, now that Iraq and Libya are "solved", Obama needs a new war to help his election campaign). The West keep saying that Iran shouldn't be developing nuclear weapons while Iran point out the hypocrisy of the nuclear powers telling them they can't join the gang!
Earlier this week, the British Embassy in Tehran was attacked and taken over. The UK government's response was to withdraw all from the embassy and order all Iranian diplomats out of London. Diplomatic links are cut.
At a time of trouble and disagreement isn't that the worst and most idiotic thing to do? When there is disagreement that is the time when diplomats should be doing their job: talking, negotiating, working out a peace, keeping the peace.
Cutting diplomatic ties is like taking your ball home and ending the game. Worse, it's more akin to preparing for war. And what will this war achieve? Nothing.
Sure, there will be Americans who see it as an heroic struggle against the Iranians and, I'm sure, it will bolster Obama's presidency (and his lack of substance continues to be exposed - he, more than anyone, needs another war if he is to win a second term in the White House).
Cameron, the British PM, probably hopes it will be his Falklands - Thatcher, deeply unpopular after cuts, riots and rising unemployment sent forces to re-capture a few bits of rock we'd been trying to get rid of for decades in the early '80s and, therefore, romped to a second election victory in 1983. And, of course, another big war would be just what Cameron's mates in the Arms industry want (he's recently been campaigning to end the treaty that banned cluster bombs).
Also, Cameron has been sidelined in Europe and has lost a platform where he might have been able to be seen as statesmanlike. He wants, very much as Blair did with GWB, to radiate in the glow that is emanating from Obama. Obama is, now, one of his only international friends left.
After the "dodgy dossier" and the lack of WMD in Iraq, should we take Iran's claims, and the West's concerns, with a pinch of salt?
So, what if Iran IS on the verge of having nuclear weapons? What if they actually already have them? Should I bother buying any Christmas presents or will the world have come to an end in the next few weeks?
Hopefully, that's unlikely, but, and there is no doubt, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President is both unstable and unpredictable. Is that the sort of man who should be let loose like this?
Cutting diplomatic links is a truly idiotic thing to do with any nation - but particularly any nation that could be considered a "rogue state". It is political posturing on a level to which the likes of the unions normally only ever sink. It is dangerous and Cameron is gambling on what might happen next.
Grown-ups discuss their problems. Grown-ups negotiate and compromise. This week Cameron, yet again, has shown himself to be a schoolboy in short trousers when it comes to the world stage.
Earlier this week, the British Embassy in Tehran was attacked and taken over. The UK government's response was to withdraw all from the embassy and order all Iranian diplomats out of London. Diplomatic links are cut.
At a time of trouble and disagreement isn't that the worst and most idiotic thing to do? When there is disagreement that is the time when diplomats should be doing their job: talking, negotiating, working out a peace, keeping the peace.
Cutting diplomatic ties is like taking your ball home and ending the game. Worse, it's more akin to preparing for war. And what will this war achieve? Nothing.
Sure, there will be Americans who see it as an heroic struggle against the Iranians and, I'm sure, it will bolster Obama's presidency (and his lack of substance continues to be exposed - he, more than anyone, needs another war if he is to win a second term in the White House).
Cameron, the British PM, probably hopes it will be his Falklands - Thatcher, deeply unpopular after cuts, riots and rising unemployment sent forces to re-capture a few bits of rock we'd been trying to get rid of for decades in the early '80s and, therefore, romped to a second election victory in 1983. And, of course, another big war would be just what Cameron's mates in the Arms industry want (he's recently been campaigning to end the treaty that banned cluster bombs).
Also, Cameron has been sidelined in Europe and has lost a platform where he might have been able to be seen as statesmanlike. He wants, very much as Blair did with GWB, to radiate in the glow that is emanating from Obama. Obama is, now, one of his only international friends left.
After the "dodgy dossier" and the lack of WMD in Iraq, should we take Iran's claims, and the West's concerns, with a pinch of salt?
So, what if Iran IS on the verge of having nuclear weapons? What if they actually already have them? Should I bother buying any Christmas presents or will the world have come to an end in the next few weeks?
Hopefully, that's unlikely, but, and there is no doubt, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President is both unstable and unpredictable. Is that the sort of man who should be let loose like this?
Cutting diplomatic links is a truly idiotic thing to do with any nation - but particularly any nation that could be considered a "rogue state". It is political posturing on a level to which the likes of the unions normally only ever sink. It is dangerous and Cameron is gambling on what might happen next.
Grown-ups discuss their problems. Grown-ups negotiate and compromise. This week Cameron, yet again, has shown himself to be a schoolboy in short trousers when it comes to the world stage.
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