Falklands

[Beskar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...as_territories

Thanks, Isle of Mann is a Crown Dependencies, and Falklands is Overseas territory.

[Hosakawa Tito]

If I remember, the last war in 1982; Argentina was on the verge of large scale civil unrest and economic turmoil and the new junta needed a foreign boogeyman. They underestimated Maggie Thatcher, big time. The inhabitants are UK citizens and want to remain so. I would expect the UK will defend their citizens this time around too. Remember Port Stanley, Goose Green, and Colonel Jones.

[Furunculus]

what they need to focus on is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Mount_Pleasant

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=-51....fgaE_A&split=0

[Rhyfelwyr]

I used to be good friends with a guy from the Falklands, so many jokes about pengiuns...

Anyway, if the people of the Falklands want to remain British, and they have for a good part of their history been admnistered as a British territory, then what reason is there for it not to remain so?

[HoreTore]

I used to be good friends with a guy from the Falklands, so many jokes about pengiuns...

Anyway, if the people of the Falklands want to remain British, and they have for a good part of their history been admnistered as a British territory, then what reason is there for it not to remain so?

It's always fun to stick it to the british nationalists

[Beskar]

Being honest, I wouldn't mind seeing the area become politically independent with a lease to the British armed forces. In such a way, they become part of the Commonwealth, they have a lease to the armed forces, in return of British support for the Falklands, etc, etc, so instead of the Falklands being seen as claiming land back from the British, it would be seen as trying to invade a legitimate independent nation allied to Britain.

[Furunculus]

It's always fun to stick it to the british nationalists

i would have to feel chastened or humiliated before i'd felt like you'd 'stuck' it to me. hasn't been any evidence of that so everything is peachy as far as i am concerned. :)

[InsaneApache]

It's always fun to stick it to the british nationalists

It's always fun to hear a leftwinger support an aggressor against a vunerable victim.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's always fun to hear a leftwinger support an aggressor against a vunerable victim.

Quite, his principles seem to last only so long as they do not interfere with his prejudices.

Being honest, I wouldn't mind seeing the area become politically independent with a lease to the British armed forces. In such a way, they become part of the Commonwealth, they have a lease to the armed forces, in return of British support for the Falklands, etc, etc, so instead of the Falklands being seen as claiming land back from the British, it would be seen as trying to invade a legitimate independent nation allied to Britain.

I would prefer that all remaining territories be integrated into the UK and send MP's to Westminster, including the Falklands and Gibralter.

[HoreTore]

i would have to feel threatened or humiliated before i'd felt like you'd 'stuck' it to me. hasn't been any evidence of that so everything is peachy as far as i am concerned. :)

Argentina taking the falklands is sure to make every british nationalist throw a tantrum. For that fact alone, I'm willing to support an armed invasion

It's always fun to hear a leftwinger support an aggressor against a vunerable victim.

So you brits have started playing the victim-game now?

[Subotan]

I would prefer that all remaining territories be integrated into the UK and send MP's to Westminster, including the Falklands and Gibralter.

This. Surely the purpose of the overseas territories is that they are too far from Westminster to be controlled directly from there. With improved communications, surely that's irrelevant?

Argentina taking the falklands is sure to make every british nationalist throw a tantrum. For that fact alone, I'm willing to support an armed invasion

I'm not a British/English/Whatever nationalist in any sense of the word, and I think the Falklands should remain with the UK,

[Justiciar]

Argentina taking the falklands is sure to make every british nationalist throw a tantrum. For that fact alone, I'm willing to support an armed invasion

You think armed conflict, the seizure of another nation's sovereign territory, and the loss of life involved therein is justified by your own smug and petty prejudices? How in the hell are you still here?

[Strike For The South]

The Monroe Doctrine

[Beskar]

I would prefer that all remaining territories be integrated into the UK and send MP's to Westminster, including the Falklands and Gibralter.

I agree with that with Crown Dependencies (Isle of Mann, Channel Islands, et al). Though the geographical difference to the Falklands is sort of too far away, in my opinion.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's always fun to hear a leftwinger support an aggressor against a vunerable victim.

Argentina taking the falklands is sure to make every british nationalist throw a tantrum. For that fact alone, I'm willing to support an armed invasion

So you brits have started playing the victim-game now?

Thank you for proving our point, HoreTore.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I agree with that with Crown Dependencies (Isle of Mann, Channel Islands, et al). Though the geographical difference to the Falklands is sort of too far away, in my opinion.

Why? Admittedly, the MP or two elected would have some long-haul flights, but supplies and personnel are flown in and out regularly. I'm sure they could catch a lift.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Argentina taking the falklands is sure to make every british nationalist throw a tantrum. For that fact alone, I'm willing to support an armed invasion

I am a staunch British nationalist. God Save the Queen and Rule Britannia and

That spawn of Satan, this perfidious Albion, foul excrement of the sea, which cursed flag one is bound to find where ever wood can swim, is quite right.

Argentina's claim is extraordinarily weak. Plus I have little sympathy for nationalist hysteria, nor for holding modern societies and international relations ransom over ancient documents and semi-mythology, never mind for irredentist militaristic adventures.


Argentina is in the grip of that cursed disease that plagues so many countries that feel they don't occupy a place in accordance to their own sense of importance: irredentism.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Grief and mourning are channeled into a call to renewed arms. The deaths are not granted peace. To give up Las Malvinas amounts to betrayal to the death:






The Falklands are given an importance far out of proportion to the actual importance of a few windswept semi-arctic islands sevral hours flight away. Drive into Argentina, and the first thing they want the foreigner to learn is:





The citizens of Argentina are inculcated into a national myth, an identity, of perceived loss, which festers into irredentism.
Argentina has been stripped of something. The difference between Argentina's promising past and its subsequent near-perennial state of decline, its inability to live up to its promise, are projected onto the Malvinas, this physical embodiment of a sense of loss, of melancholic longing for a past that actually never was.
It is endemic, pathological, militaristic. Not really deserving of foreign enticement.

[Fisherking]

I think HoreTore is ticked off because he thinks Norway still has a clime to the Shetland Islands.

[Beskar]

I think HoreTore is ticked off because he thinks Norway still has a clime to the Shetland Islands.

Funnily enough, I was thinking of that, due to EU3.

[TinCow]

I find this situation immensely ironic, since Argentina are now playing the Imperialists. They are trying for a land-grab due to natural resources located on the islands, with no regard whatsoever for the sovereignty of the inhabitants of the islands. Sounds like Argentina have turned into the very Evil Colonialists that they accuse Britain of being.

[gaelic cowboy]

Louis scanning Wikipedia I came across this paragraph seeing as France is the new ruler of the sea in the channel maybe its time to load up those aircraft carriers and bring the revolution the the South Atlantic

Obtenir votre manteau et votre vie longue la révolution

The Spanish name, Islas Malvinas, is derived from the French name,[12] "Îles Malouines", named by Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1764 after the first known settlers, mariners and fishermen from the Breton port of Saint-Malo in France.[12] The ISO designation is "Falkland Islands (Malvinas)".[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklan...#Falklands_War

[Subotan]

It's always fun to hear a leftwinger support an aggressor against a vunerable victim.

Don't tar all of us with the same brush :(

[Pannonian]

Quite, his principles seem to last only so long as they do not interfere with his prejudices.



I would prefer that all remaining territories be integrated into the UK and send MP's to Westminster, including the Falklands and Gibralter.

Do some of them have enough population to send an MP without being called a rotten borough? According to wiki Ascension has a population of 940.

[Subotan]

Do some of them have enough population to send an MP without being called a rotten borough? According to wiki Ascension has a population of 940.

You could merge that, St. Helena, the Falklands etc. into a South Atlantic Constituency.

[HoreTore]

Funnily enough, I was thinking of that, due to EU3.

I've actually never invaded Scotland....

[Louis VI the Fat]

Louis scanning Wikipedia I came across this paragraph seeing as France is the new ruler of the sea in the channel maybe its time to load up those aircraft carriers and bring the revolution the the South Atlantic

Obtenir votre manteau et votre vie longue la révolution

The Spanish name, Islas Malvinas, is derived from the French name,[12] "Îles Malouines", named by Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1764 after the first known settlers, mariners and fishermen from the Breton port of Saint-Malo in France.[12] The ISO designation is "Falkland Islands (Malvinas)".[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklan...#Falklands_War

We've gotten over losing bloody Canada to the Brits. Never mind those windswept rocks and two dozen sheep of the Falklands.

People need to get over stuff.

I find this situation immensely ironic, since Argentina are now playing the Imperialists. They are trying for a land-grab due to natural resources located on the islands, with no regard whatsoever for the sovereignty of the inhabitants of the islands. Sounds like Argentina have turned into the very Evil Colonialists that they accuse Britain of being.

Aye.

What's more, after Argentina lost the Falklands, Argentina conquered an area half the size of Western Europe. Let them give that back to the natives if they are this concerned with ancient claims and original inhabitants.
(Although, in the case of the Falklands, neither 'original' nor 'inhabitants' apply to the Argentines)

[gaelic cowboy]

What's more, after Argentina lost the Falklands, Argentina conquered an area half the size of Western Europe. Let them give that back to the natives if they are this concerned with ancient claims and original inhabitants.
(Although, in the case of the Falklands, neither 'original' nor 'inhabitants' apply to the Argentines)

Every year they do a pantomine of asking for it back its political theatre no more no less the whole thing will be forgoten when Argentina is allowed to benefit from it economically by acting as the hub for supplies for the rigs.

[drone]

This is perfect. After England beats the Germans in the round of 16, they will lose another heartbreaker to the Argies in the quarterfinals. My money is on penalties.

But Argentina won't get the Falklands back.

[Louis VI the Fat]

The Hortorian says:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb," said the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges after the South Atlantic conflict was over, but it is a fight that some people still want to pick. Almost three decades on from Britain's last imperial war, the slightest sign of Argentine edginess sets the white ensigns waving. The Sun yesterday seized upon the routine voyage of HMS Scott, a deep-water survey vessel, as evidence that a new taskforce has set sail. No matter that all Argentina has done is to demand permits from any ships sailing from its ports or crossing its waters to a planned oil exploration platform near the Falklands (something that the oil firm involved says will not affect its work). National pride is at stake. Britain is taking "all the necessary precautions", the prime minister said gravely yesterday. The brass beat of a Royal Marines band all but echoes in the background.


Why do we continue to respond in this way? Britain feels it necessary to maintain 1,000 troops, a destroyer and £300m worth of Typhoon fighter aircraft on the islands to defend 3,000 people, 500,000 sheep and a claim that does not come out particularly well from historical scrutiny. Patriotism and posturing on both sides has obstructed what would otherwise be the natural way forward, a pooling of sovereignty that would allow the islands to develop normal relations with their nearest neighbour. It might have happened in 1980 had Nicholas Ridley not been shouted down in the Commons, and blocked by the islanders, when he proposed a reasonable plan to lease the islands from Argentina after a formal exchange of sovereignty.


The Falklands are British because we fought for them in 1982 and because no government now could survive the apparent shame of giving them up. As a result, the UN's ritual annual call for direct talks over the issue gets nowhere. No one likes to admit that the islands dropped into our hands through an accident of empire: Spanish, French, Portuguese and even Turkish sailors passing by before Britain, along with France and Spain, got a foothold.


The history matters not because it calls into doubt Britain's modern right of possession, but because it adds weight to Argentinian grievances and the case for compromise on both sides. The British, after all, abandoned the islands in 1776, while Spain remained and ruled them until 1811. Before Britain returned in 1833, the newly independent Argentinian republic had made several attempts to establish a presence. Yet Britain asserts its claim today as if only a fool could find it odd that in 1993 it declared a 200-mile exclusive oil exploration zone around some lonely islands 8,000 miles from London.


Britain is stuck in a militaristic pose that it no longer has the resources or need to support, and ought to be looking for an escape from it. The Argentinian junta's decision to invade the islands in 1982 was deplorable and obviously illegal; faced with aggression, Britain had little choice other than to respond. It is understandable that since the war the islanders have set themselves against a deal. Who, in their place, would not want to do the same? They have done well from fishing rights, and if oil is found in economically exploitable quantities they will get richer. Port Stanley may even become a mini-Dubai with a union flag flying over it. But it will still remain in artificial isolation from the country nearest to it, lack its help in developing an oil industry, and always need a British military presence for its security. Defence cutbacks elsewhere will only expose the cost of sustaining the garrison.


It may suit both sides, for political reasons, to strut about boasting of sovereign rights, but this does not mean it is the mature thing to do. Britain can keep the islands in limbo; Argentinian politicians find the Malvinas issue an easy distraction. It is time for both to grow up.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ands-editorial

~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~

This is perfect. After England beats the Germans in the round of 16, they will lose another heartbreaker to the Argies in the quarterfinals. My money is on penalties.

The evil argies will need to use their hands again. Cheating bastards.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Thanks guys. That was the dialog I was looking for.