While I find Frodo’s latest comment out of line I find the last couple of post pretty offensive.
Argentina is a normal functioning country and I won’t accept offensive statements like “adult nations” and “profiteering leadership”; or the notion that we are incapable of reaching and agreement and sticking with it.
Not only comments like this are offensive; they are pretty stupid too.
The Afghan and Irak war proved that the people of the UK and USA can be lied by their leaders with impunity: both Galtieri and Bush launched an illegal war; ordered tortures and lied. One of them is a dictador who died in jailed and the other is a well respected former democratic president. Who lives in a banana republic?
The sub prime crisis and the bailout proved that your leaders are even more crooks than ours.
So climb down from your ponies and discuss like adults.
Lets be clear.
I was not proposing as a realistic alternative the more extreme measures in my post (the “force” ones)
My point was that while obviously Argentina does not have the capability to take the islands, we can make life difficult for the oil companies (without resorting to violence we could simply refuse them the use of our ports for example), so it’s in the best interest of all involved if an agreement can be reached, surely thats not so crazy to think?.
Estilicon what comments were out of line?.
The current Argentinian protests are both domestic posturing AND good foreign policy: like it or not we have some rights about that area, the rights of the Islanders to self-determination must be upheld, yes, but the Argentinian claims are not completely baseless either, so we start with the “the islands are ours” position and i think a good settlement can be reached along the lines of the “oil revenue sharing” agreement I talked about earlier.
I thought you were advocating for a “violent” solution to the problem, my mistake.
Actually, in the longer term, warfare is the cheaper option. Telling Argentina to f*** off is the best and cheapest, of course. Danegeld never works. Argentina has no valid claim to the Falklands. Compromising would open the floodgates elsewhere: Gibraltar, St Pierre, Ceuta, Brunei… And how would America feel about losing Alaska? After all, it’s disjoint from the lower 48, and right next door to Canada… If Britain were to cede even slightly, we’d be looking at decades of instability. That is the square I hope the politicians can circle.
And let’s not forget the effect that Britain’s successful defence of the Falklands had on the psychology of the West vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.
And Argentina are simply trying it on. Brown is a very weak leader and I don’t think Cameron will be much better.
Quartz look out of the window. It’s a whole new world.
The Soviet union? Canada annexing Alaska? War being the cheapest option?
Let’s be clear. There can’t be a war over Malvinas. We can not attack them even if we wanted and you can`t send another task fleet even if you wanted.
You can’t send a Task force because you no longer have it.
We have a proper runway though, that makes quite a difference.
It would literally take a week at most to move enough deterrent, if that, it would take rather longer than that to even think about making arrangements to invade.
Are you deaf? I said that we can’t mount any kind of operation even if we wanted, and we don’t. That’s why I said that the UK reaction is stupid and has only one objective, domestic consumption. Your economy is in the dustbin and your leaders welcome any distraction.
Our economy is not in a great shape but so far we’ve manage to evade the worst effects of the world crisis. But our president is politically weak and she also welcomes the distraction.
The sad fact is that the argentinian public opinion is aware of this and yours, apparently, is not.
Psst - ever heard of reductio ad absurdum?
Not true. Never underestimate the egos of politicians.
Again, not true.
Again, not true.
Yes an as someone whose language is descended from latin I actually understand the phrase without needing to check it out in a dictionary.
But I fail to see your point.
Yes, the UK is alight with Falklands fever. We speak of little else.
Get a grip. :rolleyes:
Eh, pot… kettle. You can’t object to people making offensive statements about your country in the same post you make offensive statements about theirs.
I agree with Obama’s policy. It is sort of like how I would chip in and help my friend put shingles on the roof of his primary home. But if he has a beachfront home that he uses in the summer time for play, then he can take care of it his own damned self.
That’s a terrible analogy 
It’s more like: Your friend owns a shed at the bottom of his garden, way away in the weeds at the edge of his property. Your grandad helped your friend out in saving his whole house from a massive fire. Many years later, being a good buddy, the friend helps you out trying to hunt down the people who burned down your garage. Soon after this you need some chums to help with a rumour about another fellow who is looking to fart in your kitchen. Again, the old friend rushes there with some air freshener, even though the friend’s family aren’t too happy about it - perhaps there was never going to be a fart!
Now, the friend’s half-forgotten shed is in danger. Some local scamps are threatening to throw stones at it, and look for hidden home brew and porno mags!
“Meh”, says you.
“Thanks, friend”
^^^^^^
This is a terrible analogy.
Again, there are many things Argentina can do to make oil extraction on the Islands a risky or even non-profitable business proposition, since we are talking about money, and not land or lives, an agreement is far more intelligent than a confrontation.
Lets be clear, as long as the Islanders want to be British (for ever, I think), we are not talking about sovereignty over the islands, we are talking off-shore drilling rights and the like, no need to speak about “danegeld” or things like that.
Now, as a totally intellectual exercise, it would be infinitely cheaper for Argentina to forcefully interdict any possibility of off-shore drilling that for Britain to defend against it.
Oil Plataforms are big, inmobile,fragile, targets, oil tankers are big, fragile, slow moving targets.
Short of an invasion of the Argentinian mainland, how could a British task force, stop the mere threat of an attack from rending oil extraction in the islands unprofitable?.
Submarine-launched cruise missiles? Pick a target - it’s not as if Argentina has all that many high value ones.
Fear not, as soon as Obama reads the paper and realizes he’s goofed he’ll re-clarify his official position. The teleprompter will be along shortly to fix things.
I don’t think we are going to agree on this point, but I’ve still yet to hear from you what these measures are. Everything you’ve proposed is either impossible for Argentina to do or would inevitably lead to war. Launching a missile at a manned oil platform? Act of war, not to mention killing human beings. Sinking manned oil tankers? Again, killing people. Blockading the entire Falkland Islands? You don’t have the navy for it. The best you could do would be harassing/shadowing oil tankers like the guys on Whale Wars. An irritant at best, at worst a huge diplomatic disaster.
Face it, there’s nothing reasonable that Argentina can do to force the British to the negotiating table.
What would be a high value target? And you are dreaming if you think that you could launch a cruise missile to the mainland without consequence. Our army is a joke but you’d have the brazilian army - not a joke - against you in a heartbeat. Also, we we also have a kind of NATO treaty (TIR) an this time it would be used.
Chairman Mao Tse-tung rightly observed that political power grows from the barrel of a gun. Or, to put it another way, yes, force does grant you rights in many circumstances.
Hong Kong was only handed back because it was the subject of a 99-year lease signed with China was… not a major power. The British fully expected China to still be… not a major power in 1997 when the lease was signed, and if you want to be technical, the 99 year lease only covered the New Territories, which included Kowloon. So theoretically Britain could have returned the New Territories and retained Hong Kong Island, but that would have been impractical for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the lack of fresh drinking water on Hong Kong island and the… difficulties China would have created more or less on principle (try travelling between Spain and Gibraltar when there’s been a diplomatic stoush and feel free to send us a postcard from North Africa while you’re en route).
And as has rightly been observed, the Falkland Islanders themselves don’t want to be part of Argentina. That should settle the debate right there- the locals aren’t interested, a war has been fought over it, and in both cases the results are most definitely in support of the UK.