The Falklands

A) Tell him to put it down sharpish or you'll snot him on the nose?
B) Agree that he now has possession and so it is now his?
C) Offer to go halves as a "compromise"?

I'd probably go with D – find another solution. I hope I'm not so insecure that I'd assault someone over a pint of beer.

Some people hate Thatcher so much they'ed support a murderous goverment.

Backhander. or D) – he puts the pint down while and independent 3rd party sorts it out?

Nothing justifies the deaths of 1000 men without attempting all possible avenues to avoid it and clearly this was not done

You're thirsty. You go into a fine public house and buy a pint of your favorite thirst quenching beverage and sit down.
A bloke wanders over and picks up your pint and announces that it's now his.
Do you;
A) Tell him to put it down sharpish or you'll snot him on the nose?
B) Agree that he now has possession and so it is now his?
C) Offer to go halves as a "compromise"?

Great comparison…… 🙄

OK, while the third parties are deciding what to do, the bloke has commenced drinking. He looks like he's enjoying it.
On another note; what dialogue was opened with the Taliban by Blair?
boz, you're welcome to come up with a better one. I like pubs and beer 😀

I preferred my Kitkat comparison a few pages back. 😉

mt – Member

Some people hate Thatcher so much they'ed support a murderous goverment.

The murderous government of Thatcher who was responsible for the sinking of a ship that was no threat and was heading for home? Some people are so jingoistic they will support murder so long as its only dagos that are being murdered

backhander – Member

On another note; what dialogue was opened with the Taliban by Blair?

Non – which is why its doomed to failure.

Your pint analogy is completly flawed as waiting another week or two would have made no difference as the islands were not being used up nor the people on them killed.

Hmmm, maybe but the longer they remained in argie control, the more difficult (politically and militarily) it would be to kick em off. So time was definately a consideration. Also, the bootnecks were held prisoner I believe.

Some people hate Thatcher so much they'ed support a murderous goverment.

Over 100,000 civilians dead and counting in Iraq since 2003.

Why dont people 'hate' Blair and Brown like they hate Thatcher? Wierd.

Backhander – its all "if" "but" and "and"

However if the Belgrano had been shadowed back to port and only sunk if it was a threat then those hundreds of lives would not have been lost and another week or two we would have known if the peruvian peace proposals would have worked.

for the sinking of a ship that was no threat and was heading for home?

Not factually true.

The argentines accepted that the sinking was a legal act of war and that

"…that the Belgrano was part of an operation that posed a real threat to the British task force, that it was holding off for tactical reasons, and that being outside of the exclusion zone was unimportant as it was a warship on tactical mission.."

The Belgrano was zig-zagging with her escort ships to avoid presenting a target to submarines. She wasnt 'heading home'.

Clearly TandemJeremy attended the idealistical 1930's school of politics and internataional diplomacy.

It's a dog eat dog world, always has been and always will be. The Chilean proposal would not have worked, at least not to the Islanders or UK advantage and I very much doubt it would have been a sorted deal by 1983 – just look at Cyprus and countless other parts of the world where compromise deals have been reached. Hatred and hostilities is ever present bubbling just under the surface.

The fact that the Belgrano was sailing away from the exclusion zone really means very little, she was a potential danger. The fact that after she was sunk the Veinticinco de Mayo, her escorts and fighter bomber aircraft returned to port and stayed there speaks volumes the effect of the Belgrano's sinking had on the Argentine navy.

This is the gist of the peruvian peace proposals which just might have worked if the belgrano had notr been sunk

Ah, the infamous Peruvian plan, that was pretty much identical to Haig 2, which was rejected by the Argentinian's a couple of days before, and was not presented to Britain till after the sinking.

Your pint analogy is completly flawed as waiting another week or two would have made no difference as the islands

However, there was an imminent tread to the task force from the expected pincer movement of the carrier fleet (location at the time unknown) and the Belgrano, who was about to go into waters where the Conqueror could not follow her, So, there was imminent time pressure, RN ships had been attacked by enemy aircraft the day before, there had been sightings of Argentinian aircraft the day of the sinking – it was believed that an attempted attack on the task force was imminent, the task force could not stay at sea indefinitely.

As for Belgrano "heading for home" – utter, utter bollocks, her Captain, Hector Bonzo said:

"Our mission … wasn't just to cruise around on patrol but to attack,''…"When they gave us the authorisation to use our weapons, if necessary, we had to be prepared to attack. Our people were completely trained. I would say we were anxious to pull the trigger.''

Like I said TJ – you're reciting the revisionist leftie editorial, rather than a critical analysis of the facts!

nice to see the armchair generals are in full flow.

As I recall the government of Argentina was happily killing it's own, the failure to keep the Falklands brought down the Generals, thus paving the way to democracy. Result for Thatcher and the anti facist world. Supose that's what's eating at you really.

Elected leader stands ground against facists dictatorship. You could try looking at it that way?

Maybe if you're going to complain about factual correctness you should try some yourself

Do you know what? I actually wrote that from what I remember of the events at the time and if I was only wrong by that margin after 28 years I'll take that as a win. Ta

That apart there is a great quote on the BBC News Website to day that pretty much confirms the Maggie let it happen argument :-

One of the things that went wrong in the 1980s is that the Argentines thought we weren't really committed to the Falkland Islands

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague

I suspect that this will result in his knackers being firmly squeezed by one of the Grandees once they realise what a gaff it is. Expect a retraction sometime soon.

TJ, you have a point (I agree that all avenues should be exhausted before lives are risked) but I just cannot get vexed about the FI war in 82 considering what our politicians have got our servicemen doing right now. Hora has a very good point;

Why dont people 'hate' Blair and Brown like they hate Thatcher?

I do! I hate them all!
The beer/pub story was to try to illustrate that sometimes violence is going to be the only outcome when two sides cannot compromise when one is aggressive rather than an analogy to the FI.

Hora – thatcher is hated for the deliberate destruction of working class communities and industries in the name of ideology – the damage from which is still obvious today in the sink estates of our cities and for the wasting of north sea oil money to support this.

TJ, from Wiki; (So, as usual, there are source issues, but it's a good precis)

Legal situation
The Belgrano was sunk outside the 200-nautical-mile (370 km) total exclusion zone around the Falklands. However, exclusion zones are historically declared for the benefit of neutral vessels; during war, under international law, the heading and location of a belligerent naval vessel has no bearing on its status. In addition, the captain of the Belgrano, Hector Bonzo, has testified that the attack was legitimate (as did the Argentine government in 1994)

I actually wrote that from what I remember of the events at the time and if I was only wrong by that margin after 28 years I'll take that as a win.

Not bad really, I was 5!
You old bastards! 😛

hora – Member

Some people hate Thatcher so much they'ed support a murderous goverment.

Over 100,000 civilians dead and counting in Iraq since 2003.

Why dont people 'hate' Blair and Brown like they hate Thatcher? Wierd.

At least Thatcher didn't lie about the reasons for going to war. Blair was far worse imho.

A negotiated settlement that would have avoided 1000 deaths was still possible ( if not probable) up to the point the belgrano was sunk. I think 1000 dead men is a good reason to try for one.

Possibly, but the war also brought to demise the miltary junta in Argentina. A junta responsible for the 'dissapearence' of maybe 30,000 people.

thatcher is hated for the deliberate destruction of working class communities and industries in the name of ideology – the damage from which is still obvious today in the sink estates of our cities and for the wasting of north sea oil money to support this.

So, TJ – really thats what grips you, and you cannot see past that to take an impartial look at the facts of the situation in the Falklands, you just see the word "Thatcher" and start foaming at the mouth, unable to accept that anything she ever did was good, right or proper!

Hit the nail on the head.

Zulu – try learning to read and read my posts.

What was wrong IMO over the flaklands was two things – 1) refusing to look for any negotiated solution which could have avoided the 1000 deaths

2) the glorifying of the conflict despite the 1000 deaths.

Nothing to do with the fact I hate Thatcher, everything do do with my hatred of killing and the fact I am a moral person.

You old bastards!

Whoa! Steady on there son……. you're not too old to go over my knee yer know! 😉

I actually wrote that from what I remember of the events at the time and if I was only wrong by that margin after 28 years I'll take that as a win.

So you'll take being factually incorrect on all significant points and the implication of them as a win? Your point being that Thatcher's defence policies had a significant affect on the ease of putting a task force together when in fact they didn't at all. Well if that's your definition of a win I'm glad you weren't in charge of winning the Falklands war – maybe you had more involvement in the our more recent "wins" in the middle east?

1) refusing to look for any negotiated solution which could have avoided the 1000 deaths

Though you fail to consider the likely possibility that wasting time on a doomed negotiation (I mean even you admit it wasn't likely) would have resulted in even more deaths than that. After all when not if the negotiations had failed we'd still have had to go to war, we'd still have had to sink an aggresive Argentinian warship, the only difference being that the war would have been more protracted and bloody since the Argentinans would have had a much stronger position.

Isn't it wonderful having hindsight?

In Argentina itself there are various monuments to "Las Malvinas", often outside military bases.

Veterans of the conflict still demonstrate outside the presidential palace (I was a bit concerned when I saw it -until I realised that they weren't shouting "Death to Britain") about their treatment by their government and 'the people' appear to view it as a last-gasp attempt at popularity by Galtieri that failed.

Can I just mention (in passing) that the people who live on the Falkland Islands are British citizens, and do not want to be Argentinian citizens. They were very pleased, apparently, to be protected from Argentinian Dictatorship during the original conflict.

I assume they still feel that way?

Sorry to interrupt – back to arguing about "Thatcher" and "Blair" and slagging each other off…

argument solved……

How could a person who hates so much use the word moral?

Can I just mention (in passing) that the people who live on the Falkland Islands are British citizens, and do not want to be Argentinian citizens. They were very pleased, apparently, to be protected from Argentinian Dictatorship during the original conflict.

Compare and contrast the treatment of the people of Diego Garcia

A British Territory, Leased to the United States

Forced Removal of the Indigenous Inhabitants

Although Diego Garcia once had a small native population, the inhabitants, known as the Ilois, or the Chagossians, were forced to relocate (1967–1973) so that the island could be turned into the U.S. military base. Most of the roughly 1,500 displaced Chagossians were agricultural workers and fisherman. Uprooted and robbed of their livelihood, the Chagossians now live in poverty in Mauritius's urban slums, more than 1,000 miles from their homeland. A smaller number were deported to the Seychelles. About 850 islanders forced off Diego Garcia are alive today, and another 4,300 Chagossians have been born in exile. A 2003 60 Minutes segment and a 2004 documentary by Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, Stealing a Nation, have done much to publicize the little-known plight of the islanders.

A nasty little war. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, I remember my dad (then not long out of the Army) being utterly enraged at the triumphant crowing of number 10. Even today, the political grandstanding (and the fuggin' armchair strategising) often stands in sharp contrast to the attitude of those who were actually there.

Needed a full size carrier anyway, which we didn't have in '82.

Well we did – Hermes, which had carried Gannets. The issue being one of fit rather than size as presumably the refit to take Harriers meant the catapults and arrestors needed had gone (it's all rather academic since the Gannets had been scrapped). You've got to get these things into perspective anyway, you didn't need a US size carrier to take those – Hermes is only 10% longer than our current carriers, and the Austalian navy operated them off HMAS Melbourne which is much the same length as Invincible.

Do I need to point out that Gannets were scrapped under a Labour government?

Nowadays of course you could just base E-3Ds at Ascension to provide AEW coverage over there (not really within the capabilities of a Shackleton!)

So TJ – at what point does negotiation fail?

In the grand scheme, I'd say negotiation failed when an Argentine military force invaded the islands and started shooting at people.

How long do you go on negitiating? Till the Vincezo de Mayo has tracked down the task force and carried out a coupe de main air attack, sinking Hermes? Do you really wait until thats happened, at the cost of hundreds of lives of our own troops?

At some point you have to accept that a judgement to attack has to take into account the potential ramifications of not attacking – had the Belgrano been lost then the ramifications of a pincer attack on the fleet, given the fact that the Argentine forces had already attacked British ships and were, ultimately, the aggressor in this war, are too horrific to consider!

At a big tangent here, but am I the only one who sees a lot of TJ in one of the characters in this little clip?
Give quiche a chance….!
😉

Zulu – I'd have given it another week – perhaps two. NO longer for the reasons you suggest. Given that it had been 4 or 5 wks already I think that would have been reasonable..

The Peruvian proposals looked like a possibility worth exploring. This was not given a chance as Thatcher had already decided that the military option was the only one she would consider

Negotiation was a valid activity whislt the Task Force was being assembled and in transit to the S Atlantic. However, chances of succesful negotiations were always low with an occupying force on the islands, and nil after arrival of the TF. The sinking of any of the warships did not scupper the negotiations – just confirmed that there was no-where for them to go.

With the Argentinian military unlikely to back down it was inevitable that military action would follow soon after the arrival of the TF – if for no other reason that the Argentinians would have to supply / reinforce their garrison in contravention of the exclusion zone.

What wasn't inevitable was the invasion in the first place – succesive UK governments had signalled low interest in the islands, and Thatcher's run down of the Navy, diplomatic position, and finally, the proposed withdrawal of the ice patrol ship HMS Endurance (1981 defence Review) confirmed to the Argentinians that they would not be opposed militarily.

I can't comment about the land campaign, but from the Navy perspective I know many thought that they were bloody lucky. The Falklands was a lash up. Once ashore things were more certain, but the Navy / amphibious operations were far from certain.

Oh, and FWIW, the Navy personnel that I new and were down in the Falklands came home with a burning hatred of Thatcher. For having to do a job that they shouldn't have had to, and for the 1981 Defence Review and not having the kit to do the job.