The falklands islands

[mockney piers]

I like it. That about covers it.

On gibralter, very true quids. Having lots of family from Andalucia I'm often informed that Gibralterians are incredibly snooty, but get on the wrong side of them and they apparently swear like Spaniards.

I do think the residents should have the biggest say, which is why I think:

1) the Falkland Islanders have every legitimate right to want to hold on to their sovereignty (i was just pointing out that we nicked the rock in the first place) even though we were actually trying to get them to bugger off

2) those in northern ireland have a right to remain part of the union until those that don't inevitably outbreed them

3) those snooty gibralter types can hang on to those awful shopping malls and dirty beaches (give me cabo de gata any day of the week)

4) the Basques should be allowed a free plebiscite, after all the hassle (and it'll be a close run thing) ironically I think they'll vote to stay

5) chagossians should be given right to return regardless (or even because if you ask me) how much it'll piss the americans off

6) and of course the ponies should have the Shetlands back.

any more?

[Santerme]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> I was just saying the argies are no angels, direct

> enough for a military man ;-P

>

> -------------------------------------------------

>

> "I was paid to lie for my country"

>

> Isn't that just a definition of diplomacy full

> stop?

>

> -------------------------------------------------

>

> You don't think the argies could make it

> effectively impossible or at the very least cost

> inneffective to actually get oil out of there

> should they up the stakes (and lose the moral high

> ground)?

>

> Wouldn't a great British compromise be the best

> way forward, that way everyone (well, the oil

> companies and the banks as usual) is a winner?

My understanding is that we offered them half, but they said, no thanks.

[mockney piers]

Interesting.

Silly Argentians/ines.

Hence why compromises are subtitled british, and not spanish!!

[Brendan]

Magpie Wrote:

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> (according to Brendan) Britain holding the

> Falkland islands is similar to Norway invading the

> Shetlands.

I feel I have been misrepresented. What I meant was that Argentina invading the Falklands is like Norway invading Shetland.

[The Chair]

If a desire to discuss Norway, the Chagos Islands, Shetlands, ponies or jumpers overcomes any of you again could you kindly start a seperate thread (there's a jumper pun in there somewhere) to discuss it.

Tusen takk.

[Narnia]

Well that surely is the equivalent of having a 'plantation' in India if that were the case. That is to entice enough people (when Britannia ruled) from the island to live in India and thus outnumber the locals. So long as we/you/them do it's still ours/theirs/thoses/whatsits.

[Huguenot]

No guys, I don't agree that property is theft - I just point out that there's a highly plausible argument to sustain that conviction. As a consequence any other proposal is a compromise, and it ought to be a fair one.

My 'fair' proposal is that property rights should be governed by investment (and I'm not so childish to think that investment is a cash proposal). Investment comes down to cultivation and enhancement.

The Falklands have a weak history of political affiliation, so the argument about the rights to return on investment are all the stronger.

Hence we confer the rights to self-determination on the population, and they vote to be Brits.

If we don't then sustain their right to self-determination, we're in danger of letting the entire social contract (what makes us a nation) collapse.

The reality is that we didn't fight the Falklands war for the Falklands, we fought it for Birmingham and Norwich

[Santerme]

I think there may now be commercial possibilities for the .fk suffix!!

[Santerme]

Sod it, I'm posting this for posterity, because it's not only funny as hell, but correct:

Hugo Rifkind of the Times:I?m not crying for Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

This idea that Argentina owns the Falklands is bonkers

What I?d really like, before this all goes any farther, is for Argentina to explain where the hell it is coming from with all this ?Malvinas? business. Because from up here, frankly, their claim on the Falkland Islands looks downright stupid. From down there, I can only imagine that it doesn?t. Only, I can?t figure out why this would be. And I?ve asked around, and nobody else seems to know, either.

Is it just because they?re next door? We?ve got France next door. You?ve got Brazil next door. Are these also problems worth whining about to the UN?

Or is it because, for a brief period about 200 years ago, you owned them? Oh guys, trust me, you don?t want to get us started on the stuff we briefly owned about 200 years ago. By that logic, we still own Canada. We almost own America.

Indeed, we made a decent stab at owning you. But we gave up on that sort of thing, quite famously, because the people who lived in all these places didn?t fancy it. A bit like the people on the Falkland Islands don?t fancy being owned by you.

?Aha!? you might say, in your weirdly accented Spanish. ?But those people don?t count, for they are not indigenous.? Well, true. But neither is anybody. Certainly not you. I mean, if there was anybody in Stanley 7,000 years ago, then they weren?t light-skinned and called things like Cristina Fern?ndez de Kirchner, were they? Honestly, where do you people get off calling us colonialists? Generally speaking, we gave our empire back. You moved to yours, and then basically killed everybody. Forgive me, but I just don?t see how this puts you in a morally superior position.

I don?t mean to sound overly jingoistic, here. We?re pretty good at unpatriotic self-loathing, us Brits. Remember, we invented the BBC. Guilt is pretty much our default diplomatic position, these days. We tiptoe meekly around, still worrying that a third of the world hates us for drawing up their lethally impractical borders on the back of napkins, and that another third does for getting them hooked on opium.

We didn?t make a fuss about Hong Kong. We blush when the Greeks go on about the Elgin Marbles, even if we don?t let on. Any day now, we?ll probably start apologising for railways and penicillin. But we?re OK with the Falkland Islands. They don?t make us feel guilty at all. Not even the teeniest bit. So please, Argentina, do explain. Why should we cry for you?

[Huguenot]

Hurrah! What a splendid point Rifkind makes, and how gracefully he does it.

[SteveT]

I seem to remember that the 'trigger' to the falklands war was a scrap metal dealer hoisting an argie flag.

Then Thatcher needed to get re-elected and realised she had a useful resource called army navy and airforce and the rest is history.

[Marmora Man]

The "Argy" scrap metal merchants were an Argentian ruse, not the trigger for the conflict. Invasions require planning and the Argentians must have been planning it for a while.

It was the then First Sea Lord - Admiral Lewin who advised the Prime Minister that the Falklands could be recovered, backed by other military men that persuaded Margaret Thatcher to set the re-invasion in train.

This subject has been debated here before - at length. There was no UK / Conservative gov't conspiracy to initiate the conflict. It was a brave decision, taken in the face of international pressure to negotiate a compromise, to retake the islands by military force.

That the Thatcher gov't subsequently tok political advantage of the successful outcome of that brave decision is just politics. The opposition would have taken a similar advantage if the decision youse military force had failed.

[silverfox]

Posted by: Santerme Today, 09:30AM

'...We didn?t make a fuss about Hong Kong...'

Course we didn't because we weren't going to win that one.

Sorry Santerme, I normally respect your posts but Hugo Rifkind's article is a load of jingoistic tripe.

[Brendan]

I think the point it makes, if perhaps in a slightly bombastic way, is that any claim to the Falklands is in it?s origins a colonial one. Being a colonial one the only precedent which would apply is that as applies to all other colonial claims; firstly, finders keepers, followed by sovereignty by whoever has the most guns and ultimately followed by self determination by whichever group makes up the bulk of the population.

[Brendan]

Or has the most guns and/or political leverage.

Of course.

[Santerme]

I think that encapsulates it nicely!

[SteveT]

I remember an American describing the Falkands war as 'two bald men fighting over a comb' which made me smile at the time.

Now that oil deposits have been discovered, it's a very different comb indeed.

[Huguenot]

Lol.

Mindy you, Hillary's offered to help us all out now! Thank God for yanks.

[Santerme]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Flag-of-hawaii-flying.jpg/800px-Flag-of-hawaii-flying.jpg

Wonder if Hiliary remembers Arkansas was not a formed state until 1836.

And Hawaii seem not to have forgotten who added them to the map!!!

[BelowtheBelt]

Sort yourselves out ... we have no business claiming it regardless. Geographically speaking it is more than just a bit of a liberty for us to be claiming it, isn't it ?!!

[Brendan]

You could say the same thing about the channel islands.

[Marmora Man]

BelowtheBelt Wrote:

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> Sort yourselves out ... we have no business

> claiming it regardless. Geographically speaking

> it is more than just a bit of a liberty for us to

> be claiming it, isn't it ?!!

We're not "claiming" the Falklands Islands - Britain established the first permanent settlement on the unoccupied territory and subsequently claimed the islands as part of the British Empire in a fashion that was entirely usual and normal in the 19th century. The descendants of those original settlers have repeatedly reaffirmed their desire to remain a British dependancy. It's not a colony, the islands weren't "stolen" from an indigenous population.

Geographical proximity would make a poor basis for sovereignty. Once a state lays claim to it's geographical neighbour it then has a new geographical neighbour. And so on and so on ad infinitum.

[James Barber]

So why don't the Falkland Islands residents have British citizenship. Or St.Helena, Ascension Islands residents or Gibralterians.

I think the French idea of whatever the historic quirk that leaves some distant island in Franch hands that island is well French. They even get EU grants to improve them bacuase they're part of France. Whereas the UK approach is lets try and forget them and leave them so under developed that they are dependancies. We even call them UK dependancies.

[Brendan]

So they don?t get British citizenship? I didn?t know that. That is a bit of a piss take. Subject to her majesty but not granted citizenship of the country.

It?s no wonder the international consensus is that you?re generally bastards.

[Magpie]

Yet seem to tolerate lots of non-Brits living in our country and slagging us off