Cameron: Britain would fight another war with Argentina to keep the Falkland Islands

Originally posted by blobby
IF the Argentinians are silly enough to start a 2nd Falklands war, would our army bomb all the military bases and sites in Argentina? would that not leave Argentina undefended from its neighbours?, would Britain have a rite to claim Argentina as part of the British Empire when we win? if not would we dismantle the Argentine army and build some British military bases on Argentine land to watch over them more and make sure no neighbours invade them while they try and recover?

No. Don't be silly.

That is something the american government might do.

There is no British Empire (except for those occulted economic powers who usually claim American nationality). We gave it up mostly peacefully, and those colonies usually thought so much of the empire that they wanted to remain linked to it, otherwise we would not have such a thing as a commonwealth.

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It seems on this thread that we forgot the golden rule about not feeding the trolls. But at least they've slithered off now to return to their holes in the ground.

As has been said ad nauseum, the islanders are the native population and they can choose, and they have regularly chosen to remain British.

When I was younger, (8-11yrs), before the war, I was entirely pro argentina on this subject, then as I grew and expanded my knowledge it became very obvious that Argentina had no valid claim and that the native population wanted to remain British.

reply to post by merkins


Sensible response on a topic that generally doesn't generate them.

Now the sensible bit is out of the way, on a totally separate subject, is your user name based on........you know......merkins......[cue childish s'n-word'ing!].


ETA:

Did i really just get censored for typing the word s'n-word'ing? My God, is "laughing" offensive too? Any Mods care to tell me how i spell s'n-word' without including the "'n-word'" bit?


Please sort this out Mods. I am all for taking an anti racist stance but it is beyond ridiculous when that includes editing words because they contain letters that spell out a separate word. Talk about out of context censorship!

reply to post by Flavian


Absolutely it is but don't tell anyone. I'm currently weighing the pros and cons of a pictoral representation as my avatar, so the secret may well come out all nicely brushed and trimmed. Bush was my inspiration because in his accent 'i'm american' sounds like?

Also that is outrageous if you were censored for that word. Jeeeezus.

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On topic: i meant to pull up a member from earlier in the thread who kept stating only half the current population are falklanders, with most of the rest coming from mainland Britain. Well to that poster, shouldn't a population of a country be free to move and settle anywhere in that country? Otherwise you have a system where Hawaiians and Alaskans aren't allowed to live in the other US states or vice versa.

Originally posted by MrRobertson
reply to post by boymonkey74

 

I have never been a fan of his but I actually let a little "Go On Dave" out the other day when he said we wont just hand the falklands over,

from what I have heard Argentina have always been a bit lax towards this Island and there own country is in a bit of a mess as it is
Let the Islanders decide

And do you really believe that if the Islanders decided they wanted to become Argentinians, Britain would return the Falklands to Argentina? With all that oil just waiting to be extracted? lol

Originally posted by thoiter
And do you really believe that if the Islanders decided they wanted to become Argentinians, Britain would return the Falklands to Argentina? With all that oil just waiting to be extracted? lol

Well, that’s been the position of the UK for some time. The UK has a history of retreating from legacy colonies without much fuss when the population desire it.

The tragedy for Argentina is that , had their governments decided to be nice to the Falkland Islander’s, with reassuring tones, a happy heart and a bit apologetic for the carnage they caused in 1982, then the Islander’s may have - within a generation or two - been happy to join up and face South America rather than Britain.

As it is, with buffoons like President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner the Islander’s will never be won over. They will always fear Argentinean aspirations because there is never any conciliation in the words which issue forth. Argentina seems hell-bent on burning all possible bridges and antagonising the Islander’s. They cut off their proverbial noses to spite their faces.

‘nuff said.

Regards

reply to post by thoiter


Well that depends on who actually governs the Islands If the Falklands were a separate nation then no one would have the right to decide what to do and considering the referendum taking place it is solely optional to the Islanders as far as I'm aware its not a question of being Argentine or British its a question of if they wish to remain British

Originally posted by thoiter

Originally posted by MrRobertson
reply to post by boymonkey74

 

I have never been a fan of his but I actually let a little "Go On Dave" out the other day when he said we wont just hand the falklands over,

from what I have heard Argentina have always been a bit lax towards this Island and there own country is in a bit of a mess as it is
Let the Islanders decide

And do you really believe that if the Islanders decided they wanted to become Argentinians, Britain would return the Falklands to Argentina? With all that oil just waiting to be extracted? lol

Firstly there'd be no returning, as it's never been Argentinian territory.

But to answer the question, absolutely we would. We'll even let Scotland go if they want to.

We've done it before. Unlike most empires of history we did not implode at the end but rather faded away with dignity. At least that was the case on the surface. What actually happened was that the powers within the empire saw the writing on the wall and took a lesson from history. The only way they could keep the power was by becoming occulted and setting up a slanted monetary system.

Originally posted by thoiter

Originally posted by MrRobertson
reply to post by boymonkey74

 

I have never been a fan of his but I actually let a little "Go On Dave" out the other day when he said we wont just hand the falklands over,

from what I have heard Argentina have always been a bit lax towards this Island and there own country is in a bit of a mess as it is
Let the Islanders decide

And do you really believe that if the Islanders decided they wanted to become Argentinians, Britain would return the Falklands to Argentina? With all that oil just waiting to be extracted? lol

"returning"? The Falklands have never belonged to Argentina in the first place. So how exactly do you "return" something to someone that never owned it in the first place?

Don't talk about something you know nothing about because it makes you look silly.

reply to post by biggilo


Like Democracy (or Else)!

as promised , posted on my friends page by his ex British para friend
its a really well researched and written piece !

NOW look. You've been whining about this since 1767 and it's starting to get on my wick.

I've ignored you until now, because you're very silly and your greatest cheerleader is Sean Penn, a man who pretends to be things he is not and once hit his then-wife Madonna with a baseball bat, tied her up for... nine hours and abused her.

If he is on your side, it's not a good side to be on.

But today you've written to Prime Minister Dishface demanding he enter negotiations to 'return' the islands we call the Falklands and you call Malvinas, 180 years after we cruelly stole them from you with our jackbooted naval officers of totalitarianism.

You were 'forcibly stripped' of these jewels in the South Atlantic and your people were 'expelled'. Only, that's not quite what happened, is it Argentina? Someone obviously needs to remind you, and probably Mr Penn too, of the facts.
Allow me to start by saying there are probably things we can all agree on. War is bad, for example, and colonialism - aside from the roads, aqueducts, education, health reforms, economic development, culture, food, integration and innovation - tends to be a bad thing too.

We could probably avoid an argument over the fact that the Falkland Islands, in and of themselves, aren't exactly pretty. There are no hanging gardens, no waterfalls, no exotic wildlife. They're a windy bunch of rocks a long way from anywhere, although I grant they're nearer to you than they are to us.

Which begs the question about why, exactly, you never bothered to settle them. When they were first discovered by a Dutchman in 1600 there was nothing there but seabirds. No people, no cultural heritage for anyone to trample over. Just a windy bunch of rocks. Ninety years later a British sailor was blown off course and sailed through a bit of water he named Falkland Sound, and 74 years after that the French turned up to form a colony. WAIT! I hear you cry. The French colonised the Falklands?

Why yes, and 18th century email being what it was the British turned up two years later and built a settlement on another one of the islands and claimed the whole lot for the Crown, unaware the Frenchies were already in residence. The French sold out to the Spaniards a year after that, who put the colony - containing French people - under control of a governor in Buenos Aires.
Three years later the Spanish picked a fight with the Brits, kicked them out and after a peace treaty let us back in. In 1774 the Brits, overstretched by the Americans kicking off, withdrew and left a plaque behind asserting their claim. Thirty two years later the Spaniards departed too, leaving another plaque, and in 1811 the last settlers threw in the towel. We were back to empty, windy rocks known only to whalers and sealing ships, and two memorial plaques.

In 1820 an American pirate called David Jewett took shelter there, and finding the place deserted promptly claimed the islands for a union of South American provinces which later became Argentina. You lot didn't realise this for a year, but still didn't settle the islands. Instead a German who pretended to be French called Luis Vernet came along, asked the Argentines and the Brits politely if they minded, and founded a little colony of his own. It took him a few goes, but eventually he established a settlement, you named him governor and gave him the right to kill all the seals.

This quite hacked off the Brits, who wanted some seals for themselves, but Vernet placated us by asking for our military protection. It all got a bit hairy in 1831, when Vernet found some American seal ships, arrested their crews and sparked an international incident. The Americans sent a warship, blew up the settlement, and hot-headedly sent the most senior settlers to the mainland for trial for piracy.
The Argentines sent a new governor to establish a penal settlement, but he was killed in a mutiny the day he arrived. The Brits, quite reasonably, decided the whole thing was a dog's breakfast. And now we get to the bit you're unhappy about Argentina, the invasion and forced expulsion.

The Brits arrived two months after this mutiny, and wrote to the chap in charge of the small Argentine garrison. The letter said: "I have to direct you that I have received directions from His Excellency and Commander-in-Chief of His Britannic Majesty's ships and vessels of war, South America station, in the name of His Britannic Majesty, to exercise the rights of sovereignty over these Islands. It is my intention to hoist to-morrow the national flag of Great Britain on shore when I request you will be pleased to haul down your flag on shore and withdraw your force, taking all stores belonging to your Government."

Now, there are many ways people can be oppressed, forced, compelled and abused - just ask Sean Penn - but a polite note is not one of them. The Argentine in charge thought briefly about resisting, but he didn't have many soldiers and besides, most of them were British mercenaries who refused to fight. So on January 3, 1833 you left, Argentina, with wounded pride and your nose in the air. You had never settled the islands. Never established a colony of your own. Never guarded it with a garrison of your own soldiers.They had never, ever, been yours. And now to the matter of that expulsion. The log of an Argentine ship present at the time records the settlers were encouraged to stay, and those that left did so of their own free will and generally because they were fed up with living on some boring, windy rocks.

Eleven people left - four Argentines, three 'foreigners', one prisoner, a Brit and two Americans. Twenty-two people remained - 12 Argentinians, four Uruguay Indians, two Brits, two Germans, a Frenchman and a Jamaican. As the imposition of colonial power on an indigenous population goes, that takes some beating. And for the sake of clarity I should point out that a human melting pot like that makes the place about as British as you can be. A few months later HMS Beagle, taking Charles Darwin to the Galapagos for a long think, popped in and found the settlement half-ruined and the residents lawless. There were several murders, some looting, and in 1834 the exasperated British sent Lieutenant Henry Smith to run the place.

The islands have been ours ever since, and is now home to almost 3,000 people descended from settlers who came from Britain, France, Scandinavia, Gibraltar, St Helena and Chile. At the same time, you went on to fight wars with most of South America and colonise provinces with indigenous populations by killing or pushing them out. When your government was broke and facing strong opposition in the 1980s, you invaded them to divert attention of the voters with the cost of 907 lives, and it cannot be unrelated to your letter that in a few weeks you face being ejected by the International Monetary Fund for lying over your economic figures.

At around the same time, the people who now live on these boring, windy rocks in the middle of nowhere are having a referendum about who they would like to govern them. You will ignore this, because you believe they do not have a right to make up their own minds and have repeatedly refused to talk to the islanders about your claims. So allow me to make a couple of things clear. Firstly, the history of these windy rocks is an utter mess but someone had to take charge, and you weren't up to the job. We did it pretty nicely, considering our record in other places. Secondly, only jackbooted colonial scumbags refuse to listen to the democratic voice of the people who live somewhere, so you really ought to wind your hypocritical warmongering necks in. Thirdly - well done with the wine, and the beef's pretty good, but if you want to negotiate let's start with you taking back your Total Wipeout, because as cultural imperialism goes it's pretty offensive, and you might want to think about handing Patagonia back to its people as well.

After that we are quite prepared to let you come and holiday on these windy rocks, where you will be invited to pitch a tent anywhere you like within the 13 square kilometres where you left 19,000 landmines last time you visited. We know they're a long way away. We know there's not much to the rocks, and there might be oil and it might give someone a claim to Antarctica. But we also know something you don't - which is that a well-run, law-abiding and happy bunch of rocks is the best bunch of rocks you can hope to have. You're no more up to that job now than you have ever been. In case our position is still not clear, the above could be summed up as: No. Yours sincerely, BlightySee more.

The Falklands is a UK Overseas Territory, the people their, overwhelmingly, want to remain so. I think the UK should make them a full member of the UK.

If the Argentenians want to be dealt a stern blow, so be it. I am against colonialism, but this is not the case.

reply to post by sapien82


What a letter, that has to be one of the best reads I have had In along time.

Has he actually sent it ?

Fight them with what ?
A borrowed french aircraft carrier, a depleted armed forces and our troops spread out all over the world.
Maybe if we write a strongly worded letter to the editor that would help.
War with Argentina

reply to post by ANDERSON23


I believe so ! my mate said that he had posted this to Argentinian PM , I really wonder if he will get a reply !

I think Cameron just called her on her nationalist b.s.. Her country is in a heap and she needs something for her "subjects" to rally around. It just seems like a desperate leader looking for a bump in ratings. Argentina vs Britain in an open conflict is a non starter.

reply to post by howmuch4another


That's pretty much what started the last war.
And soooooooooooooooooo many others.

reply to post by howmuch4another


Aye we all know what happens when a nationalist / socialist is in control of a country and tries to start wars !

Their right to be British? Do me a favour - the Falkanders don't even pay UK tax and most would rather walk over barbed wire bare foot than have anything to do with Britain. No they are quite happy to live on the other side of the world thank you very much but their ancestral connection comes in handy when it comes to us spilling our blood on their behalf.
These islands are a millstone round our neck - unless there is oil or some other strategic use. If there is oil I hope we keep every last ounce of revenue. It might just meet the cost of protecting these benighted islands.
It's a shame Argentina is being such an ass because otherwise I would say 'here take them'. With the proviso that all the little Falklanders who so want to be British can put their money where their mouth is and come and live in Britain.
Simples.

reply to post by cody599


So she should back off the moronic claims eh?

James Cameron and Nick Clegg would be able to take on the army by themselves. If Ian Duncan Smith joins in, they would be able to conquer all of Argentinia. They should stick to football, elect someone else, maybe Maradona!