The Falklands - A New Crisis?

I dont care what the UN says either, it is an American dominated organisation,
However if you think the UK should just grab the oil around the Falklands without regard to Argentina or the rest of S America then you are mistaken.
Sure Argentina isn't exactly popular with most of the remaining countries in the region, but if the likes of Brazil saw old Imperalistic ways of smash and grab returning there is a good possibility they might unite behind Argentina and make sure Britain is manouvered out the region.
As you say Brazil has just taken over Britain's economy in size - they are also embarked on a massive modernisation and expansion of their navy which in a few years will be the military power calling the shots in the South Atlantic region.
Unfortunately we dont rule the waves anymore which some people have failed to grasp in this country.

I agree with you that they're not incompatible. The Soviet Union never neglected their defences. But with British communists it is rather different. That can only explain Mr. Podmore's fanatical advocacy of Argentina against his own country.

Unfortunately for your dream of a Brazilian pro-Argentine expedition, the Falklands at present are, according to military experts, "impregnable". After the 1982 war they were converted into a fortress.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17157373

If Brazil does expand its navy to proportions where they could defeat the Royal Navy then obviously we couldn't hang onto them. But that time has not arrived and there's still time to exploit the oil there.

Not a dream of mine - just a fact that I was pointing out,
Doesn't make any odds to me who exploits the oil,
May be impregnable but there is such a thing as a siege or a blockade especially if the besieger is the dominant air and sea power in the region.

Hi Ric Mac,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I also have said all I want to about the Falklands, because it appears to have calmed down. Argentina are in no position to ''attack'' because the memory of their last defeat is still fresh, and I don't beleive their young people have the stomach for another skirmish? but I could be wrong.
In my total ignorance I had never heard of the musicians you quoted, but having listened I am impressed.. Niebla reminds me of my 'youth' when I loved to listen to John Williams, in fact it was he who inspired my Son, who went on to be a composer himself. I have a particular love for guitars, which all my friends and family play, but not me :( How fascinating that so much music has come from those 'six' strings.
The building 'behind' the Town Hall? Could that be St Paul's Hotel? I can't say that I find it that offensive, but then I compare it to the damned Egg Box built in 1977 at a cost of £9 million of Sheffield Council tax payer's money. Which should have stood for 500 years but then had to be demolished 25years later because of concerns about the concrete structures??? I wonder who got the back hander for that building. I think someone must have lost their minds to allow it. All those beautiful Victorian building on Pinstone Street and around the Town Hall and they have to build monstrosities!!! Oooo don't get me started about that one. When you look at Liverpool and Leeds and see how sympathetically they have built in and around beautiful architecture, it makes me sick...... People coming into our city must think we have no taste at all. although I am quite happy with the improvements down Corporation Street and around the Courts. Which was previously the 'red light' district.... I just need them to sort out Holme Lane and Hillsborough which have gone down hill big time; because to get to my home, this is really the only way through from the centre of town and M1. My relatives live in Bakewell, and Bournemouth so I'm really 'envious' of their approaches and surroundings.
I'm running off on a tangent again. Sorry...
Take care Ric, and I'll see you on another thread perhaps.
M

William Podmore is an apologist for Stalinism, Excalibur. Every atrocity committed, every gulag, every show trial, every famine victim, simply doesn't matter to him.

Ryan,
I dont disbelieve stories about the Gulags or the famines etc nor am I an apologist for Stalin,
However America had its own version of the Gulags in the 1930s after the Dust Bowl Famine dispossessed millions of Americans off their land.
Between 1933 - 39 at any one time at least 3.3million people were engaged in constructing roads, canals and bridges in uninhabited and swampy areas. They were known as Public Works Administration (PWA) received no wages with many dying from diseases such as malaria and manutrition. Altogether over 8.5 million Americans worked in PWA camps with no choice in the matter other than to accept the camps or starve on the Plains.
This was not dissimilar to the Russian Gulag system,
Of course we hear little of this perhaps because it is not a good advert for Capitalism,
Couple of links here,

http://www.rt.com/news/prime-time/where-did-americas-missing-millions-go-holodomor-lessons/

http://www.cherada.com/articulos/10-million-americans-disappeared-during-the-great-depression-time

"< But at the risk of opening a box of worms -- I personally do not believe anything the media tells me >"

Naturally - because that leaves the likes of her free to make up whatever they please, and call that reality.

That's what they said about Singapore...

Nowhere is impregnable - but why on earth should Brazil want to go to war on behalf of Argentina, over the Falklands? It's inconceivable unless they felt some vital interest of their own to be at stake.

< I don't believe [Argentine] young people have the stomach for another skirmish >

Mmm... I bet they do.

< [... It] was [John Williams] who inspired my son, who went on to be a composer himself >

I wish your son good fortune in his musical endeavours.

< I have a particular love for guitars [...] >

I'm almost exclusively listening to acoustic guitar music (and from similar instruments) these days.

< Could that be St Paul's Hotel? >

If that's the preposterous, disproportionately tall building, then yes. Much of Sheffield is an improvement on years gone by but some is even further degraded. Pitsmoor was a bit run down when I went to school there but it's much worse now. It was in the vicinity of where my school used to be that a taxi driver was shot a few years ago.

Thanks for the conversation, Margaret, and be well.

So - Here's one I made up earlier!! Read and learn, let's see how this stacks up with what OUR media tells US!! Only you will be able to tell of course; because you know it all!!! That is why you post such scintillating information.....

Brazil Reiterates Support for Argentina over Falklands
By John Daly 04 August 2011
Benefit From the Latest Energy Trends and Investment Opportunities before the mainstream media and investing public are aware they even exist. The Free Oilprice.com Energy Intelligence Report gives you this and much more.
The British lion south of the border is looking more than a tad scrofulous these days.
On 29 July in the wake of a meeting between Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Brazil's Dilma Rousseff in Brasilia, the pair issued a joint communiqué in which Brazil reaffirmed its support for Argentina's claim to the Falkland islands, which Buenos Aires refers to the as Malvinas.
Brazil reiterated its intention of banning all Falklands' flagged vessels from calling at Brazilian ports and described as "illegal" the current British oil exploration in the Falkland Islands' territorial waters.
The communiqué noted, "The President of Brazil reiterates the support of the country to the legitimate rights of the Argentine republic in the sovereignty dispute relative to the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich islands and its adjoining maritime spaces," adding that "this position stands on the long tradition of Brazilian diplomacy in support for the Argentine claim and which is based on the deep rooted historic event of 1833 when through an act of force Argentina was expulsed from the Malvinas territory."
In the specific paragraph dedicated to shipping the communiqué stated that "The President of the Federative Republic of Brazil reaffirms its commitment with the 26 November 2010 UNASUR (Unión de Naciones Suramericanas: Union of South American Nations) Declaration to adopt in conformity with International Law and respective domestic legislations, all measures susceptible of being regulated to impede the access to its ports of vessels flying the `illegal' colors of the Malvinas Islands."
The joint release also emphasized Brazil's and Argentina's solidarity by labeling Britain's ''current hydrocarbons prospecting'' in Falkland waters as "illegal," adding that the explorations along the Argentine continental shelf "are unilateral actions INCOMPATIBLE with the resolutions of United Nations on the matter and to not contribute at all to reach a definitive solution to the dispute." Finally, lest the mandarins of Whitehall be in any doubt as to where Brazilian sympathies lay, Article 26 of the joint communiqué noted that the Argentine President Kirchner thanked Brazil for its standing support in this question, so sensitive, and in particular for its the support in a 21 June meeting of the UN Special Decolonization Committee.
Ah, "Iron Maiden" Prime Minister Thatcher would have known what to do with those stroppy Argies - assemble a task force and kick them back to Buenos Aires, which is what she did in 1982, in a brief but violent conflict that noted Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges compared to "two bald men fighting over a comb."
Quick! Send the HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier.
Oh, right, it was decommissioned in March.
Now, the Falklands are nothing so much as a ''dim relic of Britain's colonial past'' when they represented the last port of call for Royal Navy warships and British merchantmen preparing to round Cape Horn, usually after making a final port of call in - Rio de Janeiro. After the Royal Navy transitioned to coal, the islands proved their worth during World War One as a coaling station, but the reality is that they've been little more for nearly two centuries than a stopover port of call.
That is, until the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNLOS) recognized 12 nautical miles as normal for territorial seas and waters and provided international recognition of 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zones, or EEZs. The Falklands suddenly went from windswept colonial outpost to potential resource base.
But ugly fiscal realities rearing their heads in London may put paid to London replaying the Falklands War. A report published on 3 August by Parliament's Defence Select Committee has MPs suggesting that the Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron has sacrificed national security in a quest for savings in the wake of last year's defense review, which saw the Royal Navy decommission its aircraft carriers HMS Invincible and her sistership HMS Ark Royal and its Harrier jump jets, along with 5,000 personnel.......
The Royal Navy is now down to HMS Illustrious and the UK's first Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier will not be completed until 2016 at the earliest, and may not be ready for active service until 2020.
In a poignant note, clicking on the Royal Navy's website, http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk "aircraft carriers" subsection, one gets "Error 404 : Page not found."
If there is a silver lining to all this, it is that the ''recent oil exploration wells drilled by British firms around the Falklands have all come up dry.'' On the plus side, in June Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced the UK's commitment to doubling exports to Brazil to £4 billion by 2015.
In the Brave New World of the 21st century, previously worthless rocky islets because of UNCLOS may well become flash points between competing powers, most notably in the South China Sea, where China claims sovereignty over all of the Spratly and Paracel islands, much to the distress of neighboring Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. Unlike the Falklands, these waters have been determined to contain hydrocarbon deposits.
Speaking of China, Chinese businessmen submitted a bid for HMS Ark Royal to the UK's Ministry of Defence Disposal Services Agency online auction platform, obviously finding the warship, built in 1978, more attractive than unused printer cartridges, old office furniture and outdated uniforms.
The HMS Ark Royal 's motto was "Zeal Does Not Rest." Apparently, neither do fiscal realities.
Is Britain willing to jeopardize its booming trade with Latin America and Brazil in particular for 1,500 sheepherders?
The answer was clear three decades ago - now it isn't, especially in light of all those ''dry boreholes.''
By. John C.K. Daly of OilPrice.com
.

Hi Ric
Pitsmoor, Burngreave and Page Hall was where all the very rich people lived even as late as 1955. I have a friend who lived there as a child and they had ''servants'' who lived in quarters. While we were living in a two up two down? It took a particularly bad turn about twenty years ago when the council decided to create ghettos, which turned into 'the drug capital' and became a no go area for the Police. Until they blocked off all the rat runs around Catherine. I used to take my life in my hands when I travelled through there at night whilst coming home from work, when I worked for the Social Services.
That would be Scott Road then, where you went to a very good school? Wasn't it De le Sol, or was is Notre Damme? That shooting was all about drugs... and one of my desperately poor youth club kids, who grew up to be a shocking criminal; was involved in it. He was brought up by a heroin addict single mother, and by the time he was seven he was stealing food from Greggs in the precinct, and begging scraps from the chip shop because he was 'never' fed!!! I used to feed him on the two days he came to me, but that was only the one meal that day, and twice a week? Not that I condone anything he did - but I know the background and can see just how this monster was 'formed.'
There has been a lot of money spent improving Spital Hill and I do hope and believe that time will see it returned to what it used to be, as people evolve and become more aware... I'm always optimistic? :)
It's been good chatting to you too.
All the very best. x

Yes, the houses around Scott Road were clearly originally built for well-to-do householders. And yes, the school was De La salle College (Notre Dame, the equivalent girls' school was across town. DLS merged with St Paul's to become All Saints in 1977 -- eventually completely relocating to St Paul's site at Granville road. All Saints and Notre Dame are now both co-ed).

The shooting story is a deeply sad one. I applaud the optimism you express but I find it hard to share it.

All the best.

[Deleted by Amazon on 8 Mar 2013 09:12:41 GMT]

Excalibur deploys the old smears.
I support Britain and defend Britain.
I advocate leaving the EU, so that we can adopt policies that serve the interests of our country.
But I do not advocate, fanatically or otherwise, sending another expeditionary force to an island 4000 miles away so that the Conservatives can win another election on the back of an abused version of patriotism.
Ryan, as usual, entirely avoids the argument at hand, and indulges, like the stopped clock that he so resembles, in his usal tirade of inaccurate abuse.

But you do advocate giving away a piece of our land to a foreign country, to leaving British subjects to be subjugated under foreign rule, for the rich natural resources to be exploited by a foreign country and not Britain, and for betraying the memory of those British soldiers who died for the Falklands in 1982. "I support Britain and defend Britain"? You're kidding no one.

I had a look at that link of yours. Interesting. It does say the islands are thought 'impregnable' - but only relative to the strength and sophistication of Argentine naval forces. If they were beefed up somehow, the picture would change. It also says that, if they *were* captured, it would be almost impossible for Britain to take them back this time - because (as anyone with an interest in strategic defence already knows) for the forseeable future we won't have aircraft carriers suitable to provide air cover for a task force.

I note it also suggests a compromise over oil revenues is likely, the possibility Pendragon appeared to dismiss. Funny how in certain quarters (naming no names) sabre-rattling over oil is okay if countries other than the UK and US do it, eh?

Excalibur assumes the point at issue - 'our land'? The Falklands are thousands of miles away, and when British forces seized the Islands in 1833, it was an illegal act of colonial aggression.
As the historian Julius Goebel wrote, "The right of the Argentine nation to stand in the place of Spain with reference to the sovereignty over the Falklands was established by the successful revolution, and by the assertion and maintenance of sovereignty over the Falklands as against Spain. When Great Britain seized the islands in the year 1833 the legal consequences were the same as if the islands had never passed out of the hands of the Spanish crown."
So Argentina has a far better claim to ownership of the Islands than Britain, based on its inherited rights to its national territory, and on the Islands' relative proximity to the Argentine mainland.
Sumner Welles, the US Under-Secretary of State 1937-1943, wrote of Argentina's claims to the Islands, "under accepted principles of international law they are far stronger than the British claims."
British governments have always allowed only British emigrants to live in the Islands and have always refused to allow Argentineans, or any other Latin American people, to live there. This is a case of gerrymandering - of a government choosing the electorate it wants!
A country's natural resources belong to that country, not to foreign companies.
Excalibur - a rather revealing self-given name, harking back to a long-gone feudal past - may want to revive the Empire, but his warmongering should fool nobody.

"Warmongering" - what is warmongering about wanting to defend your territory against possible attack?

You're using international law to advocate giving away our land to a foreign people and put British people under foreign rule: "defending Britain" that is not. In fact it sounds more like treason. I don't care one whit about international law, it's a chimera, a nonsense. The world has never been governed by it and never will because the world is made up of many nations in constant struggle with each other, not the liberal delusion that we're all going to live together in peace and harmony. All human experience dissents from it. Where was international law to stop the Iraq war? Exactly.

The British hold the islands and they are populated by British people who are resolute in remaining subjects of the Crown. That is enough for me (and in the eyes of all honest people) to conclude that they are British territory.

william podmore states.......The right of the Argentine nation to stand in the place of Spain with reference to the sovereignty over the Falklands was established by the successful revolution, and by the assertion and maintenance of sovereignty over the Falklands as against Spain. When Great Britain seized the islands in the year 1833 the legal consequences were the same as if the islands had never passed out of the hands of the Spanish crown."

i state.......
If we regard Argentine succession to Spanish claims as a basis for sovereignty, Argentina has at best a dubious case, since (1) Spain abandoned its colony on the Falklands; (2) although Spain administered the Falklands through Buenos Aires, such arrangements are and were common for the sake of expediency, and by no means necessarily indicated that the Falklands were considered part of the South American mainland - the Falklands always had their own governor; and (3) Argentina did not succeed to any part of the Spanish Empire except southeastern South America, which may or may not have included the Falklands. The Spanish withdrew their colonies, thereby leaving themselves open to charges of abandonment, and perhaps negating their original claims.

Excalibur, You are warmongering because you want to go to war.
You are warmongering because you want to go to war for islands thousands of miles away.
They are not our territory, they are not part of Britain.
They were part of the British Empire, a very different entity, which depended on wars for its creation and maintenance.
They are not our land and the people who live there are not British, they are Falkland Islanders.

You are warmongering because you show absolute contempt for the international law that outlaws war between states.
If someone in your street said, "I don't care one whit about the law, it's a chimera, a nonsense", would you consider him to be a good neighbour, or a potential hazard?
Of course, international law can't stop a war, but that doesn't make it irrelevant. The law against murder doesn't stop all murders, but it is still, rightly, against the law to murder someone.
You are warmongering because you accuse everybody who disagrees with you of treason and dishonesty: that kind of language is the psychosis of war.
Also, you appear to be an advanced case of nominal determinism, whereby men called Butcher go into butchering, and men who call themselves after weapons of war go to war for no good reasons.

Rock n roll animal, Thank you for your thoughtful and temperate response.
But the point I made overrides your points 1, 2 and 3.
"The right of the Argentine nation to stand in the place of Spain with reference to the sovereignty over the Falklands was established by the successful revolution, and by the assertion and maintenance of sovereignty over the Falklands as against Spain."
Re your point 1, whether Spain abandoned the Islands or not, Argentina asserted its sovereignty over them.
Re your point 2, Spain administered the Islands as part of its South American possessions, so when Argentina asserted its independence from Spain and asserted its sovereignty over the territories previously administered by Spain, it legitimately inherited Spain's rights.
Re your point 3, Argentina succeeded to Spain's possessions which included the Islands.

I don't want to go to war, I want to maintain our defences so Argentina would be put off from trying to invade the Islands. If you think maintaining defences is warmongering, you'll come across as a delusional pacifist as well as a Commie traitor.

The Falklands Islands are peopled by Falkland Islanders who are British, in the same way a Scottish or Gibraltan considers themselves British. Why don't you ask the Falkland Islanders what they consider themselves as? You'll obviously be in for a shock! They're British territory.

"If someone in your street said, "I don't care one whit about the law, it's a chimera, a nonsense", would you consider him to be a good neighbour, or a potential hazard?"

This is a completely false argument because if I broke the law in this country there is force behind it to enforce it: the police would arrest me and I'd be put on trial. Whereas when a state breaks international law, for example the United States in the Iraq war (a flagrant breach of the UN Charter), where is the power to enforce international law? It seems to me you haven't thought about this subject very much if you cannot understand this crucial difference.

Also your comparison with murder is laughably pathetic: if you murder someone and there is evidence, the police will arrest you and you'll be punished. If a state breaks international law, where are the police to arrest the people who break international law and how are they punished? To put it more simply why haven't Bush and Blair been arrested and put on trial? Because international law is powerless, unlike national law that has force behind it.

"The international law that outlaws war between states": Dream on.

Excalibur writes, "I don't want to go to war." If his proposed 'defences' of the Islands don't work, and the Argentineans 'invade', what is he going to do? Of course, he would back the subsequent war.
His hostility to 'delusional pacifism' proves him to be a warmonger.
His vicious, lying abuse of those who really oppose war proves him to be a warmonger. What people consider themselves does not define what they are, as his warmongering in the guise of defence proves.
I know quite well that the Islanders consider themselves to be British. Why do they live thousands of miles away from us then?
His notion that lack of enforcement powers proves law irrelevant is terrible logic.
If we lived in a lawless state like Somalia, would that make murder legitimate? No, and just because there is not, yet, an equivalent of the Nuremberg tribunals that tried and convicted the Nazi war criminals doesn't mean that there is no international law.
In fact, Excalibur himself invokes international law ('for example the United States in the Iraq war (a flagrant breach of the UN Charter'), after denouncing it as 'a chimera, a nonsense'.

"Excalibur writes, "I don't want to go to war." If his proposed 'defences' of the Islands don't work, and the Argentineans 'invade', what is he going to do? Of course, he would back the subsequent war."

Only in your topsy-turvey lefty world can resisting aggression be considered warmongering. You evidently think defending British territory against invasion is "warmongering": you deserve all the "vicious, lying [sic] abuse" you get. No where have I said I want there to be a war. In fact I want to maintain the Islands' defences so Argentina will be put off from invading them. Isn't one of the lefty stock arguments in the Falklands dispute that the British government's withdrawal of HMS Endurance persuaded Argentina that Britain didn't really want the islands and so they invaded? Having your cake eating it comes to mind.

"If we lived in a lawless state like Somalia, would that make murder legitimate? No, and just because there is not, yet, an equivalent of the Nuremberg tribunals that tried and convicted the Nazi war criminals doesn't mean that there is no international law. "

But can the punishment of murder or the rule of law in general be enforced in a lawless state? What do you think would happen to someone if they were in a lawless state with warring factions and they tried to live by abstract ideals of good behaviour? I'm betting they wouldn't last long, their life would be "poor, nasty, brutish and short" as Hobbes put it. That is why to invoke international law in an anarchic world is delusional. The strong in effect rule. You wish for a world where every state is equal and treated equally but that can never happen so long as the world is made up of many countries.

The Nuremberg Trials only happened because an invading army of millions went into the heart of Germany and captured the leading Nazis. Again, you show a woeful lack of acknowledgement of the role of force.

Also you're advocating a legalistic, abstract ideology of international law to propose policies that in practice are harmful to this country. I would rather pursue policies that benefit this country, not those that harm it and benefit others at our expense.

"In fact, Excalibur himself invokes international law ('for example the United States in the Iraq war (a flagrant breach of the UN Charter'), after denouncing it as 'a chimera, a nonsense'. "

You've misunderstood (again). I was explaining that the Iraq invasion broke international law but Bush and co. were not arrested and punished as would those who broke national law. I understand the crucial difference between national laws that can be enforced and international law that has no force behind it.