The Falklands

[Ken Lussey]

This is all getting rather serious, or, at least, it could have been if Argentina had not been running down its military capability even more quickly and comprehensively than we have been doing. But what exactly are the rights and wrongs of the argument? There is a really superb analysis here, in the form of an open letter to Argentina from the blogger "Fleet Street Fox":

http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2013/01/d ... a.html?m=1

[Clyde.Whiting]

Personally I think that handing over the islands and its inhabitants against their wishes would be wrong and would never happen.

Let the islanders vote

[Shane Cowan]

That's what I fought for, I came back in one piece, but lost some very very good friends.
What would it have all been for if we were to hand it over against the wishes of the Islanders themselves, this time 32 yrs ago 2Para were fighting at Goose Green and in a few days time I will be amongst the rocks of Mt Longdon, 24yr old boy but by the end of it I was a man.

Utrinque Paratus, Every Man An Emperor

[Neil Willis]

/Start soapbox session

In my humble opinion, the Argentinian claim is spurious anyway. The UK claimed the island of South Georgia before the nation of Argentina even existed - that was in January 1775 by a certain Captain James Cook. The Falklands have also been British for a very long time (but I don't have the facts at hand). If it weren't for the oil and gas reserves, and Argentina's regular political convulsions meaning they need some excuse to divert the population away from their disaster stricken governments, they'd have had no reason at all to lay claim to a small archipelago so far away from their mainland that they could barely reach them in the war. On the basis that Argentina claim the islands, maybe we should lay claim to all islands within 300 miles of the UK coast - so that'd be mainland Europe, Ireland, Scandinavia, Iceland possibly too. Somehow I can't see the international community buying that one either!

Let them bleat all they want about claims, they're worthless. We have inhabitants there, they don't. We have laid claim to the islands LONG before they were even called a nation. They fought an illegal war to conquer them, cost the UK millions of pounds in winning them back, and despite us having to send an expeditionary force half way round the globe, they lost. If they want to pay us war reparations, and compensate all the UK military families who lost loved ones, and then admit that the war they started was both illegal, and utterly misguided, then maybe we should consider a negotiated settlement, where sovereignty of the islands was passed to the residents, and then they had a referendum to decide whether to stay British, or to change allegiance to the Argentina, with a qualifying residence time of say - 20 years, then maybe I might be swayed into accepting they have a case for a change of sovereignty.

/End soapbox session