Comments on: The Apologists

By: Josh Cooney

Josh Cooney — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:20:39 +0000

#31 I agree with you too. My comments were basically silly.

By: Josh Cooney

Josh Cooney — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:19:38 +0000

#30 I agree. England was basically justified. And Argentina was incompetent at every level of their military and political structure. If you like reading military history, you'll like Martin Middlebrook's The Argentine Fight for the Falklands. For a short war, it's actually very interesting.

No there usually is not a moral high ground. I still don't like a hard line RealPolitik, however.

By: M.J.Harrington

M.J.Harrington — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:17:37 +0000

@29
I am sorry. I am English and I should have mentioned it, and I am a Tory not a neocon. The Falklands war had nothing to do with great power pretensions. The question was whether we were to be regarded as a serious country of any kind. In fact I would say that Thatcher was the first Conservative prime minister whose outlook could be called "national" rather than "imperial."

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are different again. Who rules in Baghdad, and who rule in Kabul, are not fighting questions for England.

By: Nicholas Moses

Nicholas Moses — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 06:01:17 +0000

@29: It wouldn't have been exactly gracious of Britain to abandon her loyal subjects to an Argentine takeover and a loss of their personal autonomy. It may not have been worth the price, but at least in this case I'm not sure South America has a real gripe. Argentina made a huge error. Is there any moral high ground in contemporary politics?

By: Josh Cooney

Josh Cooney — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:44:45 +0000

@27 I have no idea why our reputation would have "vanished completely" if England lost the Falklands. Isn't this the same thing that the neocons always say to get us into a war? Namely, that if we don't assert our military might we will appear weak to the world? In fact, that is why I was mocking Thatcher and the Brits. They were pretending that they were still Great Britain. The same way America pretends to be tough by fighting such superpowers as Vietnam, Granada, and Iraq, twice.

By: Nicholas Moses

Nicholas Moses — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:14:52 +0000

@27: The fate of the Empire was sealed in 1914 and Labour has ruined everything Britons of good will ever fought to save. The cultural decay in Britain is endemic, and an early Thatcher defeat would only have hastened its coming. The face of the New Labour which rose from the ashes of the old is anti-British and anti-worker to boot. As for the Conservatives, they are now but Whigs draped in blue. Thatcher did what she had to, but it was all for nothing.

By: M.J.Harrington

M.J.Harrington — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:55:16 +0000

If Britain had not recaptured the islands our reputation and influence would have vanished completely, and Thatcher's reform of the British economy would never have happened since she would have been broken. Another side effect of the war was that the military junta collapsed and Argentina became a democracy. The British war dead amounted to 255 men including five merchant seamen, and the cost of it was paid out of the Budget contingency fund. All wars are bad, but this one was cheaper than most.

By: Josh Cooney

Josh Cooney — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:23:49 +0000

Poor England. The last hurrah of her once great navy was over a group of useless, rocky islands near that great strategic outpost--Antarctica! Her Royal Navy was then scrapped and made into knives and spoons. Ms. Thatcher got her war and won re-election--she fought it for much more honorable reasons, I'm sure.

By: Derek Leaberry

Derek Leaberry — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:38:27 +0000

I don't remember that Buchanan supported Argentina in the Falklands War but I do remember that the late Senator Jesse Helms supported Argentina. It may have been the only time Senator Helms was in error.

By: M.J.Harrington

M.J.Harrington — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:25:12 +0000

I remember reading that Mr Buchanan supported Argentina in the Falklands War.