Thatcher and the Falklands...

[Sam Slater]

[quote]To quote a line from a song by Pink Floyd, which was written about the Falklands War:

"Galtieri took the Union Jack, and Maggie sent a cruiser to make him give it back." [/quote]

I'm not sure if you're using the above quote to show your backing of the Falklands war but it would be ironic if so. I'm reliably informed that that The Final Cut album was a critique of the war.

[max_tranmere]

I am just quoting a line from the song. That album was certainly a critique of that war - Rogers Waters dedicated it to his father who died in World War 2, who he never met, and the album was described by Waters as 'a requiem to the post-war dream'. I suppose I'm saying in my last comment that it was inevitable as one of our colonies had been attacked and taken over. It doesn't mean I liked the fact it happened, and if Heseltine is right that the thing wasn't going to happen but Thatcher did it for political internal party reasons then that makes it all very bad and unnecessary. As I said at the top, I am intrigued by Heseltine's comments on Question Time.

[max_tranmere]

turan, it's interesting that the sinking of the Belgrano is probably the most remembered event of that war. More so than the hundreds of deaths we incured and that the war only happened, or would only have been considered by Thatcher to be something she would consider going ahead with, because the Argentines invaded in the first place.

[RoddersUK]

I am not defending that gobshyte Mackenzie or the red tops, but wouldn't it be boring if we didn't have these fuckers to gnash our teeeth on now and again?

[Robches]

turanhosting wrote:

> The most criticism I offered of Mrs T. and Woodward was that
> they made a decision even before they all the information. Yes
> I know that the position, heading etc makes no difference to
> the legality of sinking it, but there is such a thing as using
> a little discretion, before deciding on a single action which
> will definitely, and Mrs T. knew this, start a war and also
> send over 300 people to their deaths. I question the indecent
> HASTE involved because it smacks of opportunism rather than
> expedient strategy as the admiral fails to explain in his book.
>

The war started when Argentine invaded the Falklands. They attacked the barracks where they thought our Royal Marines were sleeping, and would have quite happily killed them all if they had been there. The day before the Belgrano was sunk the Argentine navy tried to launch an air strike against our task force, but their old carrier couldn't work up enough speed to launch her Skyhawks without any extra wind over the deck. The Argentines were under no illusion that the war had not started, and were in no mood to negotiate any sort of peace deal acceptable to Britain, given that they were in control of the Falklands, and did not think that we had the ability to retake them. Unless Britain backed down, there was no way other than the use of force that this was going to be sorted.

[belfast_birty]

I spent a pretty miserable 5 months down there.I was on The Reserve,and since many of my friends were going,I joined them.

While 'touch and go' at times,I never doubted that we would prevail,especially after Argie officers were airlifted by heli,off their positions,and back to Stanley overnight!

Maggie was right to make a stand.The only sadness is that we could not do this Op in 2011.

[max_tranmere]

birty, that's very interesting.

[RoddersUK]

I salute you Birty. Well done mukka.