Argentina renews Falklands claim

Argentina has renewed its claim over the Falkland Islands on the 25th anniversary of invading them - and losing a subsequent war with Britain.


"The Malvinas are Argentine, they always were, they always will be," said Argentine Vice-President Daniel Scioli, using the Spanish name for the islands.

Mr Scioli was speaking in the southern city of Ushuaia - one of a series of events marking the start of the war.

He urged the UK to resume talks on the sovereignty of the islands. In the UK, Prime Minister Tony Blair presented the ex-servicemen - from the Scots Guards and Royal Navy - with veterans' badges and certificates to honour their "courage and professionalism".


More than 900 people died in the 74-day war, including 255 British servicemen, 655 Argentines and three islanders.

A UK military task force sailed for the Falklands in April 1982, and troops began a campaign to regain the islands by the end of the month.
Several major land and sea battles followed before the British eventually broke Argentine resistance, recapturing control of Stanley, the islands' capital, on 14 June.

'We will return'

Argentina continues to claim sovereignty over the islands, which it has done since 1833.

President Nestor Kirchner did not attend the main ceremony in Ushuaia, where one resident climbed on a mound of dirt and planted his own Argentine flag, with a drawing of the islands and the words: "We will return."
Addressing the veterans there, the Argentine vice-president said Argentina would never again resort to force.


"Once again, we urge the United Kingdom to heed international calls and resume negotiations in the appropriate manner, through the United Nations," Mr Scioli told the crowd.


"Too much blood was spilled and that should never be repeated," said the head of the armed forces, Jorge Chevalier.
Most in Argentina now regard the invasion, ordered by the country's ruling military dictatorship, as a mistake, says the BBC's Daniel Schweimler in Buenos Aires.

In London, former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who sent troops to recapture the islands, attended a private memorial ceremony in St Paul's Cathedral.

The build-up to the anniversary has been marked by tensions between Argentina and the UK.
Last week Argentina unilaterally scrapped an oil and gas exploration treaty
with the UK.

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John Derbyshire;

“15 British Agressors [sic] must be EXECUTED.” That was the placard being held up by some beetle-browed Iranian outside the British Embassy in Tehran. Well, I don’t entirely disagree. I certainly think that those British captives who have let themselves be put forward on Iranian TV, that woman wearing a headscarf, and the young man apologizing to the Iranian gangster-rulers, should be court-martialed for dereliction of duty when they get back to Blighty, with shooting definitely an option.
How on earth can Britons behave like that? A previous generation would not have done so. I knew the women of my mother’s generation pretty well (Mum was born in 1912), and I am certain that any one of them, given that headscarf and told to put it on, would have said: “You can hang me with it if you like, but I’ll be damned if I’ll wear the filthy thing.”
​

If you're already having a lousy day, perhaps best to skip this one.


VDH;

We were all waiting for the final shoe to fall: It is America's fault. And sure enough the Independent headline blaming us came in on schedule. The story line was predictable: We apparently tried to detain those masterminding the Iranian efforts to kill Americans in Iraq, then "botched" this illegal effort at getting "legitimate" diplomats, and thus left the poor British to sweep up the mess. So Bush — not lax officers, insane rules of engagement, or Iranian perfidy and aggression — did it after all.​

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Voters want Britain to scale down world role


By Anthony King
Last Updated: 2:59am BST 03/04/2007





Led by the Prime Minister, most of Britain's political leaders appear to believe that Britain should continue to try to punch above its weight in international affairs. But a wide-ranging YouGov survey for The Daily Telegraph demonstrates that the British people take a different view.


A substantial majority of Britons would clearly like to see this country scale down its world role and begin to function internationally more like Sweden, Canada or even Belgium.

The British public's mood is markedly post-imperial - reluctant to see Britain maintain even its present overseas commitments and totally opposed to seeing them extended further.
If capabilities are to be matched to commitments, most voters would prefer to see Britain's commitments reduced rather than its capabilities expanded. With the Empire now a distant memory, people evidently believe that it is time for Britain to abandon its great-power pretensions.

The idea that from now on Britain should play a more modest world role is broadly shared across the whole population. For example, Conservative voters are almost as likely as Liberal Democrats to think the time has come for Britain to cut its coat according to its cloth.
Largely for that reason, voters are sympathetic to those officers in the armed forces who protest that they are being asked to do too much with too little. A huge majority believe Britain's forces are overstretched. By two to one, they believe British politicians should be more reluctant to commit British forces overseas.

The figures set out in the chart attest to the existence of a public opinion strikingly at odds with the views of Tony Blair and other major party leaders. Asked straightforwardly whether we as a nation should go on trying "to punch above our weight" internationally, a clear majority, 55 per cent, say "No". Only 30 per cent take the opposite view, with the remainder unsure.

People are especially critical of the scale of Britain's military involvements overseas. As the figures in the chart show, a majority is prepared to see this country attempt to exert influence by means of "soft power" - overseas aid, the British Council and so forth - but are unprepared to see it expand or even maintain its current military role.

Only a minuscule seven per cent think Britain "should try to expand its military influence in the world, if necessary by increasing spending on the armed forces" and only 19 per cent appear content with Britain's present role. Instead, two voters in every three believe Britain is already over-extended and should reduce its overseas commitments, should spend less and should not worry if British influence is thereby diminished.

The findings reported in the section of the chart headed "Involvement in foreign conflicts" point in the same direction. Although a majority of YouGov's respondents sympathise with continuing British involvement in purely peace-keeping operations, an even larger majority - nearly three quarters of those questioned - are emphatic that Britain "should be reluctant to become involved in any foreign conflict unless it is absolutely clear that it is in Britain's own interests to do so".

Substantial majorities think British troops should be withdrawn from both Afghanistan and Iraq more or less immediately.

Part of people's unhappiness with Britain's latter-day world role almost certainly stems from their sense that ministers in successive British governments have not been ready to back up their imperial-sounding rhetoric with imperial-sized resources. No fewer than 84 per cent of YouGov's respondents reckon that Britain's armed forces are "overstretched, below strength and inadequately equipped". A mere five per cent dissent from that view.
However, asked how the present Government or any other government should respond to the existing mismatch between resources and commitments, 60 per cent are clear that Britain's commitments should be scaled back "so that British forces do not become involved in crises overseas". Only half that proportion want the Government to "spend more on the armed forces so that British forces can continue to be deployed effectively overseas".

That said, YouGov's findings make it clear that a majority believes the country should continue to have a strong homeland defence and this should include the possession of nuclear weapons. As the figures in the chart show, exactly 50 per cent of those interviewed believe MPs were right to vote in favour of replacing the present Trident nuclear weapons system, with considerably fewer, 32 per cent, expressing dissent.

It is evident that the Falklands war is becoming a somewhat distant memory. Even so, few Britons, only 17 per cent, believe the Falkland Islands should have been left under Argentinian control and nearly four times that proportion, 61 per cent, believe Margaret Thatcher and her Government were right to despatch the British task force 25 years ago.
Moreover, despite the widespread view that Britain's armed forces could not do in 2007 what they successfully did in 1982, a considerable proportion of YouGov's respondents, 41 per cent, continue to believe that Britain's forces could, if necessary, stage a repeat performance. However, exactly the same proportion, 41 per cent, are considerably more doubtful.

The question of reintroducing National Service remains alive even if most of those in government and the armed forces take the view that National Service would be exorbitantly expensive.

YouGov reminded respondents that "some people say it would be good for young people if National Service were reintroduced and young people had to spend a year or two in the armed forces" and then asked people whether they agreed or not. The results suggest that a considerable majority, 52 per cent, quite like the concept of National Service - though almost certainly for social rather than military reasons.

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