Osama Bin Laden is dead

According to the blog BritainandAmerica.com:


Jeane Kirkpatrick was America’s Ambassador to the United Nations at the time of the invasion. She led the group of Reagan officials called ‘Latinistas’ who opposed supporting Britain during the conflict. She argued that it was in America’s national interest to support Argentina. This was because there were fears that the USSR was dominating Latin America and a failure on the part of the US to support the Argentineans would encourage Latin American countries to seek closer relations with the Soviets. The British did not take kindly to the fact she chose to attend a dinner at the Argentinean embassy in the US shortly after she heard of their invasion of the Falklands. She argued that if she chose to abstain she would have difficulty persuading the Argentineans that they were neutral in try to reach a settlement. The British Ambassador Nicholas Henderson was not impressed. He responded by asking if the Americans would be happy if he attended dinner at the Iranian embassy after they heard that they taken 52 Americans hostage.


Caspar Weinberger who was the Defence Secretary at the time was the leader of the group called the ‘Atlanticists’ who believed that America should support her closest NATO ally and it would send a clear message that America did not support brutal and aggressive dictators. His staunch support later earned him a British Knighthood. He provided the United Kingdom with all the equipment she required during the war. Ranging from submarine detectors to the latest missiles. All this was done very discreetly. His actions led to divisions amongst Reagan’s staff. Whilst Weinberger claimed that he has received authorisation from Ronald Reagan to provide covert support to the UK, others disagreed. Admiral Dennis Blair was asked by Snow if he was aware of the Reagan’s consent. He said ‘no’ and that there were too many secrets in the administration. Alexander Haig who was charged with mediating the dispute between Britain and Argentina also stated that he did not believe that Reagan authorised the covert supply of weapons. This, he said, was due to Reagan’s administration being a ‘loose ship’ with a ‘flawed system’ of conducting policy. When Snow asked Haig if he thought Reagan was responsible for the flawed system, he responded by stating that it was not Reagan’s fault but the fault of his staff.

Alexander Haig was the Secretary of State at the time of the crisis. He was charged with negotiating a peaceful settlement of the dispute between Britain and Argentina. He narrated his meeting with Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street on the first leg of his mediation tour. He said Thatcher took him on a tour of Downing Street and showed him photos of former prime ministers like Churchill. She told him that they were great because they never lost wars. She also told him that she did not want to be a Chamberlain and would not negotiate until the Argentineans withdrew from the Falklands. He said after his meeting with Thatcher he realised that war was imminent. He immediately reported this to General Galteiri of Argentina who responded by arguing that the British would not fight. The General believed that there were only two great powers: USA and USSR. He argued that other countries were on an equal footing and as such Argentina could defeat the British. Haig warned him that the British were battled hardened from their superior training, technology and experiences in regions like Northern Ireland. Haig also warned him that if war broke out, the US would support Britain.

This is what wiki has to say:

At first glance, it appeared that the U.S. had military treaty obligations to both parties in the war, bound to the UK as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and to Argentina by the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the "Rio Pact"). However, the North Atlantic Treaty only obliges the signatories to support if the attack occurs in Europe or North America north of the Tropic of Cancer, and the Rio Pact only obliges the U.S. to intervene if one of the adherents to the treaty is attacked—the UK never attacked Argentina, only Argentine forces on British territory. In March, Secretary of State Alexander Haig directed the United States Ambassador to Argentina to warn the Argentine government away from any invasion. President Reagan requested assurances from Galtieri against an invasion and offered the services of his Vice President, George H.W. Bush, as mediator, but was refused.

In fact, the Reagan Administration was sharply divided on the issue. Meeting on April 5, Haig and Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs Lawrence Eagleburger favoured backing Britain, concerned that equivocation would undermine the NATO alliance. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas Enders, however, feared that supporting Britain would undermine U.S. anti-communist efforts in Latin America. He received the firm backing of U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Haig's nominal subordinate and political rival. Kirkpatrick was guest of honour at a dinner held by the Argentine ambassador to the United States, on the day that the Argentine armed forces landed on the islands.

The White House continued its neutrality; Reagan famously declared at the time that he could not understand why two allies were arguing over "that little ice-cold bunch of land down there". But he assented to Haig and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's position. Haig briefly (April 8–April 30) headed a "shuttle diplomacy" mission between London and Buenos Aires. According to a BBC documentary titled "The Falklands War and the White House",[18] Caspar Weinberger's Department of Defense began a number of non-public actions to support and supply the British military while Haig's shuttle diplomacy was still ongoing. Haig's message to the Argentines was that the British would indeed fight, and that the U.S. would support Britain, but at the time he was not aware that the U.S. was providing support already.

At the end of the month, Reagan blamed Argentina for the failure of the mediation, declared U.S. support for Britain, and announced the imposition of economic sanctions against Argentina.

In a notorious episode in June, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick cast a second veto of a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, then announced minutes later that she had received instructions to abstain. The situation was blamed on a delay in communications but perceived by many as part of an ongoing power struggle between Haig and Kirkpatrick.

Galtieri and a fair proportion of his government thought that the UK would not react. Margaret Thatcher declared that the democratic rights of the Falkland Islanders had been assaulted and would not surrender the islands to the Argentinian "jackboot". This stance was aided, at least domestically, by the mostly supportive British press.

The Argentine dictatorship felt that the United States would, even in a worst-case scenario, remain completely neutral in the conflict (based upon the support that Argentina had given to the Reagan administration in Central America, training Contras). This assumption demonstrated a clear blindness to the reality of the US-UK special relationship.

To some extent, the Argentine military dictatorship was misled by its own opinion of democracies as being weak, inefficient talking-shops, afraid of taking risks. Indeed, in Britain there was much debate about the rights and wrongs of war. However, regardless of their own policies and opinions, opposition parties firmly backed the government during the crisis, in order to present a single united front.

A U.S. fear of the perceived threat of the Soviet Union and the spread of communism, along with the certainty that Britain could handle the matter on its own, may have influenced the U.S. to take a position of non-interference. During the Cold War, with the performance of forces being watched closely by the Soviet Union, it was considered preferable for the UK to handle without assistance a conflict within its capabilities.[citation needed]


Caspar Weinberger
American non-interference was vital to the American-British relationship. Ascension Island, a British possession, was vital in the long term supply of the Task Force South; however, the airbase stationed on it was run and operated by the U.S. The American commander of the base was ordered to assist the British in any way and for a brief period Ascension Air Field was one of the busiest airports in the world. The most important NATO contributions were intelligence information and the rescheduled supply of the latest model of Sidewinder Lima all-aspect infra-red seeking missiles, which allowed existing British stocks to be employed. Margaret Thatcher stated that "without the Harrier jets and their immense manoeuvrability, equipped as they were with the latest version of the Sidewinder missile, supplied to us by U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, we could never have got back the Falklands." This is not only politically but militarily questionable, however, as all the Fleet Air Arm Sidewinder engagements proved to be from the rear.

In early May, Casper Weinberger offered the use of an American aircraft carrier.[19] This seemingly extremely generous offer was seen by some as vital: it was noted by Rear Admiral Woodward that the loss of Invincible would have been a severe setback, but the loss of Hermes would have meant an end to the whole operation. Weinberger admits [20] that there would have been many problems if a request had ever been made; not least, it would have meant U.S. personnel becoming directly involved in the conflict, as training British forces to crew the vessel would have taken years.

Both Weinberger and Reagan were later awarded the British honour of Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE). American critics of the U.S. role claimed that, by failing to side with Argentina, the U.S. violated its own Monroe Doctrine.

In September 2001, the President of Mexico Vicente Fox cited the conflict as proof of the failure of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance since the treaty provides for mutual defence. However, in this conflict, Argentina was the aggressor.

ROTFLMAO!!!

See, this is just the kind of **** that sneaks past people everyday, and some of them actually start to believe it. When Caspar spoke of these things, why wouldn't the press laugh in his face, tell him that he was a liar [and a war criminal to boot] and ask his boss, who was a bigger liar and at least as big a war criminal, to fire him.

I can't recall, was this happening at the same time that Reagan was supporting the Contras in slaughtering innocent Nicaraguans?

Talk about a huge whitewash of history!

Argentina was the aggressor because it wanted land that was part of Argentina? I guess that makes the colonials the aggressors in taking away British property in North America.

The US never supports any country's move to democracy, even though the high sounding pronouncements come fast and often, because that makes it much more difficult to steal their wealth.

Apart from you says the land was Argentinian ? Any idea who lived there ? British or Argentinians ?

So JTT you have no problem making up nonsense as the people living on so call Argentina territory for hundreds of years had no part of Argentina and wish for none.

Their claim is weak to say the least and that level of claim would end up allowing half the nations on earth to invade the other half.

Interesting though how a set of white islanders who speak English get liberated by the British. The non-white islanders of Diego Garcia get booted off their island to make way for Americans. The Falkland islands was as much about oil and future drilling than anything else. Well done POM for brilliant research.

From a fast read and only a fast read the Diego Garcia situation sound wrong however one wrong done to one people does not justify allowing another wrong to be done to another people even white English speakers.

I'm way too lazy to provide links Bill, you know that. The islanders of Diego Garcia are also known as the Chagos islanders. There's a long running court battle going on to allow them to return home. As both the US and UK have military bases there, (a bit like Ascension Island, but Ascension Island has no indiginous population,)they have so far been unsuccessful on the grounds of national security. There must be loads about it out there if you want to start googling.

I just went of wikipeda to get a fast read on the subject.

We live in a remarkable era where you can gather more informations in seconds siting naked in front of your computer then hours doing research in a major library would yield a decade or so in the past.

Now if I could just get my old head cat not to block my view of the monitor or walk over or lay on my keyboard.

Bill said

We live in a remarkable era where you can gather more informations in seconds siting naked in front of your computer

That's a bit too much information Bill.

Come on I did not post a picture of me or my cat.

For that we should all be grateful. I take it 'cat' is not a euphamism.

No you crazy Englishman the cat is real a 16 years old female who is in charge of my other cats and me, at least to a degree.

One of her duties is to wake me in the middle of the night in order for me to put more soft food down for them.

That's a relief.

WHAT???
Are you seriously saying that there is a sense of guilt on the part of the US regarding the American Revolution, that we do (or should) feel guilty about it?

I would be really interested in hearing how you are going to rationalize that.

The old 'national security' bullshit. That's a euphemism for 'strategic position to allow us easier access to pillage foreign lands'.

There couldn't be much of a sense of guilt, MM, because what started as a terrorist and illegal actions have continued unabated to this day and there certainly isn't all that much guilt/honesty flying around the US wrt to that.

There couldn't be much of a sense of guilt, MM, because what started as a terrorist and illegal actions have continued unabated to this day and there certainly isn't all that much guilt/honesty flying around the US wrt to that.

I had been wondering JTT if you will not shortly disappear from the net once they get a chance to look at any supporters/donators lists contain on Bin Laden hard drives.