Thursday 26 January 2012

Is David Cameron hoping for another Falkland War with Argentina?

By Dark Politricks

It seems that the current war of words between David Cameron and Argentinean Prime Minister Cristina Kirchner over the Falkland Islands has been complicated even further by US involvement.

A large Pentagon linked American energy company has chosen to step into the age old conflict over sovereignty of the Islands by declaring it's intention to spend up to a billion pounds on any oil extracted by UK firms around the Islands.

An article in the Sun newspaper revealed that Four executives from the Houston-based company Anadarko flew into Port Stanley last week to meet with the UK oil explorer Rockhopper who's managed to find ovver 700 million barrels of oil off the northern coast of the Falkland Islands.

The US companies board of directors include a former commander of US Strategic Command Kevin Chilton as well as Preston M "Pete" Geren II who was in the US Department of Defence for much of the last decade.

This meeting comes after a recent war of words which has been exacerbated by a number of acts including the Argentinians, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile joining together and resolve to turn away any ships trying to dock at their ports that fly the Falkland Islands flag, a sheep and a ship alongside the Union Jack. The Argentinians call this the illegal flag of the Malvinas Islands, their name for the islands that were the center of a war between the UK and them in 1982.

Then only the other week the Falkland Islands were criticized for refusing to allow a cruise ship full of sick passengers, many of them Argentinian to dock at the Islands claiming that an outbreak of stomach flu could strain the islands tiny medical resources.

This tit for tat between the wind swept Islands and the South American's who want them back now that they are oil rich is allowing the UK PM David Cameron to act up in Parliament and pretend to be the son Maggie Thatcher always wanted instead of the loser criminal she got.

The other week in the house he hypocritically responded to Argentinian president Cristina Kirchners restatement of her countries right to "Las Malvinas" as colonialism.

Whilst it is obvious that the Agentinians want to get their hands on the large oil deposits that Rockhopper found in mid 2010 they have always claimed that the islands are theirs even after their last failed attempt to capture them by force in 1982.

Whilst colonialism of all forms is wrong we cannot change history and however much some people may want to turn back the clock the fact remains that the British Empire was the biggest the world had ever seen covering all corners of the globe and the only reason the Falklands are still British is because we took them because no-one else did.

Neither the Spannish or French, both colonial powers at the time had ample opportunity to colonise the wind swept archipelago before the UK did and the fact remains that the people who live there want to remain British subjects. If we are supposed to live in a world of self-determination then it must be up to the people who live in the affected area to chose their own fate.

My Uncle served in the RAF and said when he was in the Falklands the sheep outnumbered people by the hundreds and the infrastructure was appallingly basic. Whilst the oil revenues may help improve the living standards of many people in those islands if they had accepted Argentinian ownership of some form they would already have a much better infrastructure and economy by now.

The war of words between our countries is not going to help resolve anything and it cannot be forgotten that the last Falkland war came at a time of massive economic strife and recession in our country in which a much hated Prime Minister suddenly became a hero by standing up to the Argentinian invasion of the islands in 1982.

Whilst we were undoubtedly lucky last time to win the war with our Navy task force halfway across the world, a force was reliant on our now non existent aircraft carriers and Harrier jump jets. We are now faced with a much more depleted Navy and going through another major lot of cuts in our armed forces.

Would we be so lucky another time? I don't know but the involvement of the US could change things dramatically especially if they were large consumers of Falkland oil. As the Sun article claimed the US Department of Defense linked executives as saying:
"A deal has been tabled."

"Anadarko has got approval to do this from the highest levels in the US."

"And they've been reassured the British will stand by the islands."
It seems that any future war will most definitely be about oil and it will also most certainly be used for political purposes on both sides whilst the wishes of the people in the middle, the Islanders will undoubtedly be ignored.

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