The day is 2 of April, 1982. This is event is strictely related to the one of the previous blog, so if you Ihaven't read it, I recommend you do it now.
Ok, done? :P
Well, what happened that day is of more common knowledge to the world that what went on march 24°, but if the events that occurd that had not happened then today I would have been going to colleage like any other day. But let's just go to the point.
If you haven't guessed it already, this is about the Malvinas war, also (wrongly) known as the Falklands war. It was in april 2 when the argentinian troops where deployed in the island and took it back from the small english garrison that was stationated there. The following days were days of joy for the argentinian nation, and hundreds of people gathered in Plaza de Mayo (the countries most important square) to praise the goverment and the military for this act of nationalism. Quite an odd fact since not so many days ago people (probably even the same ones) were protesting and getting beat up by the police, screaming for having democracy back. But, what would be of life withouth a bit irony, right?
Well this is how all went on:
Back to that day, the military goverment, the "proceso de reorganización nacional", was running out of options. The whole country was now against them, and the euphoria that was caused by the soccer championship of the 78' had long worn off. So they needed something to stay on flote, and they needed it fast. The answer to that was to do something they did best. A military action. Before I countinue I should say that that in that decade argentina was in a arming process along with chile, as we were fearing a war would rage there due to some territorial conflicts over the Andes mountains.
Well, back to Malvinas. The president (military one, and one that liked the scotch a bit too much, if you know what I mean) decided to use that firepower to do a decesive and rather cheap military action: take over the lands that were rightfully ours. First of all, I should say that the islands truly belong to our nations, as they are in the same continental platfor as our country and had had an argentinian population when the brits arrived and kicked them away, and that they should one day belong to us, but what Galtieri (the president I was telling you about) did was not the right thing to do.
In truth, we weren't prepared to be involved in an actual war, the goverment had taken the islands just as a desperate maneouver to win the people back and we were not counting on the british to retaliate. But, sadly to us, Margaret Thatcher (UK prime minister of that time) was in a similar position, she too needed desperately something to win back some support. and well, we all know what happened afterwards, no need for to me to outline that is it?
well... if you don't know it you should have probably guessed it: we got out asses kicked.
Mularac
usually starting wars does nothing to get support.
bush.
yeah, but sadly here it did. People would give away their jewls and the kids would send chocolates to the soldiers, but none of that really got there, it was all taken for personal gain.
The Argentine Military needed more Dassault Super Étendards with Exocets and if they had more TAM tanks and some M60 Pattons,plus a few AH-1 Cobras,so much for British Resistance
british resistance? there was no british resistance, they surrendered shortly after our forces arrived. The problem was the retaliation force sent by the UK.
30 exocet that would be a nightmare for RN
Wars solve nothing. Well, most of the time. It's all politics and politics sucks, where ever you are.
except in la-la land where farts smell like cinnamon.
Your "la-la land" does not exist. (Sarcastic joke intended).
what? no! it doesn't exists, that's impossible! *hughs his knees and startes bending forward and bakwards" (the sacarsm was intended :P)
i reject your reality and substitute my own.
Nice MythBusters quote.
Indeed.
Good that you explained why the war started cause i didn't really know that. I actually quite don't know what to think about it, but something tells me that it'll be generally better if the Brits kept it.
you must not conpare what went on during the dictatorship of the 76' with the actual argentina, that was not a demochratic goverment, there was no parliament running an the people have no power whatsoever. We're not imperialist, in fact, we have lost nearly all the territorial conflicts we had over the years in favour of a peaceful agreement. We're not perfect either, quite far from it, but in truth doesn't make much of a difference, the islands belong rightfully to our nations, they were taken from us illegaly from the UK, and the reason that that particular action didn't result in an actual war was that our country was at a very difficult situation and couldn't afford a war with one of the world's powers, and neither could we afterwards. The brits are only keeping the islands due to brutal force, nothing else.
I mean, it's (at least now, eh?) economically better for these islands that they are owned by UK and not by Argentina. Well, maybe in the future when you'll catch up with UK it will be a good idea, but until then...
btw. is there anything particularly important on these islands? like idk, resources? tourist attractions?
well, to be honest with you, yes I think that would be best for the islands. Besides, the inhabitants are english-speakers ones, when argentina is an spanish-speaker country, so that may also come as a problem.
Answering to your other question: Malvinas has several unique natural and unexploited resources, but that is (was) not the reason why they were conquered by the UK in the first place. Back in the day they were in quite a war with Napoleon and it was the time of the colonies, so it was a british policy to have a land to call their own every some thousand kilometres, and Malvinas was quite a choice, giving it's proximity to Magallanes (that time's only naval comunication between the atlantic and the pacific), so they just claimed them. (Malvinas weren't the only islands conquered by the UK in the region, the Sandwich and South Georgia Islands were also taken by the UK from Argentina)
Malvinas could be our if we deserve it, i mean we had people wich actually die in hungry, when we are agro-exporter, and one of the countries with more natural resources in the world actually more resources than UK, but the UK corporation actually explodes that resources( I mean UK people arent bad guys, our governament class sucks!) ;
About war, our Armys where supported by USA, and OTAN with the objective to fight againts comunism and socialsm, and of course peronistas(for the world a combination of populism socialism and keyenianism), so the idiots kill 3000 argentinans, and then in 1982 decide to fight with any support, i mean we were no comunist but we were fighting against a capitalist country, the only suppor that argentina had were the Nations of South America, and with out Chile cause the same militaries put the two countrys in a neutral position.
And I repeat Argentina could recover the island when it really deserve it.
Sorry for my English, and dont cry for me Argentina... :P
well, it isn't only the malvinas isles, the Georgia and Sandwich isles also belong to us and were taken by the brits in the late 18..'s.
But yeah, we will have those bloody islands (literally) back, but I'd like to believe that we'd learn our lesson and don't make the same stupid thing we made in the 80's, enter in an armed conflict against a country like the uk. That didn't do us any good and would never will, so when we do take them it will by the power of the word, not by the sword.
good to see a fellow countryman interested in this matter...
Mmm well if you study the facts, a fight against UK it should be just fight, more or less, the UK had more experience an more tecnology, but the real devastating poin were the american misils AIM9 SideWinder, harriers had VTOL but the mirage had best performance in high altitud, and the Argentinian Marine Infantry were enought trained and prepared to fight against UK infantry, even the squads had nightvision, of course the prepared and trained UK infantry were larger than the Argentinian, and thinking it deeply I dont know if a war should be won by a genocide dictator ship, I mean if we were the winner by the effort of our soldiers and pilots, Galtieri would use it to keep him in the power...
For the other side the democracy that we recivede before the war, were without the young militancy, that were disappeared by the Junta.
yeah. And you must remember that our military status now is nowhere near what we had on the 80's. Back then we're arming ourselves for the eventuallity of a war with Chile, so our forces were something. We had Mirage's and Super Etandars and Exocet missiles, planes that were pretty cutting edge back then, but we weren't still a match for the UK, so what hope do we have now? We have absolutely nothing, no budget for the military and the brits pressure so that we don't we rearm, which I think is the wisest thing to do.
The real problem is we dont fight just against UK, there are a few factors wich put the power of UK over Argentina, experience in naval conflict, and this were obsolete with the Jet-Era, a lot of tactics of WW2 wasnt improved for combat against misils and turbojet airplanes,the nueclear weapons, well we had nothing to defense against that, maybe more lives were saved just with a little menace of nuclear attack, the submarine menace, the facts shows that our navy dont have enought experience against it, the airplanes, the harrier was and is a marvel of technology, but with out SideWinders, the mirage with matras and magic misiles, it could be an interesting combat, but the american misils had 99% of eficiency, in the infantry as I said up there they had more trained personal, but the arsenal were similars FAL against L1A1, Milan misiles against Instalaza, well you know colimbas agains green berets thats wasnt exactly just...
Exactly! we weren't a match then, so... now we're nothing. A military solution is way out of the question, now-a-days.
Sometimes I thinks this society makes all wrong, when a country lost a war, they uses that experience to make their army better, but we just forget it. Also we want justice for the "desaparecidos" but we dont even think in the ideals of this people, even in the school no body tells us( well "them" bcause I had finish it) that the most of countrys in LatinAmerica had chosen diferent ways of socialism, and all the MilitarityGovernaments go to the Neoliberalismo, and the destruction of the estate. Other countrys on this area had learn about it like Bolivia, but others like us or Peru, we are just going down.
Chile is the second country in LatinAmerica in buying weapons, and is our neighbor, and even if we think that Chile buy it for defense, we know very well that our forces are outdated...
SEVERELY out-dated. But if we gave the military a more bulky badget they will probably steal half of it and use the other half to gain more power... Under normal circunstances I would claim that that money would be better implemented in the building of schools, hospitals and such, but with this goverment more money equals more guys taking it for personal gain...
Well i guest we are ****, seriusly i dont spect a solution from this goverment or this class of goverment.
neither do I. And yeah, we're pretty much screwed...