Re: [A-List] Malvinas "update"

[Andre Gunder Frank <franka@xxxxxxx>]

there were two long range matters, oil in the ocean around there, and
the south pole,
but the immediate reason was loud and clear:
MAGGIE WAS FAST LOISING TOO MUCH POLITICAL SUPPORT [RECESSION] AND NEDED
THE WAR TO PROP HESELF UP, WHIHC IT DID
AND
GALTRIERI WAS ALOS LOOSING TOO NMUCH POLITICAL SUPPOT FCOR THE SAME
REASON.

SO BOTH AHD THE SAME INCENTIVE TO GO TO WAR WITH EACH OTEHR. BUT SAD FR
THEM, ONLY ONE COULD WIN - AND STYAY IN OFFICE, THE OTEHR AHD TO LOSE
AND GO HOME. THAT WAS GALTIERI.

A COuPLE OF FOOTNOTES

dont remember if i said ThE first one on THIS net - i get confused with
toooo many of thjem!:

1.the Lima negotiations wee about to defuse the war, whic Maggie deearly
wanted/needed
so she had the royal navy/airforce sink the Belgrano and thereby torpedo
less the ship than the intended target, the lima compromise

2. Fidel supported th Argie [Brit language!] militsry dictator

3. the Us supported the Brits, but not just with words like Fidel;, but
with satellite information gatherin passed on to the Brits.

4. Davis Owen came out AGAINST  the war [he had already been
labour foreign minister and so should hacve knoiwn something avbout what
wasd going on] - i rembver vividly seeing hjim saying so on TV the first
evening. by 36 - mayve 24 - hours later he had changfed '' his mind'' and
supported it like all the oteh Brits - i hope excluding Mark!

respectfully submitted
by the colelctive memory and conscience


IS one
On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Keaney Michael
wrote:

> Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 16:16:58 +0200
> From: Keaney Michael <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>
> Reply-To: a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [A-List] Malvinas "update"
>
> Rob Schaap writes:
>
> Don't I remember something about the Falklands/Malvinas' main importance
> to
> Britain being to do with maintaining what credibility its Antarctic
> claims
> might still possess?  Southampton is not an ideally situated base camp,
> after all.
>
> <snip>
>
> Do you think the 'I remember when the whole world map were pink' brigade
> (not
> yet an insignificant proportion of the great British electorate) would
> swallow
> Euro-integration, the handing back of Gibralter and the Malvinas, and
> the
> forfeit of their claim on Antarctica all in one hit?  Britain would have
> to
> have changed an awful lot since I was last there ...
>
> =====
>
> A lot has changed, and still is changing, thanks to the destruction of
> much of the infrastructure supporting the *traditional* British state by
> those whom it brought to power -- namely, Thatcher and her crew. They
> were necessary for the destruction of the labour movement, which was
> never going to be challenged properly by even Jim Callaghan, whose trade
> union background was something he held dear and could not countenance
> reneging on, even though he was a Labour rightwinger. The complete
> destruction of the labour movement was something that both wings of the
> Conservative Party (Thatcher/Atlanticist, Heseltine/European) were
> pretty much agreed was necessary, not least as revenge for the
> embarrassment of the Heath premiership. A few corporatists (from whom
> Heseltine drew much support as a fellow-traveller) hankered after
> Macmillan/Wilson-type tripartism, but in the main a
> smashing-the-labour-movement agenda was a done deal for the
> Conservatives. However, having unleashed an unprecedented and
> untrammelled force of capitalist development via the
> privatisation/deregulation/liberalisation structural adjustment, they
> sealed the fate of their original sponsors: the true blue British Empire
> brigade, whose increasing irrelevance became sorely apparent as
> Thatcher's reign went on. And she never understood what it was she was
> doing, *really*, as evidenced by her little Englander "we made Britain
> grate again" (sic) refrain and jingoistic anti-Europeanism. She it was,
> after all, who signed the Single European Act in 1986 paving the way for
> all that she subsequently opposed. And it was Europe that tore her party
> apart, and the permanent government apparatus supported the European
> faction until the Conservative Party was too incapable of governing. It
> should really have lost the 1992 election -- that it staggered on for
> another 5 years is really remarkable. But the permanent government got
> its preferred "natural party" in the form of New Labour, whose precise
> form may never have taken shape had Kinnock won in 1992.
>
> Mark Jones posted a message on PEN-L way back last April/May or
> thereabouts detailing the social changes wrought by Thatcherism,
> including the increased emphasis on self-interest and short-termism.
> Gibraltar and Northern Ireland are anachronisms for most people. The
> latter especially is something the vast majority of "mainlanders" would
> dearly love to be rid of, and there are many within the state apparatus
> who feel the same. It's a costly investment, and where is the return?
> What geopolitical advantage is there? None whatsoever. What economic
> advantage is there? None whatsoever. Only national pride could justify
> its perpetual retention, and there are bigger fish to fry in that
> department these days. And in any case, conducting a fairly miserable
> and dirty counter-terrorist operation hardly adds to national pride.
> Gibraltar is of use only for the gaming industry, which can avoid paying
> taxes in the UK. These can easily be rescinded, as with so many other
> taxes inconvenient to business. What geopolitical advantage does
> Gibraltar serve? None whatsoever. What economic advantage is there? None
> whatsoever -- it's a tax haven for goodness sake, and there's plenty of
> them to go around, not least the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
> Both Gibraltar and NI are within the EU regardless of the nominal
> sovereign, and the UK's current preoccupation involves acquiring greater
> influence over the trajectory of EU development. The Malvinas, alas, is
> made more difficult by the jingoistic legacy of Thatcher. Imperialist
> uproar could be whipped up by the punk Thatcherites, who could very
> easily accuse Blair et al of betraying the dead, those who gave their
> lives for Blighty, etc. (Never mind the poor conscripts aboard the
> Belgrano.) In addition to the Antarctic claims, there is also a matter
> of possible oil and gas extraction, but little is heard of that just
> now. In any case, there's still Ascension Island.
>
> Nestor notes that the Wilson government's proposal "was not a honest
> move".
>
> In this case I think Chris has it right when highlighting the different
> viewpoints represented within ruling circles at that time. Someone like
> Chalfont, who was a "junior" minister at the Foreign Office for the
> lifetime of both Wilson 1960s administrations, would represent, it has
> become clear subsequently, what could now be called the punk Thatcherite
> tendency. So, for him and those he represented, it was most certainly
> not an honest move. The Foreign Office from the top down appears to have
> deliberately sabotaged the whole thing: note the pointed reference to
> Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart's busy diary as the reason
> negotiations fell through. Wilson, however, and many around him, were
> desperately trying to regenerate the British economy in order to get out
> from under US domination and the perpetual difficulty of balance of
> payments problems that gave the US one significant form of leverage over
> any British government. Withdrawing UK military forces from East of Suez
> (as the policy was called) was difficult because LBJ regarded this as a
> clear indication of criticism of the Vietnam war (which, to his eternal
> credit, Wilson never joined in, all pressures notwithstanding). Wilson
> was not an imperialist either, and saw no geopolitical advantages in
> colonial possessions. The problems with Ian Smith in Rhodesia arose not
> because UDI snubbed Britain, but because UDI involved minority rule and
> effective apartheid. Those who would otherwise be apoplectic about the
> loss of Gibraltar, Malvinas, NI or anything else were quite satisfied
> that Smith's Rhodesia would serve a number of useful purposes, not least
> as a source of trouble for Wilson who was beset by other difficulties
> spanning the permanent government-City of London-military nexus. Hence
> the problems posed by BOSS agents in Britain during the early to
> mid-1970s. Wilson himself accused BOSS of acting to undermine his
> premiership. Meanwhile the punk Thatcherites like the ghastly McWhirter
> brothers -- effectively the political wing of BOSS, Unison Committee for
> Action, and MI5 -- conducted a legal campaign against anti-apartheid
> campaigners like Peter Hain (!), now at the Foreign Office in charge of
> leading the charge into Europe, while BOSS and other fanatical
> anticommunist elements in the British secret services (Peter Wright et
> al) conspired to bring down Wilson and his circle via a strategy of
> tension that involved the smearing of and even attempted kidnappings and
> assassinations of anti-apartheid campaigners, among other nefarious
> deeds.
>
> Michael Keaney
>
>
>




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                    ANDRE  GUNDER  FRANK
Department of History			   Home
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