On one hand... the idea that the Argentinians aren't themselves a settler-colonial country a la the USA is pretty rich, so I'm not sympathetic to the claims that they are fighting colonialism by wanting the Falkland Islands. When the British settled it, it was unihabited so it's not like they took the land from native inhabitants - the British people there now are the original inhabitants. And most importantly, the people who live there now very clearly want to remain part of the UK and not be a part of Argentina, and all things being equal I would side with what the inhabitants themselves what.
OTOH... seriously, fuck the English / TERF Island. Their rape of the world via colonialism is maybe one of the greatest evils ever perpetuated by humans (definitely so if you count all of the USA's colonial atrocities in with the UK's by extension). They don't deserve to have any land outside of the British Isles. But they still have all these pockets around the world like the Falklands and Gibraltar where they put their own people that now makes it hard to change things. But the thing is, this website has like 5X the population of the Falklands. The Brits could easily relocate that small of a number of people and richly compensate them for it. And the Falklands are right at Argentina's doorstep and presents a massive security vulnerability. I'm sure if the Spanish set up shop on the Isle of Man, the Brits would be doing everything they could to get them out just for the military security alone.
So as a leftist, I don't know where I stand on this issue. Would be curious to know what you all think. @RNAi, big apologies if I'm wrong but afaik you are Argentinian? Would love to hear your perspective.
Argentinian here, I don't care about who the island belongs to, as far as I know both countries have a somewhat legitimate claim, but i don't want NATO having a military base so close to us.
Argentina absolutely does not have a legitimate claim
Being literally next to the coast of Argentina is a legitimate claim.
"Next to" doing a lot of work here. By the same token, TERF island could just claim the Faroe Islands.
They did claim Scotland and Ireland.
And I'm pretty sure everyone here is in agreement that the English can fuck on outta Ireland
That is literally lebensraum logic
I agree with Torenico about this one. It's a massive strategic vulnerability to have a foreign power own an island that close to Argentina.
That doesn't mean you can have it or that it's yours. That is the logic America uses against Cuba, and it's bullshit there too. Also, does that mean Russia has to turn over Big Diomede? What about the Faroe Islands to the UK? Does the UK get to claim all the Irish Islands closer to their bit of Ireland than Dublin for security reasons? From where and to where does this logic extend?
Does this give Russia and Finland a claim to Gotland? Does this only apply to islands, or what about enclaves, like Kaliningrad? Does this give the US a claim to Cuba and most of the Caribbean?
This is a terrible justification for territorial claims to be advocating or siding with.
Cuba is an island of millions of people. The Falklands are a rock with a population size roughly equal to a large-ish US high school. I think you can approach the Falklands differently from those other examples.
Small groups of people can be discounted, you heard it here first on leftist forum Chapo dot Chat
It's literally not.
"We want it and it's close" is a colonial and imperial argument that literally echoes manifest destiny and lebensraum rhetorically. Its nonsense. You're saying nonsense, and unless you find something else this discussion is over.
??????????
One stands against Imperialism and you claim my arguments are "Lebensraum"? Lmfao, please.
This is a matter of major importance for the region, we have a permanent military base of NATO in our coastline, literally inside the continental shelf, it's an anti-imperialist cause and you're literally defending them because "Lebensraum". Argentina's claims were validated the moment the British agreed to negotiate the islands between the 1960s and 1982, so yeah.
I don't think folks here are eager to support dubiously revanchist territorial claims that are further justified by concerns about national or regional security.
It is a pretty safe bet that nobody here likes the idea of the islands as a NATO outpost. However, I don't know what leftist justification exists for either 1.) the rule of the islands and islanders, against their will, by the settler-colonial government in Buenos Aries, or 2.) their forced deportation.
Why?