It's also important to note that Argentina's government was fascist at the time, was actively disappearing tens of thousands of its own people with the help of the U.S., and only started the war in an attempt to distract from its many domestic failings. It's a stretch to think of any argument in favor of them, even as much as Terf Island sucks.
The "claim" that argentina has over the falklands is one from imperial spain before argentina even existed
This isn't a struggle session, they didn't even give a shit about the islands until the 40sSeems pretty suboptimal to:
- Allow a fascist invasion to go unchecked, and
- Abandon people who strongly oppose that fascist government's rule to those fascists, especially when those fascists are busy killing tons of their own citizens.
The "do nothing" argument is good to consider, but it doesn't lead to a very good outcome here. Consider also that Argentina's junta lost power shortly after this, but may have been able to maintain power had it not gotten its ass handed to it.
“Fascist invasion”, implying that Argentina would be putting people in concentration camps in the Falklands.
The junta was kidnapping people, torturing them, then disposing of them by drugging them, flying them out over the ocean, then throwing them out of a plane with their stomachs slit open. They did this to somewhere around 30,000 people suspected of opposing the regime. It's entirely reasonable to wonder how Falkland Islanders -- who opposed Argentina's rule -- would have fared under the same government.
Depriving imperialists of power is a priority.
Depriving fascists of power is also a priority.
Plus, Argentina waged a war of extermination against its indigenous people. Neither side can really claim to be non-imperialist here, especially considering that Argentina was (again) invading occupied territory it had never previously settled.
That the junta fell, possibly because of the Flaklands War, isn’t something that could have been known at the time
Seems pretty reasonable to predict that humiliating a fascist government already under significant duress would hasten its fall.
I don’t see a meaningful distinction.
The distinction is that Falkland Islanders were at no risk of being yanked from their houses and disappeared under the British, and were at some risk of that under the Argentine junta. Obviously the British Empire sucks and has committed no shortage of atrocities, but the context of this situation meant that one government was clearly better for the island's inhabitants than the other.
I don’t see how exchanging a murderous military dictatorship for a murderous imperialist oligarchy justifies killing a thousand+ people
First, this is like counting Nazi deaths as part of the total casualties of WWII. Second, how much value do you place on countering fascist wars of aggression? How much value do you place on striking a hard blow against a wavering fascist regime?
The British, known for not committing genocide against indigenous peoples.
The point is that this was not a war between an imperial power and a non-imperial power. It was a war between a strong imperial power and a weaker one. Argentina's military junta certainly wasn't a victim here; they started the war.
Was there any actual evidence at the time that the Falklands would make or break the regime?
The Argentine economy was in the tank and there was widespread opposition to the government.
No, because they quite literally were not Nazis.
They literally were fascists.
Argentina’s largely conscripted troops
The Nazis conscripted plenty of folks, too, and killing Nazis was still good.
How much value do you place on countering imperialist wars of aggression?
The only imperialist war of aggression here was imperialist Argentina invading an island they had never settled, and that they had made no attempts to even occupy for 150 years. Calling Britain the aggressor when Argentina invaded the islands is straight-up fantastical shit.
Meaning that they were on their way out already.
lol you've gone all the way from "there's no way of knowing this would have sped the downfall of the junta" to "well the junta was going to collapse anyway."
the majority of whom in all likelihood were not ideologically committed to any kind of fascism and would go on with their normal lives not being fascists under any other circumstances
There were plenty of Wehrmacht soldiers who weren't members of the Nazi Party, just as there are plenty of soldiers in any horrible war machine who aren't ideological zealots. But that doesn't really matter -- if killing them was necessary to defeat fascism, then without any reservation, killing them was good. I have sympathy for damn near every human being, but that sympathy is limited when one is a willing, if not enthusiastic, participant in fascism.
Conscripts obviously get more sympathy, although it would be ridiculous to oppose conscription but then refuse to fight the government that forces people into war against their will. I haven't seen anything suggesting Argentina's military was mostly conscripts, anyway.
The British were the ones who started killing people.
Say I've killed a bunch of people, am fresh off killing some more, and I walk into your house -- guns drawn -- and look real closely to see if anyone in your family tries to make a move. I tell you that your house is now mine. But I haven't killed anyone in your house, at least not yet! It's downright laughable to not call me the aggressor in that situation, and it's embarrassing that you'd argue fighting back against such obvious aggression actually makes you and your family the bad guys here.
This all rests on the assumption that it’s actually your house
Falklanders being the only people to ever fucking live there makes it their house. It's fucking ridiculous to apply this logic when literally nobody was displaced or oppressed for the colonization of that rock.
I agree they could've solved the invasion w/o the war but suggesting Falklanders don't get rights to their land because they're eurotrash is cringe
the referendum complicates that. they used their self-determination to give sovereignty to the UK. the UK defending them is the application of their choice.
If the reverse were the case, they'd voted Argentina & the Brits invaded--would your position accordingly reverse? Argentina--Junta Argentina I'd argue also had very little right to exist
I mean if the Falklanders surrendered their sovereignty to a different party. Your whole schtick seems predicted on the UK not being allowed to do anything because it doesn't deserve to exist, ergo were a different country the one the Islanders decide to join would that country have a right or obligation to protect the Islanders?
Well at least we've managed to clarify exactly what you mean. I fundamentally disagree, imo you're very wrong, but I don't think this thread will change your mind. See ya🤠 yee haw 🤠 :inshallah:
No war, no killing.
That's just appeasement, and we know how well that works.
They had mandatory military service for all men.
That's inaccurate. They had a draft, but it involved a lottery system and not everyone served. The mere presence of a draft doesn't prohibit people from joining voluntarily, re-enlisting voluntarily, willingly or even enthusiastically serving even if drafted, etc. It also doesn't speak to how easy it was to evade military service if one's number came up.
This all rests on the assumption that it’s actually your house.
That is they key question, but either way it's absurd to call an armed military invasion not aggressive. That's libertarian levels of contorting that word's definition. You can argue that aggression was justified, but it's unquestionably aggressive.
Argentina wasn’t remotely similar to Nazi Germany despite also being an oppressive dictatorship.
I'm not going to argue about some fascists being slightly better than others, especially when literal Nazis fled to Argentina after the war. "Oh they're not really Nazis, come on" is a flat-out right-wing talking point. They ran a murderous terror campaign against their domestic opponents that's still being unpacked today. They tortured and killed tens of thousands of their own people. There's zero reason to give them the benefit of the doubt that they'd be kind to a few thousand foreigners.
it could have been that only some of the soldiers were drafted
Defeated fascist soldiers claiming they have no culpability and are in fact victims themselves.... should we take that at face value? Have we seen that anywhere before?
an escalation which was itself an act of aggression
That's not how the concept of aggression works. If you're minding your own business, I point a gun at you, and you smack it away, there's only one aggressor in that scenario.
Denying that isn’t a right wing talking point.
It is when you're talking about fascists!
they’d just have to not exterminate most of the population, which is not, actually, consistent with their behavior domestically
You're living in fantasy land. There is absolutely no reason to believe that fascists who'd already murdered 30,000 would suddenly get cold feet at a few thousand more, especially when they're defeated foreigners. And again, stopping a fascist invasion has inherent value, even if you just think the islanders would "just" be forced from their homes.
Literal Nazi Germany’s objective was mass extermination
Well no, there were years of other strategies to push "undesirables" out of Nazi territory before the final solution was implemented. That's the thing about fascists -- you can't let them hang around, because while they don't start with extermination, the ideology points squarely in that direction.
If the goal is to stop the fascists from murdering people, then engaging in a war with these particular fascists, thereby getting them to murder people, was an awful way to do that.
You heard it here, folks: don't fight the fascists just because you want to force them to stop murdering people!
other fascists like the British
So the Argentine junta and Nazi Germany are totally different, but Britain and Nazi Germany are totally the same. This is a coherent worldview. But of course anti-imperialist violence against Britain is necessary -- but this ain't that. The Falklands are not Northern Ireland, for instance.
protecting the Falkland Islanders from genocide
You keep making this claim more and more absurdist (now it's genocide!) because that's the only way you can justify abandoning people to fascists actively butchering tens of thousands. Again: stopping a fascist invasion has inherent value. We've tried appeasement, and it doesn't work.
They wouldn’t have to “be kind”, they’d just have to not exterminate most of the population
Setting a high bar for which invading army I will defend on a leftist forum
The ones who went "straight to war" are the ones who decided to conduct an invasion, which is just about if not the absolute most clear and plain example of an act of war that exists.
The British response was entirely predictable, so the blame for outcomes here lies with the aggressor, which in this case is undeniably the right wing junta that was running Argentina.
There's exactly zero fucking diplomacy to do when they'd already been in talks about the islands and Argentina abandoned those to take up arms.
Argentina had exactly the same opportunity to pursue diplomacy or do nothing, so even these incredibly weak claims you're making are at least equally applicable to Argentina as well. I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish at this point.
The UK is not justified in defending its territorial claims because the UK isn’t justified in existing.
New struggle session: The Battle of Britain, good or bad?
Fuck TERF island in general, but considering the Falklands were uninhabited before the British arrived and that the residents wanted to remain part of Britain, and the entire Argentinian justification was that Malvinas are on the same continental shelf as Argentina, and that their defeat massively contributed to the downfall of the right-wing military junta
However the British victory massively helped Thatchers reelection, so it's a toss up but leaning towards terf island being justified in this rare instance
We should also consider the damage poor Andy's sweat glands suffered during the conflict
their defeat massively contributed to the downfall of the right-wing military junta
Huh, killing fascists is a good way to stop them
No no, don't you know the only way to fight fascists is to :vote: ?????
It's right to be skeptical of that, but I've seen no evidence to suggest otherwise, and not every tiny island has always had people living on it.
That's stretching the definition of "settled." Whatever you call it, the fundamental questions are (1) what is necessary to establish a claim and (2) what is necessary to supersede a claim.
They did not live on the land, use the land, or anything of the sort
If living on the land and using the land is the test for a legitimate claim -- at least where previously uninhabited land is concerned -- Britain has as good of a case as anyone. There weren't permanent settlements on the land (or even consistent use) until they established them in the mid-19th century. Sporadic attempts to make use of the island (first by imperial Spain, then by the settler-colonial state of Argentina) don't strike me as any different from Britain's earlier sporadic attempts to make use of the island. I don't see how one can write off the early British attempts, but count the similar Argentine attempts as legitimate, and then write off the later British settlement that proved to be lasting.
Their only claim to the island and desire for it was geopolitical staging
If tomorrow I land on a previously-uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific, and along with some other people I "live on the land and use the land," it doesn't matter what our intent is. No one has a better claim to that land than us.
They operated on the island and worked to permanently incorporate it into their territory for 13 years.
At the point that the British reclaimed it, it had been almost 60 years since they had any presence on the island.
I don't think this is an accurate reading of the history. I'm not pulling this from anywhere obscure:
- In 1690, the first definite visit to the Falklands (certainly by any country that ever made a claim on the islands) is by a British ship.
- In 1764, a French settlement is established -- this would eventually be turned over the the Spanish, and it appeared to top out at a population of 100.
- In 1766, a British settlement is established -- nothing about the population, but it apparently contained a small town separate from a garrison.
- In 1776, the British military departs, but leaves behind a plaque in an attempt to maintain their claim.
- British sealers continue to use the settlement until 1780, when they are forced out by the Spanish (presumably not a legitimate way for Spain to end Britain's claim).
- In 1811, all Spanish troops and settlers are withdrawn -- mirroring the British custom, they leave behind a plaque to memorialize their claim.
- An "itinerant population of up to 1,000 sailors" -- many British sealers -- frequent the island as soon as the Spanish are no longer there to harass them.
- In 1820, we see the first post-independence Argentine contact with the islands, when a privateer under the Argentine flag stays six months to make repairs to his ship. He's greeted and aided by at least one British person, who he found on the island.
- No one from Argentina visits the island again until 1824. No settlement is attempted then or on a subsequent visit in 1826, and the 1826 visit proceeds only after obtaining permission from the British consulate in Buenos Aires.
- In 1828, Argentina makes an attempt at establishing a settlement, and the leader of the expedition again asks the British consulate for permission.
- In 1829, the British complain to Argentina that the leader of the settlement is attempting to regulate seal hunting rights (presumably signaling that British seal hunters have been frequenting the island)
- In 1831, the conditions of the settlement are so miserable that when a U.S. ship arrives after a dispute over seized seal hunting ships, most of the settlers take the opportunity to leave. About 24 Argentinians remained.
- In 1832, Argentina tries to establish a penal colony. British sealers are still using the islands.
- In 1833, Britain expels the Argentine military presence, but none of the civilian/commercial presence. Five members of the settlement are murdered over a wage dispute. The survivors flee and are rescued by a British sealer.
- In 1834, there were at least a few indefinite British residents. British presence was continuous from here on out.
- By 1841, there was a population of about 50 at the new British colony, which grew to about 200 by 1849, and slowly increased from there.
First, British sealers only left (in 1780) after the Spanish forced them out. I don't see that as legitimately terminating the British claim. Second, British sealers returned in significant numbers right after the Spanish pulled all of their people off the island (in 1811). I see that as continued use of the islands, as well as a sign that the British never willingly gave up their claim. Third, although Argentina visited the island as early 1820 and had a few abortive commercial expeditions in subsequent years, they didn't attempt to establish a settlement until 1828. During this time they were aware of British claims and respected them. And as soon as Argentina challenged those claims (about the time when it began its imperial war of extermination against its indigenous people) Britain responded and formed a permanent settlement.
In short, I don't see Britain ever willingly renouncing its claim, I see Britain using the land near-continuously whenever they were not barred by the Spanish, and I see a halting Argentinian attempt to form a permanent settlement that began by asking the British for permission. At no point does Argentina have a clear claim on the island, and they certainly never have one stronger than Britain's claim.
transferred to Spain via treaty with repayment
I thought we had decided that use/settlement of unoccupied land was the touchstone for a legitimate claim on that land. Two colonial powers horsetrading an island doesn't square well with that. Similarly, claims drawn up in Rome by the Pope centuries before anyone regularly used or inhabited the island don't really hold any water.
when Spain took over the settlement by repayment, they pushed the British out
No, Spain coexisted with Britain on the island for years, just as France had coexisted with Britain before that. Spain didn't push out British sealers until four years after the British military left, too. This might suggest a joint claim on the island, or claims on different parts of the island, but it doesn't suggest Spain owned the whole thing outright. There had even been a Spanish/British military confrontation over the matter in 1770, and its resolution left both parties on the island for the next decade.
When Spain relinquished South America because they were overstretched, Argentina claimed land in the area.
If simply declaring a claim on unused, uninhabited land is valid, we're back to Britain having as good of a claim as anyone. What happened to use/settlement being the key factors?
The colonists claiming area that other colonists stayed behind in when the Spanish pulled out
When Spain left in 1811 they pulled out everyone -- military and civilian alike. The only people using or occupying the island at that point were sealers, and they were primarily British and American. If there's a "continued line of ownership through living and working the land," that points to Britain much more than Argentina. After Spain left, no Argentinian visited until 1820, and then there were only a few scattered commercial expeditions until 1828. British sealers had moved (back) in right after Spain pulled out in 1811, and it looks like they were there ever since. They were definitely there for the 1820 Argentine contact and the 1828 settlement attempt.
I consider rightful claims to land to be based on usage of unused land
I agree with this, as I have since you first mentioned it. Using this definition of a valid claim, Britain had at least some claim to at least part of the island earlier than Spain, to say nothing of Argentina. By continuously occupying and using the land from 1766-1780, they originally co-existed with the French, then co-existed with the Spanish for several more years. That's a valid claim, at least to part of the island. Britain didn't displace anyone, their neighbors generally didn't contest British claims, and Britain used the land.
They only stopped using the island in 1780, when the Spanish forcibly evicted them. That's not a valid termination of the British claim -- you can't just conquer someone's land and say they no longer have rights to it. And as soon as the Spanish left in 1811, British users came right back in, and seem to have continuously used the island up through when the British military returned in 1833. In short, there has been continuous British use of the island since 1766, with the only exception being when Spain (wrongly) conquered and occupied their part.
As for trading land and the French-Spanish swap early on, I think trading land is fine so long as the recipient uses it, which Spain (at least initially) did. However, when Spain abandoned the island -- pulling out every Spanish occupant -- never returned, and never re-asserted its claim, I see no reason to honor that claim any longer. Similarly, I see no reason to say that claim was transferred to Argentina: it wasn't traded, and it wasn't won in an independence struggle. Any argument in the form of "well it was part of the Vicereoyalty of Rio de la Plata, too" falls apart too, because the whole Viceroyalty didn't initially rebel (see Paraguay), and what was to become Argentina never really had control/use/occupation of the entirety of the part that did rebel (Bolivia and Uruguay soon split off, and much of the "desert" outside of Buenos Aires was indigenous-controlled and would be for decades). Certainly Argentina can't just claim any territory once claimed by Spain -- again, it comes back to what Argentina was actually using, with the corollary that you can't just show up on someone else's land and kick them out.
In reality, the way claims operated in the time these claims were made
I'm not putting much stock in these for two reasons. First, as leftists and anti-imperialists I would imagine we're both rightly critical of the Pope dividing up lands a continent away (nearly all of which Europeans had never seen, much less visited or used) for colonial powers. Second, as you point out, the only real rule was who could get away with holding a piece of land, and the rest was legal fictions largely invented after the fact as justification. That's not a good standard, but Britain would clearly win under it, too.
Before that, the British desire for the islands was purely geopolitical posturing.
British sealers were using the island for commercial purposes since at least 1776, and probably earlier. They didn't just set up a garrison and hang out. Britain certainly wasn't posturing any more than any other involved power was.
Spain had the best claim because it was transferred back to them through sale.
At most, this was a claim to part of the island, while the British had a valid claim to another part of the island. The British and French were co-existing in the Falklands before the French port was sold to Spain.
As Argentina was the only remaining nation who had done any development on the island administering it on behalf of Spain
I don't know if the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata -- a Spanish colony -- did much administering of the island. Even if we say that there was significant administration (not use) by the Viceroyalty, and even if we want to give Argentina credit for what its predecessor colony did, there's still the matter of Spain totally abandoning the Falklands in 1811, and the matter of Britain having at very least a partial claim to the island from the 1700s.
Britain again only became interested because they saw Argentina moving in to develop the area
But use is the touchstone here, not intentions. And Britain used the island consistently as a port for sealers during the whole time in question, excepting when they had been forced out by Spain.
It was several more decades before they developed it as anything besides corporate holdings. I
It wasn't just a holding, it was being used. Use of the land is what determines a valid claim, right?
The economic pressures on an island requiring external supply to be at all viable is such a coercive force that I don’t think a true claim of self-determination was ultimately possible for that populace.
I completely disagree with writing off claims of self-determination on the grounds that you buy things from elsewhere. I'm not sure it's accurate to say an external supply is "required," anyway -- like most places, they've undoubtedly structured their economy not around self-sufficiency, but around profitability, so what they're currently doing isn't a reflection of what they're capable of.
Everyone's all "Britain this" and "Argentina that" but I think we all know who really has the valid claim to the Falklands.
I am disappoint
That's the reaction most people have to seeing him.
They’re so fucking stupid, look at those tiny little arms.
Dont insult my short armed boy like that :angry-hex:
But what about the displaced population of the last remaining dinosaurs who were living in isolation and managed to survive millions of years there?
The key questions are:
- What is necessary to constitute a claim over previously uninhabited territory?
- What is necessary for that claim to be superseded by someone else's claim?
Permanent settlement was only established in the 1840s, under the British. Prior to that can be summed up as a bunch of parties planting flags, staying for a bit, and leaving.
There was a high probability that a diplomatic solution could be achieved, but to jin up british nationalism and to help her reelection campaign Thatcher started a war.
As long as we're fact checking, none of this is accurate. Diplomatic efforts had been made since at least 1965, and weren't close to a resolution by the '80s. Argentina was the aggressor, so claiming the war was engineered by the British is a stretch at best. And the invasion began in April 1982, over a year before Thatcher called an election (in May 1983).
Thatcher certainly benefited from the war, and probably called the 1983 election in part due to her rise in popularity from the war, but none of that suggests she started the war. If I land a job as a bouncer because I tackle some drunk guy who swings at me, I'm benefiting from that fight, but I didn't start the fight. You should need a damn good reason to start a war, and I don't see that here.
the british settlement did not differ in any meningful way from the spanish
The British one was permanent starting in 1840, the Spanish never was. How meaningful that is depends on your answers to those two key questions I highlighted, but there is a real difference.
My main contention is that several hundred people died so that a colony (which garrison is more expensive than the worth of the falklands economy) would remain as such for the good of “national dignity and self respect”
What's the alternative? Letting fascists invade and doing nothing? That's appeasement, and we know how that works out.
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) regarded the islands as a nuisance and barrier to UK trade in South America, so, whilst confident of British sovereignty, was prepared to cede the islands to Argentina. When news of a proposed transfer broke in 1968, elements sympathetic with the plight of the islanders were able to organise an effective Parliamentary lobby to frustrate the FCO plans. Negotiations continued but in general failed to make meaningful progress; the islanders steadfastly refused to consider Argentine sovereignty on one side, whilst Argentina would not compromise over sovereignty on the other. The FCO then sought to make the islands dependent on Argentina, hoping this would make the islanders more amenable to Argentine sovereignty. A Communications Agreement signed in 1971 created an airlink and later YPF, the Argentine oil company, was given a monopoly in the islands.
In 1980, a new Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Nicholas Ridley, went to the Falklands trying to sell the islanders the benefits of a leaseback scheme, which met with strong opposition from the islanders. On returning to London in December 1980 he reported to parliament but was viciously attacked at what was seen as a sellout. (It was unlikely that leaseback could have succeeded since the British had sought a long-term lease of 99 years, whilst Argentina was pressing for a much shorter period of only 10 years.)
Where's the unwillingness by the British to engage diplomatically? It seems like their FCO was fine giving the islands to Argentina, but the biggest obstacle was the people living on the islands. Britain tried at least three approaches: a straight transfer, a closer commercial connection of the islands to the mainland, and finally a Hong Kong-style lease scheme. It's honestly hard to argue they could have done more -- they tried to just give them away right off the bat! The only country acting outside of multinational organizations here was Argentina, when they abandoned diplomacy and invaded.
But maybe we should mark “appeasement” for discussion in the next session. I think it really doesn’t hold in this case
The junta had launched a quickly-aborted invasion of Chile in 1978. There are also oil interests that had already spawned one war near Argentina's border, and within the territory that had originally broken away from Spain as one unified country (before Bolivia and Uruguay split off). There were ample opportunities for continued aggression.
Seems you have a point there, should have known better than to argue only having read one article
There are a subset of weirdos on here who's politics become completely incoherent on contact with either yankeeland or terf island not being the biggest dickheads in a situation, as rare as that is
And one of them has shown up lol
To be fair that position will lead to you being correct at least 95% of the time
I think this is an interesting situation for interrogating why imperialism and fascism are bad, and how bad various parts of them are. Neither side is really good here, so you have to reach beyond "well of course Britain sucks and is in the wrong" or "well of course fascist Argentina sucked and was in the wrong."
The Falklands War was probably the only time in history that the British were unequivocally in the right.
Fighting against the Nazis was pretty decent, too, even though they pissed away a number of opportunities to avoid the war in the first place.
and the fact that they just shook hands with the nazis after they werent threats anymore, like the rest of the anglosphere, not the best
Might not want to mention the nazis in a thread about argentina lol
Apparently instead of having the Nuremberg Trials they just wanted to shoot Nazi leadership. Potentially that could have led to more effective de-Nazification, and it's not as if Nuremberg set any worthwhile precedents anyway. They definitely don't deserve credit for something that didn't happen or the benefit of the doubt (on anything, really), but it's an interesting counterfactual to consider.
In this particular instance it really is just first come first serve
