By mercia on the BNP website... Argentina continues to promote its decades long dispute with Britain over the ownership of the Falkland Islands, with its foreign minister flying to New York to formally raise the issue with the head of the United Nations. This follows a statement of support from twenty three Latin American and Caribbean nations — some of whom are regular recipients of British foreign aid — issued at the recent regional summit held in Mexico. Meanwhile it was reported only last week in the media that Britain claims to have taken steps to “protect” the Falkland Islands, even though it “expects to resolve” the growing dispute with Argentina over drilling for oil in the South Atlantic through talks.
This news comes some 28 years after Britain and Argentina fought an undeclared war over control of these British possessions in the South Atlantic. As is so often the case these days, it is the proposed exploitation of large reserves of oil and gas that has sabres a rattling, increasingly so as the implications of Peak Oil sink in.
According to Labour’s Brown, international law allows British companies to operate freely in the area. However, this is not a view shared by the Argentine government who counterclaim that such operations violate their sovereignty.
As a consequence, Argentina has announced that all vessels sailing from its ports to the Falklands will now need a special permit. This, of course, will not prevent the exploration of the disputed waters but will restrict supplies coming from Argentina bound for the Falklands and generally make life more difficult.
It is further reported that concerned defence chiefs in Whitehall have sent extra warships to the South Atlantic region. According to a defence spokesman:
“We have made all the preparations that are necessary to make sure that the Falkland Islanders are properly protected.”
What utter nonsense! We say that safe in the knowledge that the Royal Navy has so few fighting ships remaining that it would find it difficult to protect a moderately sized convoy — far less engage in a hot war with a country some six thousand miles away! Indeed, the Royal Navy probably has more admirals and vice-admirals than it has significant surface fighting ships!
So reduced has the Royal Navy become under a succession of thieving Labour and traitorous Tory regimes that it was forced to invite warships from a dozen and more friendly nations to pad out its “naval review” in the Solent a couple of years back.
With every advanced nation in the world eager to conserve, protect and expand their energy reserves in the light of Peak Oil, it is no surprise that Argentina is concerned over what it sees as the potential exploitation of natural resources that it claims belongs to them. Earlier this month the Argentine Foreign Minister made it clear that his country strongly opposed energy exploration on what it considers to be its continental shelf: He said:
“What they’re doing is illegitimate … it’s a violation of our sovereignty. We will do everything necessary to defend and preserve our rights.”
The reality of Labour’s claim that the Falkland Islands are “adequately defended”.
Labour appointees in Whitehall would have us believe that Britain has a potent military presence on the islands. However, this consists of a single company of around 500 troops, four jet fighters, a handful of helicopters and a naval “protection” force of four Royal Navy vessels. Sounds good, doesn’t it — until you realised that the four vessels concerned amount to a single destroyer, one fleet refuelling tanker, a lightly armed patrol boat and a survey vessel! This compares unfavourably with some 14 Argentine frigates and destroyers and around 80 fighters and ground attack aircraft.
Should the Royal Navy dispatch one or more of its aircraft carriers, all of which should have been decommissioned and scrapped years ago, one wonders where they will find suitable aircraft to fly from their decks. The following recent posting, taken from a military website, explains the situation:
“The Royal Navy has been stripped of the air defence capable Sea Harrier FA-2, replaced by the ground attack (and radarless) Harrier GR9 with AIM 4L Sidewinders as the only air-air armament. At the same time, the Argentines have upgraded their A4 Skyhawk aircraft to the superior A-4AR Fightinghawk which has a radar.”
That fact alone underlines the shear inability of today’s Royal Navy to conduct operations out of range of friendly land based aircraft whilst in range of enemy land based planes.
For the record, the Royal Navy possessed some 104 major fighting ships (aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates and submarines) in 1980. Today it can muster a pitiful 42 vessels — which includes the three vintage aircraft carriers that should have been decommissioned years ago!
It seems clear therefore that should the Argentine government decide to enforce its claim to the waters around the Falklands through use of force, that Gordon Brown will either have to raise the white flag over Stanley or enlist the help of elements of the French and American fleets in defending these British (or are they now EU?) interests.
Perhaps Labour will re-commission HMS Belfast?
Slightly tongue-in-cheek admittedly, but one wonders if the Ministry of Defence has any plans to refurbish HMS Belfast and re-commission her to serve as the “fleet” flagship? This World War II cruiser, now a London tourist attraction, has, after all, more firepower than anything else the Royal Navy’s surface fleet may currently possess!
Revising a mid-19th century Ballad.
In closing, we should like to draw readers attention to a contribution on this subject sent in by a regular visitor to this site. Our correspondent has taken the words from a popular mid-19th century ballad and revised them to create a sad, but accurate, reflection on the state of Britain’s skeletal armed forces in general and the Royal Navy in particular.
The original chorus from the 19th century ballad: reads:-
We don’t want to fight but by jingo if we do…
We’ve got the ships,
we’ve got the men,
and got the money too!
And the revised version?
They don’t want to fight but by jingo if they do…
We ain’t got the ships,
We ain’t got the men,
and were out of money too!
Just another example of how Tory and Labour EU-collaborator Westminster regimes have betrayed us at home and abroad.
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