Quote:
Originally Posted by RN7
Well Prince Andrew was a co-pilot of a Sea King on HMS Invincible during the Falklands War flying anti-submarine, anti-ship, casualty evacuation, transport and search and air rescue missions, while Prince Harry has done a combat tour in Afghanistan and is a British Army combat pilot flying Apache's. So I doubt they are all that concerned sending Prince William to the Falkland Islands were the worst that is likely to happen to him is being the target of some mild Argentine propaganda from Cristina de Kirchner who should be more concerned with solving her own country's economic problems than stirring up trouble with Britain over a chain of islands that they have no chance of ever controlling.
|
As far as Kirchner is concerned, there is a few things worth noting. Kirchner is a member of a political group along with her husband that is pointedly dedicated to the reclamation of the "Malvinas" (Unfortunately, the name of said group eludes me at this point though I read about them recently, I'll try to find it again). Another, Argentina is feeling the effects of the economic downturn and is being forced to trim the budget and social programs, along with the usual political problems that continue to plague the country. The "crisis" that Kirchner is pushing is giving her a serious bump in the polls when beforehand her polls were looking pretty abysmal (long story, but again, lots of problems involving political and budget issues in the country and Kirchner made some bad calls as it appears). And finally....rich fisheries, oil and natural gas treasure troves around the Falklands? The Argentines aren't stupid, they want those islands and the potential resources they could gain from them. Just how well the Argentines would effectively administer the islands, and efficiently harvest said resources were they in control of the islands might be another matter.
The Argentinians figure if they can play the "poor exploited country versus the colonialist power" card against the U.K. at the United Nations, they might be able to garner enough sympathy along with an economic blockade courtesy of Mercosur that'll lead to a successful handover of the Falklands to the Argentinians. However, IMHO, this is more a "Holy Grail" fantasy (with respect to the actual Holy Grail myth, of course). The Argentinians claim on the Falklands is flimsy at best from a pure legal sense, there is no original ethnic group that is claiming ownership of the Falklands, and the 3,000 current Falkland Islanders, who sadly appear to have been largely overlooked by most worldwide media have vocally stated their desire to remain an independent territory of the United Kingdom. Suffice to say, the Falklanders have had some colorful words to describe Christina De Kirchner, Hugo Chavez (who's been offering military support to Kirchner) and Sean Penn (who's been vocally supporting Kirchner's position) as of late, to put it mildly.