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Originally Posted by Schone23666
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.
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I totally agree and Kirchner's rhetoric is very transparent. The sad part of it all is that Argentina might once have been a very wealthy country. At the turn of the 20th century it was one of the richest countries in the world and was a major player in the world economy, and was a real alternative to North America and Australia for European immigrants. Despite being Spanish speaking there are more people of Italian origin in Argentina than Spanish, and a lot of peope of German, French and even British descent. At one time Britain was even a major investor in the Argentine economy and there were very friendly links despite some irrelevant issues over the Falklands.
However then came Peron who led Argentina down the path of populist socialism like most of the rest of South America, with its own band of nationalism/fascism and Argentina has been an economic basketcase and political backwater ever since.
Kirchner's recruitment of Castro and Chavez has to be one of the greatest public relations disasters in Argentine history. I mean does Kirchner really think America or even Europe is going to take Argentinas side with these two scumbags supporting Argentina? As for Sean Penn, well he's of Irish decent so he's trying to be cool, but he's also a Hollywood actor which says it all as they are notable in the most parts for their high intelligence, NOT!